Getting a lot of questions regarding my criticism of Daniel Craig's clothes. Common questions: "How can you dress if you're muscular?" "Should no one wear skinny suits?" "What about a more modern silhouette?" Let's talk about some of these points. 🧵
Craig often wears clothes that are too tight for his body. This causes the buttoning point to strain across his waist, the lapels to buckle away from the chest, and the coat's collar to lift off his neck.
His right sleeve is often two inches too short. I suspect this is because his bicep is too tight and he is right-handed. When he waves or shakes people's hands, his tight sleeve is prone to riding up on him, leaving him with too much shirt cuff. Happens often at press events.
A good sleeve should hang well, which is to say it should be relatively free from wrinkles. This comes from two things: 1) enough room for the arm inside and 2) sleeve should be pitched correctly for the arm (not too forward or back, relative to how the wearer naturally stands)
It's very much possible to get clothes made for a muscular build that's both flattering and comfortable. These garments don't pucker or pull. (Lebron's trousers bunch at the bottom bc they were tailored for dress shoes and he's wearing sneakers here, but it's otherwise good.)
These clothes will be more comfortable and allow movement. When you feel more comfortable, you will be more stylish. You will also look more at ease, so the clothes will look natural on you. You will be able to hug people without feeling like the center back seam is going to rip.
It's not that skinny suits can't be worn. It's that the cut has to work for your body. Notice Dior and Saint Laurent ads always feature a very slim model. Clothes hang right. By contrast, Craig looks like he had to squeeze into his suit. The effect is more "sausage casing."
Hedi Slimane, who helped kick off the trend for skin tight suits in the late 1990s/ early 2000s, was once the Creative Director of Saint Laurent Paris. And Yves Saint Laurent himself wore very slim suits on occasion. His body was built for it.
As for how you can modernize the suit, there are lots of ways: material, color, silhouette, or styling. Impossible to cover everything here, but the principles for good tailoring still apply to pics below: collar hugs neck, clean lines, no pulling, etc.
Will leave you with one more example. Both men are about the same height and have muscular builds. Craig emphasizes his build by slimming the suit until it looks like he bought the wrong size. The second still has a flattering build (V-shaped silhouette), but has clean lines
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There have been two big trends in men's tailoring in the last twenty years
1. A slimming and shortening of the silhouette (e.g., Hedi Slimane and Thom Browne)
2. Softer construction (i.e., less material inside, such as padding and canvassing)
When you put on a very slim, deconstructed coat, the garment will sit very close to you. Without any structure inside, there will be nothing holding up the jacket except your body. So things like the shoulder seam will sit on your shoulder bone. This can look great on models
King of Spain at the final day of Wimbledon. This looks great.
Very rare to see this level of tailoring nowadays, even on the wealthy. So let's talk about some of the reasons why it's great. 🧵
King Felipe consistently looks great, and it seems that all of his suits are cut by the same tailor.
Some basic points:
1. Collar always hugs the neck 2. No pulling anywhere. Things hang cleanly 3. Lapels end about halfway from collar to shoulder bone (nice proportion)
His coat here also ends about halfway from the collar to the floor, which is again a very classic and flattering proportion. His sleeves hang very cleanly. His trousers are well-proportioned for his coat.
There was a small dispute in my comments over how one can dress to a business causal office (FWIW, in the photo shown, i would swap the tan sport coat for navy and tuck in collar if i were going to an office). But it reminded me of a social experiment done in the late 1990s 🧵
In the late 90s, three psychologists recruited undergrad students for a study. They told everyone in the group, except for one, to show up to a certain room at a certain time for an experiment. Unbeknownst to the singled-out student, that person was giving the "wrong" location.
When the singled-out student arrived at this "wrong" location, someone there told them that the location had been moved at the last minute and they had to hurry to the right classroom. But before they go, they had to put on this T-shirt with Barry Manilow's face on it.
there has been a growing trend to wear dark worsteds suits (navy or grey suits made from a fine, smooth dressy wool) with a dress shirt and no tie. and it looks so bad. 🧵
everyone who does this thinks they look like george clooney or tom ford. or they're cool and relatable and just a casual sort of dude. they project neither of those things. they just look like every downtown schlub who hates wearing a suit but bitterly does so bc they have to.
the thing is that there are many types of suits. if you want to dress down the suit, make it look intentional. choose a casual suit in a non-business color (e.g., brown, olive) and material (e.g., cotton, linen).
a tie doesn't have to be fussy, but the front and back blades should be relatively equal (say, within an inch or so apart from each other). when you tie the tie, it should also end around your belt line. like so:
if you need to get a custom tie, check out sam hober (fully handmade, bespoke; exceptional quality even if the site is not very modern), EG Cappelli (same), and Vanda Fine Clothing (unlined, wears like a silk scarf). chipp is also good for budget (send them a note for custom)
Start w/ a denim Western shirt. It can be worn with a tweed sport coat (a classic RL move) or rugged casualwear (e.g., leather jacket, trucker jacket, field coat). Blue denim is an easy choice, but the style also works well in Tencel, needlecord, or black denim.
If you are unsure of the style, check out Wrangler's light blue, stonewashed blue denim Western shirt (get the pure cotton version; the others aren't that great). It can be had for about $30. It's a low-cost style experiment. The shirt runs true to size.