Give yourself a style promotion with new-season staples for the modern man.

You’ve made it to the end of September, but you’re no doubt sick of being back at work already. What are you going to do about it? Quit your job? Of course you aren’t. Work might be stultifying at times, but the truth is that most of us would be lost without it. So we look for ways to make the experience just that little bit more bearable. Sometimes, it can be as simple as investing in some shiny new stationery or an upgrade to that ugly, standard-issue lanyard.

With months to go until the holiday season and memories of beach tans fading fast, we need these little luxuries now more than ever. With that in mind, here are a few suggestions chosen to suit a variety of working environments, from finance guys to freelancers, creatives to social media consultants.

In theory, a man with the letter “C” in his job title is bound by the same dress code as everyone else in the workplace. In reality, it doesn’t quite work like that for CEOs and CFOs. Having clawed your way to the top, you’re entitled to a little more freedom in the way that you present yourself. A gold-and-ruby cufflink set might have looked a tad audacious while you were still a lowly associate, but not now that you’re sitting pretty in the corner office. Ditto stationery. A gold-tone pen and pencil set from New York brand Thom Browne will reveal you to be a man of taste, not just of means. Expensive? Yes. Ostentatious? Never.

Now that the tools of the creative industries are almost exclusively digital, you might wonder why anyone would even bother buying pens, tape dispensers, rulers and so on. Yes, it’s all a bit last-gen, but here’s another way of thinking about it: digital music was supposed to kill vinyl. It didn’t. By making it technically obsolete, it actually turned it into a luxury product, something that people own not because it’s fast and convenient, but because it’s a joy to use. Traditional office stationery seems to be heading in that direction. A case in point: Tom Dixon’s range of brushed-metal desk accessories, which includes this silver-tone tape dispenser, or Ystudio’s range of black-coated brass writing sets, which come with a piece of sandpaper so you can apply your own patina to their surface. None of this is going to replace a working knowledge of Adobe InDesign any time soon, but that’s hardly the point. In a digital world, it’s nice to occasionally find pleasure in the physical.

Conventional wisdom holds that formal business attire has been in terminal decline ever since a young Mr Mark Zuckerberg showed up to an investor meeting on Wall Street in 2012 wearing a hoodie and jeans. In reality, though, there are still plenty of companies that require their employees to wear a suit and tie to work. And they won’t be relaxing their policies any time soon. Even with the confines of a strict business dress code, though, there are still plenty of ways to express your personality. Try switching out your standard wristwatch for something from Ressence, a Belgian watchmaker that breaks with centuries of horological convention to create timepieces like no other. Instead of an hour, minute and second hand, the Type 1 uses a system of dials and subdials that twirl around each other in hypnotic orbit. It might sound baffling, but there’s a gorgeous simplicity to the way it tells the time. Alternatively – or additionally – why not consider upgrading to a Berluti wallet? The smooth, hand-burnished leather is sure to draw admiring glances when you settle up after lunch.

Perhaps you thought that by going freelance you were finally liberating yourself from the obligation to make an effort in the workplace. Sadly, you’ve found that the opposite is true. The clientele of your trendy new co-working space are rather more discerning than your erstwhile colleagues, and the staff at the artisanal bean-to-cup coffee shop are even less accommodating. Rather than beating a hasty retreat to your kitchen table, why not up your game with a little something from Los Angeles brand This Is Ground? Its range of leather goods are designed to fulfil the practical needs of the modern-day digital nomad as he roams the city in search of reliable Wi-Fi. A sort of dopp kit for your tech, this bag comes fitted with zipped pockets and internal leather loops to keep your chargers, cords and earphones safely secured. Throw it in a canvas tote bag from Canadian travel accessories brand WANT Les Essentiels, and never endure hot-desk ostracism again.

However glamorous the life of a business traveller might appear, it quickly becomes its own kind of drudgery. Delays, security, anodyne airport hotels, recycled air… just, ugh. Happily, the stress and boredom of a life spent hopping back and forth across timezones can be alleviated with the application of some simple luxuries. And there are few things more luxurious than this Bottega Veneta eye mask, which is trimmed with the brand’s trademark intrecciato woven leather and lined with terry cotton, a super-plush material that feels just as good as the leather looks. But, wait – we’re not done. No jet-setter worth his platinum status should be without a sleek leather passport cover. We suggest Montblanc’s Meisterstück model, which shares a name with its vaunted range of writing instruments. Nothing says “I turn left when I board the plane” quite like it.

If you count yourself among the increasingly large proportion of the workforce for whom the words “business” and “appropriate” mean nothing – producer, content creator, social media consultant, basically anyone born after 1995 – then you might as well go all-out with your work accessories. This snakeskin-print cardholder from Dries Van Noten provides a suitably stylish receptacle for your Monzo card, while British audio specialists Bowers & Wilkins’ flagship P9 headphones offer uncompromising sound reproduction on the go. Perfect for mastering your latest track, editing your vlog or whatever it is the kids are up to these days.

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