Sometimes we write here for the fashion crowd, and sometimes we write for the rest of us. So, regular guys—here are a couple quick points about what to watch out for when buying a suit:
If the suit is for business (and how many bought by anyone who is not a groom are anything but?), be careful when bringing along the lady in your life. She probably does dress herself better than you do yourself, but you are not dressing for her: mostly, you are dressing for your boss. If you bring your lady love, and the sales staff see her walking in ahead of you, they know from experience that they have to sell her, not you; the next thing you know, you become the mannequin for an ensemble of her creation. Unless you are dating Donna Karan or happen to bring along Miuccia Prada, do not let that happen to you.
Maybe you look great in brown or maroon. Nearly all proper business suits are “city colors,” which means blue or gray. Best to make your peace with that and move on.
Fit is everything. After you have tried on three or four suits, you will nearly always do best by going with the one that fits best before the tailor makes alterations. The shoulders are everything. If they work, the suit may have a chance; if they do not, try something else.
When in a fitting, put on both the trousers and the jacket. During the fitting, if the salesman or fitter asks, “Are you going to wear the jacket open or closed?” answer “Both,” and give back the suit you have on. You have just been discreetly informed that the jacket is too tight and cannot be altered to fit properly. If the salesman asks if you “have enough room” in the pants, he is hinting that they look too small. Make sure that there is enough extra cloth at the waist and in the seat to let them out properly or hand that one back too.
Conventional wisdom holds that, when you try on the suit and stand in it before the fitter’s triptych mirror, you should look not at the suit but at yourself—to understand how you look in it. That is not as easy to do in practice as it sounds. Lots of guys who try that just see their own faces staring back at them in bewilderment. Others, myself included, start to notice that the mirror adds an unpleasant green cast. So look at the suit, look at yourself, tilt your head up and look at the light fixtures, glower at the price tag—just keep looking until something clicks in your head that you like what you have on. And if that does not happen, take it off and try again with something else.
If you live in what in North America is the temperate zone, you are probably in a place where the difference between winter chill and summer heat is so extreme, you will need two separate suit wardrobes: one in winter weight and another in tropical weight. (A good rule of thumb is that a summer suit should have a weight of cloth of between about 7.5 ounces and—at a maximum—nine ounces.) There is a third option, invented by sales people, known as “year-round weight.” That applies, as needed by them (but not you), either to a summer-weight suit the sales person is trying to sell for winter or a winter-weight suit being pushed for summer. Wool does not change its thickness to preference. If you call the sales person out on it, you know that he or she is really having you on if the response goes: “You can wear it ten months of the year.” If that happens, vacate the area immediately and find someone who will give you a straight answer.
Finally, when fitting a suit: if you let the sales person and the fitter know how much you really like it, and you see that the reaction is guarded hesitation—ask them politely to come clean and also ask if the sales person can recommend an alternative. Together, they have likely seen plenty of these come and go, and if your test model does not work for them there and then, the chances are good that it will not work for you later.
There, that was easy. Next step—accessories!
Credit: Alan Behr