A lot of guys have a hard time accepting that good tailoring is not about making things as slim as possible. When clothes are this tight, they will restrict movement. I suspect this is why a lot of guys say that tailoring is uncomfortable.
A lot of guys should first get it out of their head that slimmer is better. Some outfits can be slim! But the point of tailoring is not always to make things as slim as possible. It's about flattering your body's shape, not recreating it.
The shoulders and sleeves on the purple suit are too small, making the person look like he's about to burst out of his coat. The second coat doesn't even look like it can be fastened. Both men are wearing trousers that are too narrow and tapered.
A lot of athletic men assume they look better in this type of tailoring. They do not. Look at these athletic men who are wearing more classic proportions. A fuller coat with higher-rise trousers. The clothes have *drape and shape.* This is both comfortable and elegant.
Some may feel those outfits are too boring. But check out Domingo, who has a similar build. His clothes follow the same principles (drape and shape). Lines are clean. There is room for comfortable movement. The creativity comes from cut, silhouette, and fabric.
Although you don't always have to choose classic footwear, doing so will provide you with the guardrails against falling into stuff like this. Two-toned, tasseled driving mocs and double-monks look like five open browser tabs set to various menswear blogs.
A safer, more tasteful choice would be brown or black oxfords (pic 1) or conservative tassel loafers (pic 2). If you want to be dandy, then Prince Albert or Belgian loafers (pics 3 and 4).
Patrick's outfit here is pretty good, except for a critical part: the jacket's collar should always hug your neck.
It's difficult to judge why a jacket isn't hugging a person's neck online without seeing the outfit in person.
But you can see this in any example of quality tailoring. Here's Fayard & Harold Nicholas (The Nicholas Brothers) dancing in the 1943 film Stormy Weather. Notice that even in such extreme movements, the collar hugs the neck.
Finally, jacket and trousers should always work together to form a harmonious whole. When trousers are too low rise and tapered like this, they look at odds with the coat.
The trousers should hang clean and the jacket should flow into the trousers. Jeans should not be cut like dress trousers, but even when wearing something like chinos or jeans with a tailored jacket, you can see how the two parts need to form a coherent whole.
IMO, we should take our country back from made-to-measure clothiers run by marketing people instead of tailors; from bad-taste shoes; and from the idea that everyone needs to squeeze into slim-fit tailoring instead of dressing for their body type
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No one will see the label inside your clothes or know who made the fabric. So, it's more important to develop an eye for what looks good than to rely on brand names. In this thread, I will show some good spring/ summer fabric for tailoring. 🧵
Since woolen yarns hold heat, spring/summer clothes are typically made with worsted fabrics. That means that they don't have a fuzzy nap (i.e., they're not hairy, like tweed). Without a nap, a strong pattern can have very vivid lines, which often look ugly.
For this reason, a full suit in a patterned spring/summer fabric can be difficult to wear. One solution is to go for a very subtle pattern in low contrast, such as puppytooth, five-point star, or a hairline weave. These are always unimpeachable.
People keep asking me to comment on Harrison Butker's clothes, as he seems to be a clotheshorse. Some note that his clothes look "off." In almost every instance, it's because his clothes are too small. I will demonstrate. 🧵
In some cases, the outfits look bad because of poor styling decisions. These are bad fabrics. If you are starting to build a better wardrobe, it can be a good idea to avoid hard-finished fabrics with patterns. Without a fuzzy nap, the patterns can have very hard lines.
For example, compare the glen check woolen flannel on the left to the stripe on the right. A fuzzy nap will soften the lines, especially if the pattern is already not in high contrast. Mutes the blow.
People are misunderstanding my point. It's not that brown shoes are wrong with dark suits. It's that tan shoes, in particular, are wrong with dark suits. It's also not about naval history but rather regional traditions. I will explain in this thread. 🧵
The suit was a British invention that spread around the world through the rise of Empire. So it's natural that England, and London in particular, set the standards for how to wear a coat and tie. During this period, certain traditions, cuts, and styles emerged.
As I've mentioned before, one such tradition is that men had wardrobes divided between city and country. City was for business, where men wore dark worsted suits with white shirts and black oxfords. Country was for sport, where they'd wear tweeds, tattersalls, and brown derbies,
Color works in a very specific way when it comes to fashion. But before I go on, I don't want my following thread to color your views. So let's start by asking: Which of these two outfits looks better to you? Choose before going on. 🧵
IMO, color should not be treated as a kind of abstract pseudo-science (e.g., blue looks good with brown). While those principles may be true, they are secondary to a more important consideration: the social language of clothing. What's the aesthetic you're operating in?
Let's take traditional tailoring. As I've mentioned before, many of our traditions for men's tailoring come from Britain, where men of a certain social class had wardrobes divided between city and country. Men wore stuff like navy suits in the city and brown tweeds in the country
i dont understand how this is the alpha male look nowadays. if these clothes were any tighter, they'd be inside him
Again, I disagree that wearing tight clothes necessarily makes for a more masculine silhouette. People should pay more attention to how clothes create shapes on your body. And even if you have a very masculine, athletic figure, tight clothes make for a more feminine silhouette
To clarify, these shapes do not necessarily mean anything for the people beneath the clothes. But in classic Western aesthetics, the masculine form is shoulders wider than the hips. The feminine silhouette is the opposite.
The producer of Ben Shapiro's show reached out to me to see if I'd like to discuss Ben's attire on his show. Like with Piers Morgan, since Ben invited feedback, I will do a thread comparing him to a menswear icon—this time, Ralph Lauren's Polo Bear. 🧵
Unlike his colleagues, Ben's tailoring is not bad. Jackets have shape and fit him well. Compare his jacket to Peterson's, which looks like it was dunked in water (the small collar gap on Ben would be filled if he wore a dress shirt). Tonal seersucker in the second pic is cool
Unfortunately, a tailor can only do so much. They only make your clothes, not put them on you. For men of a certain social class, this task would have been historically performed by a valet. Such a relationship was hilariously depicted in the British TV show Jeeves and Wooster