+ The Streetwear Suits and Blazers Thread + - Page 8

Great advice guys, thanks.  hendrix - I tried it with the burgundy pants / black shirt and it looked good but more formal than what I'm going for, black + burgundy tends to come off that way I think.  The key might be a black shirt with a lower neckline, which I'll have to keep an eye out for.  Bright blue tee + grey jeans looked good though.  I think I'm gonna have to play around with it a bit to find a combo that works, and also probably pick up a bright pocket square maybe?

I personally think that this is bunk. Contrasting colors is easy. It's child's play. The interesting thing is playing with tones and sometimes pattern. With something like this, you want to really go to a brick and mortar, with the jacket, and match it with something in the same color family, and with the same highlights and lowlights. You also want to get texture right too (which is why I always wear highly textured, often slightly rumpled, jackets, since I am always in jeans).

Also, and pro trick. The reason that you are not sure it is the right size is because of the sleeve length. If you just get the sleeve length tailored perfectly, you'd never wonder that. Unless the sleeves are deliberately long, you look in the mirror, and if the sleeves are even say, a half inch too long, you'll think that the fit is off. Just get that $20 tailoring job,, and unless you insist on CM "perfect fit", which is the wrong approach for this jacket anyway, and it will look good, to others and to you.

Possibly, but you and I seem to wear quite different clothes. You like a lot more engineer type jackets and heavy cotton and jeans and sneakers and higher buttoning points and in general more rugged style than me. Yes, I agree that a rugged cotton gray jacket would probably be pretty easy to wear, but I don't think this particular jacket fits into that category, and the clothes that would go with it don't necessarily occupy the same colour palettes that you are very comfortable with. Navy pants, for example, are completely different in their application than indigo jeans (IME). Try pairing navy pants with the combinations you wear indigo jeans with and you'll see what I mean; it's almost like they're completely different colours.

That's been my experience anyway. I'm pretty sure you're aware that i'm not averse to trial and error, as the errors in particular have been well documented in WAYWT. I'm basically just trying to give KJ a shortcut past that.

Also, I don't think he should shorten the sleeves on either of those jackets.

yes, this is quite important. I'm feeling patriotic right now, this is a designer from my home town. promo code KOWTOW20 gets another 20% off. (shipping is like $40 though so cancels out I guess.)

http://www.kowtowclothing.com/collections/mens/products/primary-tee

I just picked up this jacket from Yoox for a prayer


http://www.yoox.com/us/41289944OI/item?dept=#sts=dreambox80&cod10=41289944OI&sizeId=5

In typical poor styling by Yoox fashion, I have never seen this jacket worn with the collar down. At least the shirt is textured.

Anyway, Transit Uomo is a brand that never gets any play here, though the parent, Transit SPA, has been manufacturing for over 40 years, and for a lot of the Made in Italy artisanal brands. The buys in the US are often by "more mature gentlemen" stores, and styled in the "distinguished gentleman out for brunch" way, but as you can tell from the ad campaign for the FW12/13 season (below), that's not how the brand is imagined.

It's not a "head to toe" look type of brand though, which means that you can do anything from the "pretend it's a less colorful Boglioti" to the "Goth ninja without the big names" look.

Great advice on blazers so far, looking to get a basic navy one soon

Yeah, my personal style is pretty rugged, but I also did both editorial and personal styling for a fair while. Let's just take that jacket above. It could easily work with trousers in and of: tropical wool Prince of Wales with some cream and robin's egg blue, linen pants in cream or ice blue, white jeans (I think that that is how they were "officially" styled. And those are just three of about a billion combinations. It's not whether something is more rugged or not. It really is about having a decent eye for color, a good feel for texture and weight, and a little imagination. This is one of those reasons I really don't like the idea of the "classic menswear rules." They are not rules. They are guidelines for beginners.

idgi. How many people own tropical wool cream PoW checked with robin's egg blue, cream or ice blue linen pants?

