Black suits - what are they good for?

[blahman]

Originally Posted by JamesX

Do not wear black tie and black shirt under black suit. Unless it is very casual.

But thats totally gangsta awesome.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Originally Posted by blahman

But thats totally gangsta awesome.
Get. out. now.

 

[bleachboy]

I was discussing the topic of black suits with a sales clerk at my local Brooks Brothers not too long ago, and a dude who was rifling through the ties informed us that he owns six suits, all black.

 

[Brogued]

A lot of my "well-dressed" musician friends default to black suit separates, black shirt and red tie. Awful.

 

[stevent]

Well some places I've been to now have people in only Blue/Grey/Brown suits and if you're wearing a black one you might be the only person wearing something unique.

 

[Brogued]

This is typical for the Chicago straight ahead jazz scene.

 

[itsmystyle]

so do you guys feel its ok to wear a black suit with a black dress shirt with a black/silver tie ..[its a silver shine on a black tie...] for a semi formal evening function ?? its supposed to be a holiday party dinner... this color combo wouldn't work for a day event or office wear... but should look striking for a evening dance/dinner party...

for me .. black is an absolute necessity.. so i definitely feel comfortable doing an all black outfit. i try other shades and it looks too boardroom...

 

[Matt S]

Originally Posted by itsmystyle

so do you guys feel its ok to wear a black suit with a black dress shirt with a black/silver tie ..[its a silver shine on a black tie...] for a semi formal evening function ?? its supposed to be a holiday party dinner... this color combo wouldn't work for a day event or office wear... but should look striking for a evening dance/dinner party...

for me .. black is an absolute necessity.. so i definitely feel comfortable doing an all black outfit. i try other shades and it looks too boardroom...

Black is anti-boardroom so there's no need to worry there. Black shirts always look amateur. Black is not a dress shirt color. The darker the shirt color the less formal it is. Stay away from white shirts with a black shirt because that can easily look like you're dressed for a funeral. French blue and pink are good shirt colours to wear with a black suit for a more festive look. You could also go for bolder stripes.

 

[Don Carlos]

Originally Posted by itsmystyle

so do you guys feel its ok to wear a black suit with a black dress shirt with a black/silver tie ..[its a silver shine on a black tie...] for a semi formal evening function ?? its supposed to be a holiday party dinner... this color combo wouldn't work for a day event or office wear... but should look striking for a evening dance/dinner party...

for me .. black is an absolute necessity.. so i definitely feel comfortable doing an all black outfit. i try other shades and it looks too boardroom...

Are you Regis Philbin circa 1999?

 

[cptjeff]

Originally Posted by itsmystyle

so do you guys feel its ok to wear a black suit with a black dress shirt with a black/silver tie ..[its a silver shine on a black tie...] for a semi formal evening function ?? its supposed to be a holiday party dinner... this color combo wouldn't work for a day event or office wear... but should look striking for a evening dance/dinner party...

for me .. black is an absolute necessity.. so i definitely feel comfortable doing an all black outfit. i try other shades and it looks too boardroom...

You'll look like a moron. Black dress shirts with light ties look foolish. I know that you think that you're awesome, but everyone's laughing at you.

Hell, black shirts in general look dumb if worn any way other then casually. And under no circumstances should they be worn with a tie. It just looks bad any way you do it. You should be wearing a white or light gray shirt. You need contrast from the suit, and the tie needs to be darker then at least one element in the outfit, unless you're reversing the whole thing and wearing a very light suit, a dark shirt and a light tie. Save that for the experts. The point is to create lines accentuating broad shoulders, a waist, and vertical lines to emphasize height. Suits do that very well, but you have to be able to see their shape. Black suits, if worn right, do this very well since they allow for such a high contrast. That's why a tuxedo is black (or midnight blue, but that was made to be "blacker than black" in early electric light). And the tie contributes to the vertical line. On it's own, it creates an awkward shape and line- there's a reason guys wearing a tie without a jacket tend to look bad. Unless they have a body and clothes cut so that they can create the lines a jacket provides without the jacket (read: models, and virtually no one else), they'll look bad.

Basically, you'll look like this and everyone will laugh at you, and rightly so.

This is what you should be aiming for:

But the basic gist is this: never, ever, wear a black shirt with a suit. Otherwise you will look like the moron kid who just graduated high school and isn't even competent enough to dress himself. Even if that's true, that's not an image you want to project.

 

[BillyMaysHere!]

I dunno about never, ever wearing a black shirt with a black suit; it can work if everything fits well, it's all of good quality with the right blacks/fabric choices, and you have the minimalist thing going on. Here's Raf doing it, and I think he kinda pulls it off.

and Clooney if Raf doesn't do it for you

That said, it is a look that rarely works, and black shirt with light tie never looks right, especially if you wear a black suit. As for black everything, I wouldn't recommend it; few can pull it off in any way, and even then, those people would 9 times out of 10 look infinitely better if they swapped the black shirt for something like white or light blue. As for black shirt with a suit that isn't black, there's probably someone out there who's pulled it off, but I've never seen him.

 

[cptjeff]

^He got the amateur instructions. Pros get the "well, here are the rules, here are the reasons behind them, go have fun breaking them" shtick.

The phrase "you have to know the rules in order to break them" absolutely applies. The rules exist as a reaction to certain things, not as some objective truth in themselves. Take the city/country distinction for instance, just by way of suits for now. The color divide never existed until the industrial revolution. Why did that happen? Becuase soot was starting to fill the air, and certain colors showed ash much more than others. Black and grays became the acceptable colors for the city. Greens and browns could only be worn in the country without beginning to look like crap from all the soot in the air. (If you're wondering about navy, navy fabric wasn't commonly used for suiting in that period. It really exploded in the '20s). And of course, the proper business dress of black and grays required matching shoes, so brown shoes were abandoned in favor of black, which (sfers aside) are generally regarded as looking much better with grays.

Somebody who just knows 'the rules' would view a brown suit in a city business setting as an affront. People who know the context behind those rules would recognize that the conditions that created the rule haven't existed for a while and that the rule simply isn't applicable anymore, and might recognize that brown looks good on a wide range of people.

The guy asking for advice is at the stage of "I don't want to look like all those OLD people, I want to do something fresh and new". Before he can do that without looking like an utter moron, he has to understand why the standard is what it is.

 

[BillyMaysHere!]

I understand that, I just wanted to speak out against the totalising SF groupthink on black shirts (only for mafioso, never looks good, don't touch them with a ten foot pole etc.)
Also, we need to make sure that these newbies who are taught the "rules", are also informed that, with the knowledge of their logic and reasoning, and sartorial experience, they can learn to effectively break them. Without them learning both, we'll just get more users like the groupthink spouter in the no brown in town scenario you painted.

 

[RSS]

Originally Posted by BillyMaysHere!

RSS, are you reviving this thread because you couldn't pull out the charcoal when this thread first died? Feeling funereal?
This thread has had far more life post resuscitation. See what a little CPR can do?

 

[RSS]

^^^ And while a traditionalist might say a black suit is completely inappropriate. Who are we to stop the less traditional types from wearing and enjoying their black suits ... never mind that they look terrible while doing so.