For the newbs: The 9 things about dress clothes I wish someone had spelled out for me.

[phxguy]

If your dad, like my dad, had more guns than ties, maybe this will help you skip a step in the trial and error process. This is synthesized from what I've gleaned here and from shopping and tailoring experiments in the infant stages of learning to dress better over the past couple years. I trust I'll be let to know if I'm off-base here.

1. If you have budgetary constraints, you’re going to have to compromise on something….quality and/or color and/or style and/or fit. Quality is compromised for budgetary reasons because, as a generalization, it’s inherently more expensive. Color, style or fit don’t have to be compromised for budgetary reasons because they’re not inherently more expensive, but as a practical matter they often are compromised for budgetary reasons by folks committed to buying the sale remnants of higher quality lines.

2. You can look good in lower quality clothes so long as the color, style and fit are right, but you won’t look good even in high-quality clothes if you compromise substantially on color and/or style and/or fit.

3. So, compromise on quality and don’t compromise on color, style or fit. E.g., if you have to choose between (a) a $1000 suit marked down to $500 and the fit and/or color and/or style is/aren't good and (b) a $500 suit at full price and the fit, color and style are good, buy the $500 (full price) suit. (To be clear, I'm not equating quality with value, which I'd say has to do with the level of quality at a given price point. Don’t compromise on that. I.e., make sure the $500 (original price) suit is worth $500.)

4. That said, push your budget a bit to allow for a bit higher quality. Quality does matter in appearance, and it's generally a good investment in terms of wears per dollar.

5. And, quality generally trumps quantity. Once you establish the minimum number of a given article that you need – e.g., five dress shirts – get the five best you can afford, not seven of the next tier down.

6. Until you know what you’re doing and have the staples covered, stay conservative with color and style.

7. Conservative color means: Dark gray and navy for suits. Those colors plus tan for slacks. White and light blue for dress shirts. Many other colors work, but the farther from conservative you get, the more you have to know what you’re doing.

8. Conservative style means: Two buttons and notched lapels for suits. Pinpoint or standard spread colors and barrel cuffs for shirts. With respect to suits, dress shirts and slacks, not balloon or super slim cut. And again with respect to all three, if there are any secondary colors (e.g., any pinstriping or windowpaning), the more prominent they are, the less often you’ll be able to wear that piece and the fewer things that will go with it – and there’s nothing at all wrong with solids. Many other styles work, but the farther from conservative you get, the more you have to know what you’re doing.

9. Fit means fit. Ask a tailor. Then ask another tailor. Then ask here. It has to fit.

 

[Svenn]

I really think the most important points are going conservative and going custom. If someone came to me now and asked how to start, I'd tell them to save, get a loan, sell something, whatever it takes, and go get a bespoke navy suit in Hong Kong or a good MTM, light blue shirt, and navy tie. Defer to the tailors, despite your urges. Yes it's going to be painfully expensive for someone new to classic menswear, but it will save TONS of dough in the long run of trial and error. You look at all the SF members that have been buying and selling and 'searching for deals' for 8+ years, and you wonder how much more they could have saved if they just went custom at the start.

 

[Ambulance Chaser]

Even if you know what you're doing, there's no reason to have a non-white dress shirt in a color other than light blue. (Maybe one or two in light pink.) Light blue goes with everything, and there is sufficient variation in patterns and shades to keep things interesting.

 

[archetypal_yuppie]



I really think the most important points are going conservative and going custom. If someone came to me now and asked how to start, I'd tell them to save, get a loan, sell something, whatever it takes, and go get a bespoke navy suit in Hong Kong or a good MTM, light blue shirt, and navy tie. Defer to the tailors, despite your urges. Yes it's going to be painfully expensive for someone new to classic menswear, but it will save TONS of dough in the long run of trial and error. You look at all the SF members that have been buying and selling and 'searching for deals' for 8+ years, and you wonder how much more they could have saved if they just went custom at the start.

lol, joking right? What horrible advice.

Unless you are phyically deformed, there are plenty of avenues to find good quality well-fitting stuff without going custom (which is necessarily more expensive). Dramatically stretching your budget as you suggest is foolhardy.

Custom clothing is a luxury, and far from a necessity for looking good.

Even the assumption that going custom will produce superior results is often flawed. Much safer is to try things on and evaluate fit; mistakes can be made when going custom and they will be much more costly.

 

[manchambo]

I really think the most important points are going conservative and going custom. If someone came to me now and asked how to start, I'd tell them to save, get a loan, sell something, whatever it takes, and go get a bespoke navy suit in Hong Kong or a good MTM, light blue shirt, and navy tie. Defer to the tailors, despite your urges. Yes it's going to be painfully expensive for someone new to classic menswear, but it will save TONS of dough in the long run of trial and error. You look at all the SF members that have been buying and selling and 'searching for deals' for 8+ years, and you wonder how much more they could have saved if they just went custom at the start.

I could scarcely imagine a bigger douche than a person who borrowed money to buy a bespoke suit.

 

[steveabdn]



lol, joking right? What horrible advice.

Unless you are phyically deformed

You really don't need to be physically deformed to be tough to fit, I wouldn't consider myself deformed but finding proper fitting clothes for me is difficult

5'11"
48" chest
36" waist
6'3" arm span

If you can tell me who makes this OTR I would be delighted

 

[The Bleeb]

I have more guns than ties....in fact, I have more guns than ties and socks together. I have some of my father's suits, and some of his guns.

I'm liking the look of my dad's suits, and have learned a lot about fit from my tailor, to whom I take them after I trial run them a few times. I'm 5'6", 155#, 41"chest and 31" waist. Nothing OTR has fit correctly. I've been lucky, in that all of dad's gifted suits are bespoke or otherwise high quality, and I also have been able to pick up a few really mint high quality suits on eBay. All but one have required, or will require tailoring (and one a minor re-weaving for a moth hole), but I have a total investment of $385 for an 8 suit collection.

Although I am not an eBay fan, but merely another newbie here, one may be able to lessen the need to make a lower quality choices if they know their measurements, understand branding, labels and tags (including rn codes),don't mind buying slightly used or new w/o tags, and have patience to wait for a good deal. Perhaps it isn't good advice, but the compromise of buying used has worked for me.