The Ultimate Guide to Suit Excellence
The ability to wear a suit properly takes effort and skill epitomized by common style icons such as James Bond, Harvey Specter, Don Draper and the king of suiting, Barney Stinson. Looking suave, and put together takes effort and unlike most things, your style game can increase by looking at the finer details once you get the basics right.
After reading this, you should understand where most people make mistakes and how you can fix them to look better when wearing a suit.
The Breakdown
We will now breakdown the components of a typical suit and detail how things should fit, and what colour schemes complement which complexion.
The Jacket:
Shoulders: Arguably the most important part to get right when fitting a suit. Luckily, it's quite simple to get right, the padding or seam should stop at the edge of the shoulder. Make sure, none of it hangs over.
Waist: Second in line of importance, your waist frames your stature and so the more accurate it is fitted, the better you will look. The easiest way to fit your waist is to test the button of the suit. It should have no pressure or pull on the button when fastened (even minimal straining is not accepted). Likewise, any slack in the button means it's too loose.
Chest: The lapels should rest comfortably on your chest with a the smallest break in the middle of the lapel to emphasise the size of your chest. However, if you feel any pulling on your chest or under the arms then it is way too tight. Additionally, there should be no folding, or droopiness in the lapel as this means that it is too loose.
Neck: The collar of the jacket should lie flat all the way around your neck. For men with very straight shoulders, you may notice a slight folding around the back of the collar. This is prominent in most off the rack jackets, so ideally you should look into tailored suiting if you have this problem, but it isn't that big of a deal in the big picture.
Sleeves: Your jacket sleeve length is dependent upon the length of your shirt sleeves. So make sure your shirt sleeves are fitted correct. After this, make sure the jacket sleeve length stops at the wrist and show a half-inch of the shirt cuff.
Patterns: There are many different patterns to suits including: Pinstripe, windowpane, twill, gingham etc. The most formal is obviously a plain coloured suit followed by pinstripes.
Colours: The main suit colour is black which works for all complexions. The next most versatile is grey or charcoal also suitable for all complexions, but is not suitable in some scenarios. Following this Navy/blue suits are great for those with darker complexions and a light grey is good for those with lighter complexions. It creates a very disjointed look if you don't choose the appropriate colour to your complexion.
The Trousers:
Waist: Suit/dress trousers are meant to be worn on the waist rather than your hips. The best way to find your measurement is to use a tape measure. Many people don't realise but the waist measurements on your pants are typically reduced 2 inches of what you truly measure as companies aim to flatter you into purchasing their product. So either measure it yourself or let your tailor/store clerk measure it for you. The ideal fit is if you can't take them off without undoing the button and unzipping them.
Leg Length: There are three different ways for pants to break.
Full Break: Rests on the top of your shoes with a little folding at the bottom. A traditional style choice, and good for taller men.
Half Break: Rests lightly on the top of your shoes.
Quarter Break: Rests even lighter on the top of your shoes
No break: The bottom hangs above the shoe. This is a more modern style of fit.
Rise: This is essentially the fly and below it to the crotch seam. You should have a close fit following your body, rather than fabric hanging loose. This is also hard to fix if you buy something poorly fitted.
Seat: If you get the fitting of the rise right, then the seat should fit fairly well. Aim to follow your own curvature, and if it is slightly loose a good tailor can adjust it.
Colours: Typically you would pair the colour of your jacket to your trousers, but many like to change it up. To find the perfect combination, aim to wear contrasting coloured items so if you have a dark jacket, then a light coloured trouser is best and vice versa. Note: This will decrease the formality of your suit so be considerate of when you choose to mix it up.
The Dress Shirt:
Fortunately there are only two measurements to deal with on off the rack shirts.
Neck: Use a tape measure to find the circumference of your neck, add 1/4th of an inch
Sleeve Length: Measure your sleeve length by keeping your arm at your side and use a tape measure. Once you select a shirt on this try on your jacket and make sure ½ an inch can be seen.
Cuffs: You can either get normal cuffs which button together with either 1-2 buttons, but if you wish to be slightly dressier then french cuffs are the way to go. French cuffs are generally thicker and require cufflinks to close the cuff.
The Shoes
Firstly, the colour of your belt and your shoes must match. When you go to buy a belt, take your shoes with you to match the colour perfectly. There are no excepions to this rule.
Now, to pairing colours of shoes with suits
Black shoes: Works best with a Black Suit, but can be worn with any colour of suit.
Dark Brown: Works best with navy/indigo/blue suits. Also works with Grey and Charcoal suits.
Tan: Works best with casual lightly coloured suits.
Any other coloured shoes should be reserved for informal/casual occasions and is typically characterized as a fashion forward choice.
Types of shoes: Oxfords, wingtips, derby, and Chelsea boots are all great choices to wear with a suit.
The Tie
Ties are a small but important part of wearing a suit properly.
Size: Ties come in a variety of sizes and you need to choose a size that complements your body type. Typically wider ties are suited for large guys to keep things proportional
Colour: It depends on your shirt and your suit colour. There are not many rules in regards to colour as you should aim to find a tie specific to various combinations of suit and shirt. However, don't match your shirt, your suit and your tie colours as this will look quite odd
Patterns: With patterns you are pretty free in what you choose. However, you should not match the pattern of your shirt and tie exactly. What this means is that if your shirt had checks, you would want to choose a tie with either smaller or bigger checks, or any other pattern you want to choose.
The Socks
Your socks are not too important but is often overlooked. With formal shoes, white socks shouldn't be worn as this creates an informal look. Socks that match the colour of your shoes are the safest to wear, but feel free to switch it up with patterned black socks.
When to wear what??
The Business Suit:
When wearing a suit for business you should be on the conservative side, sticking to certain colours and additions.
You'll want to stick to dark, solid coloured jacket and trousers with a plain white shirt. To be safe, stick to black shoes and a matching belt. Your tie should be simple with a minimalistic design. You can include a simple pocket square but it isn't too common to do so.
Ultimately, your workplace rules dictate what you can and can't wear, but feel free to keep things interesting with thin pinstripes or checks on your suit.
Business suits can be both single and double breasted. You may choose to wear a waistcoat with your single breasted suit.
For Lapels, both notch and peak are acceptable.
The Social Suit
Most people nowadays are transitioning away from wearing suits casually to business casual styles. This makes dressing more practical in my opinion. But in certain scenarios, Suiting up is a better option.
Here you have a lot of leeway in terms of design and extravagance. Look at lighter colours with visible patterns and textured fabrics. Also notice additional pockets and detailing to the suit.
A standard casual suit might be a light plaid or khaki coloured jacket and a white/coloured shirt without a tie. You can experiment with lapels but an understated normal sized lapel is best.
The Formal Suit
Typically, formal suits aren't really a major part of a man's wardrobe so situations are solved with a rental. Most black tie events require a tuxedo but the way to get around that is with ultimate business formality. White shirt, black shoes, black belt and black jacket and trousers.
Top Tips
To finish up the top 8 rules that you should know about suits:
- The width of the tie should match the width of the lapel
- Thin lapels are the current trend, thicker lapels are still appropriate for business
- Pocket squares should not match your tie in pattern, fabric or colour
- Try grey or charcoal coloured suits for business rather than black as it is more versatile.
- Double Vents are the most appropriate venting option as it will allow ease of access to pockets and is flattering for large guys
- Button up only the top button of a suit when standing and walking. Unbutton while seated.
- Look after your suit by brushing it. Dry cleaning wears done the fabric so by brushing it, you can add more years to your suit.
- Accessorize your suit with a nice watch, cufflinks, and a sleek wallet to match your sleek suit.