Yes there are infinite combinations that could work, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy to figure those combinations out. Not everyone has your experience and knowledge to inherently know these things.

Everyone with a smidgeon of intelligence knows that they're guidelines. Isn't half the point of a forum to share experience so people can bypass part of the trial and error?

I mean, presumably he asked the question because he wanted an answer.

I know very few people who have been able to develop either good personal style or the ability to style others (that's essentially what guys like Mariano Rubinacci and Luciano Barbera do), without spending a big chunk of cash making mistakes. I think that the forum can provide very valuable information, and that's part of its mission, but I'm also a strong believer that only experimentation and failure can build success. If you stick with dark jackets and lighter colored trousers, you'll never get better than being a well dressed Big Buy employee. I think that you can't bypass trial and error. It's like saying that you can learn how to ski without ever falling down. Or that you can learn how to fight without ever getting punched in the face. You can get good guidance, but at the end of the day, you can, and should, make some costly mistakes on the way to really getting it.

In case you've forgotten who I am, i'm not a person who gives up on an item when I fail to make it work for the first few fits. I'm a very firm believer in the trial and error process. I was actually making it clear to him that he's likely to fuck it up a few times and not to worry about it, rather than being the person that says "Oh yeah that's an awesome jacket but for some reason you can't make it work, sell sell sell" after his first fit.

nowhere did I say to not keep the jacket or stick to dark jackets + light pants.

In fact, I made it very clear that it's an awesome piece and could make for excellent fits. I was simply making the point that it's a more difficult colour to wear.

The logic behind the versatility argument I often see presented here and elsewhere (like in mags) is strangely theoretical and not at all grounded in the specifics of one's wardrobe and style. It is absurd to look at a garment (say a grey blazer) and wonder what pants, out of all the pants that possibly exist, can be combined with it. All you need to do is take a look at your wardrobe, style and buying habits and you'll know if you can integrate a grey blazer. I mean if something goes well with black jeans (say a dinner jacket) then it is extremely versatile in Fuuma's wardrobe because I wear black jeans maybe 9 times out of 10. If you were to adopt the way most style mags or whatever see versatility you would never see if something works for you or not, only that if you were given a wardrobe made from random pairs of pants you'd do better with a navy than a grey blazer; surely a fascinating theoretical exercise (or not) but not very useful for a specific person.

i don't think anyone can be bothered actually reading today.

There is no versatility argument coming from me. Versatility is not a plus or minus unless you specifically want to limit yourself. I'm not always wanting something that goes with what I have in my current wardrobe because my current wardrobe is an expanding universe.

I want to expand on this. A lot of what is not taken into account in the CM "rules" are the effect of accessories. If anyone tells you you just need a brown belt and a black belt, you can be sure that that person either 1) Doesn't wear belts often, or 2) Is a philistine. Same goes with shoes. Changing accessories can change the entire complexion of an outfit, and whether, say, a particular top goes with particular trousers, because the belt acts as the transition between the two, particularly if you are working with a complex color, like most indigo dyes, or a top or a pair of trousers with multiple colors. Your belt, and shoes, and bracelets, and whatever, can bring out the blues, or the reds, or the greens, or the greys, or the browns, in a pair of indigo jeans (black jeans are relatively simple, by comparison - they usually just have green or red tones). So, an army green sweater which has grey in it would look silly with the same pair of jeans if you wear a warm brown belt, but if you where a black toned brown belt, or a grey belt, the sweater and the jeans could look very good together. This stull is actually more important in person than, say, for a photoshoot, where colors are not all accurately represented anyway. Electric blue can easily appear to be powder blue, using the same lens, depending on all of your other settings.

I just read this entire thread and went from excitement to curiosity to befuddlement to excitement again.

But now I just want a casual blazer that works really well with raw denim.

Any thoughts on how to wear this Jill suit? I feel like it requires a small shirt collar (have) and skinny tie (do not have). I'm thrown off by the high lapels and three button. Thinking about wearing for a day time wedding next month.