Tips & Terms for Buying Men's Suits.

It's all about molding your Personal Style with the various cuts of suits today. Buying a Suit is an Investment that needs Careful Consideration. This task can be quite frustrating and frankly quite irritating, especially for Big & Tall Men. This guide breaks down these "Technical Suit Terms" into Perspective for the Potential Buyer. This Guide also gives you Tips on Caring for your Suit.

Jacket Styles

Single Breasted are most commonly worn among men and can range from one or more buttons running down the length of the suit.

1 Button Suits are considered a "retro style" and left to be worn in the 50's.

2 Button Suits are traditional and widely accepted among professionals. You wear a 2 button suit with the top button buttoned ONLY.

However, depending on your height, you need to consider moving up to a 3 button suit. 2 button suits are for short torsos whereas 3 buttons flatter longer torsos.

3 Button Suits are the most popular & traditional. You wear a 3 button suit with either the middle button buttoned or the top 2 buttoned and the 3 button open.

There are 4 button (and more) suits out there but these are very very very fashion forward and not commonly accepted among business formal professionals. 

Lapels 3-4 inches in width are the most common today. Depending on the number of buttons, the style of the label differs. The Notch Lapel looks like a cut out "V" on the side of the lapels. Peak Lapels accentuated shoulders and narrows the waist, therefore if you Have Broad Shoulders guys, stay away from the 2 button suits!

Wool is the fabric of choice when it comes to a fine made professional suit.  With wool being as beautiful and durable as it is, there are several weights to consider and some can be worn all year around.

Worsted Wool is a process that combs the short fibers out, leaving the wool soft and long lasting. When you see Super 100, 120, 130, 160, etc this indicated the longer the strand the softer the suit will feel.

There are obviously other fabrics out there that make suits more affordable such as cotton, polyester, etc., but they do not withstand wear and tear and long use.  But also may not look as professional amongst clients, bosses, etc.

Suit Pockets are a personal preference and there are 3 common types

Beson: a slit pocket opening flush with the garment reinforced with piping, often seen on the chest of suits for pocket squares.

Flap: fabric folds over a slit pocket opening.

Combination: the ability to fold a flap into the slit pocket opening to achieve the more refined look of a besom pocket.

Length: when you c letters and numbers corresponding, such as 50L. This is talking into consideration your height as compared to the length of the jacket. Here is a general rule of thumb.

Short: 5'5" to 5'7"

Regular: 5'8" to 5'10"

Long: 5'11" to 6'2"

However please note: a perfect fit suit jacket in length can be easily determined when you put your arms to your side with your palms towards you. Your fingertips should just reach the bottom of the jacket hem. This technique also measured your arm length. Your wrist should be covered only! But if the arm length extends past your wrists, but the torso and shoulders fit in the jacket, the arm length can be easily tailored when you go and hem your pant length.

Pants:

You will often see the term "Drop". This basically means when you see the letters and numbers corresponding, such as 43W, on the Suit Label, this is telling you size of your waistband.  A traditional "drop" size in pants is 6 inches off the length of the jacket, such as 50L. Suits For Big and Tall Men, the drop increases to 8 inches. These are Hard to Find Suits, but I have a few in my eBay store, check them out!!!

Always fit into your jacket 1st and worry about the pants at the tailor!

Pants are easier to tailor than Jackets.

Please Remember A Suit is Designed to be Tailored for a Custom Fit. With these Tips, you are well on your way to finding that Power suit in my store or anywhere.

Caring for your Suit

 A suit can be worn 3-4 times, perhaps even longer before it needs to be Professionally Dry Cleaned. But of course, boys will be boys, and messy lunches leads to messy suits....It is recommended when you 1st get your suit tailored, not to have it dry cleaned, but steamed.  This will take out any wrinkles that may have occured, But to get out those food stains boys, dry cleaning is necessary. Excessive dry cleaning cheapens the fabric and NEVER dry clean a jacket and not the pants or vice versa. Your coordinating suit will thus be considered separates due to color fading differences.