Getting a lot of pushback on the idea that you need more than two weeks to shop for a suit. I think this is bc most people don't know how a suit should fit. So here are five things people often overlook
I've already talked about collar gaps. This can be caused by various things: a tight chest, shoulder slope doesn't match your own, or jacket doesn't fit ur posture. From this, you can see how fit is a 3D concept, not as simple as chest size
Another common issue is shoulder divots, which is when you see an indentation on the sleevehead. This can be caused by poor make. Or an overly narrow shoulder, esp across back. Sometimes can be fix by alteration; sometimes not.
3. Jacket is Too Tight
If the chest is too tight, the lapels may also buckle away from the body. If the waist is too tight, you will see pulling at the waist button when it's fastened.
4. Jacket is Too Short
A good rule of thumb is that the jacket should always cover your bum. A better rule of thumb is that the jacket should bisect you halfway between your collar and the floor when you're wearing heeled shoes.
5. Sleeve Pitch
Sometimes the jacket's sleeves don't match the natural way your arms hang. This will cause drag lines when you are standing naturally. This can be a very difficult and expensive alteration, which is why you should take time to shop around
6. Balance
A coat's hem should hang evenly when viewed from the side, or the front can be slightly lower than the back. However, the front should never be higher than the back. This will make the coat look like it's riding up on you.
7. Overly Long Back Rise
RTW manufacturers often build pants with an overly long back rise to sell suits to a broader range of ppl. But as a result, the trousers end up collapsing under the seat. Look at yourself in a three-way mirror and aim for a clean fit
These are just some basic fit issues. Then there's the issue of how you want the silhouete to look—clean, drapey, elongating, rounded, etc. See this post on how to understand silhouettes in tailoring
Ultimately, any garment, whether a suit or casualwaer, is about making you look and feel good. But it takes a while to train your eye. This requires sampling things and mulling for a while. I wouldn't want you to plunk $1k on something and regret it later.
If you want to learn more about how tailored clothing should fit, you can read these posts:
There's this mysterious Japanese man whose style I've admired for 20 years. He's mysterious bc he only speaks Japanese, and not many English pubs have interviewed him. Recently, a book came out about him, and I got to chat with him through an interviewer.
There have been a lot of discussions here recently about clothing quality. Many have involved oversimplifications, exaggerations, and sometimes misinformation. So here's a thread on how to think about quality in clothing.
First, there is such a thing as "clothing quality." If you want to read a sensible guide on how you can judge this as a shopper, you can read this post I wrote many years ago. It has a lot of practical information.
However, Twitter is not designed for sensible info. It's made for hot takes and outrage. So this thread is about how I think "quality" is often misunderstood and overstated. It's also about how luxury brands rarely offer "the best."
im against violence, but if something happened to a dude who went on a month long vacation and dropped off his dog at a shelter bc he didn't want to pay for boarding (or find a pet sitter), i would not cry!
if this specific girl gets adopted, please remember there are many dogs and cats at your local animal shelter facing the same fate and could use a loving home!
Trump appeared in court today in a stained suit jacket. The stain appears to be from cosmetics. I commented on how oil-based stains, such as this, require care to remove. Some people had questions, so here's a quick thread on how to treat stains 🧵
First, some basics
1. Always consult your garment care tag. It knows best.
2. Some items should always be dry-cleaned, such as suits, sport coats, and pants that aren't jeans. These items have multiple layers of material that can shrink at diff rates if put in a wet wash
OK, now that we have some basics, let's talk about stains.
There are two types of stains:
1. Water-based stains come from things such as sweat and coffee.
2. Oil-based stains come from things such as pizza and salad dressing.
for comparison, this is how his future wife Eleanor dressed as a baby. baby clothing was gender-neutral until the 20th century. babies, including boys, wore dresses bc they weren't toilet trained. clothes were white, not pink or blue, bc the color was easier to bleach.
as the 20th century marched forward, baby clothing became increasingly gendered—blue for boys, pink for girls (even though pink was once considered a masculine color until marketers decided otherwise). now even simple things such as t-shirts have graphics to mark gender.