Ignorant about Men's Suits, Looking for Info

[leahcim]

Hello,

I am in my first year of law school and I'm attempting to gather information on the types and styles and qualities of suits to look to purchase in the future.

My family is working class, and I never got much knowledge about styles of dress growing up, and I've scoured as much of the internet as I can and have learned a good bit.

However, I was wondering if anyone knows of any good sites that perhaps explain differences in Suits (what makes a good suit or a bad one) and also the various styles as if it was written for someone who knows very little?

All the sites I've come across are beyond my knowledge, really. Although I can learn bits and pieces here and there I was wondering if anyone know a website or set of websites that have general knowledge. Like perhaps pictures of various styles so the visual differences are apparent.


Thank you very much for any help.

 

[Lamo]

askandy, of course. bunch of old fogeys.

 

[cpac]

Originally Posted by Lamo

askandy, of course. bunch of old fogeys.

that's http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com

The forum there and the forum here are good resources. I'd do a search or two of the threads and see what you can find.

Just to point you in the right direction: Construction is what differentiates a finely made suit from a more poorly made one. Cheaper suits are "fused" with more expensive being partially or fully "canvassed." (searches for those terms will turn up lots of information). Finally, the more hand work that goes into the suit, the nicer it will be. A designer name does not guarantee quality construction, and you may never have heard of some of the better constructed brands at all.

More important than construction though is fit. Get a suit that fits in the shoulders and then have it altered if necessary. A decent rule of thumb is to buy the best constructed suit you can afford, and make sure it fits. A $300 suit that fits will always look sharper than at $5000 one that doesn't.

Oh, and on styles, particularly when you're starting out, stick to single breasted, with two or three buttons only. These are classic. Solid navy or solid charcoal to start with. Stay away from black, and away from stripes until your third suit or so.

Good luck!

 

[goffeebeans]

I started a blog for us ignoramuses, who are just starting out. Pretty much just piecing together information I find from all over and putting it all together in mini guides, without it being too wordy. http://sartorialchi.blogspot.com Not sure if theres any rules or anything about posting sites, so if there is let me know and ill remove it. Also let me know what you guys think.

 

[zjpj83]

Quality Most importantly, you want a jacekt that is canvased rather than fused. Style Regarding style, I defer to Manton:

Overall, a silhouette may be lean or full; structured or soft; elongating or "widening"; smooth (or "clean") or draped (or "rumpled"). Structure v. softness generally depends on the type of materials used, and on stitching techniques. E.g., a structured suit will use more padding in the shoulders, stiffer canvas in the chest, etc. There are certain hand stitching techniques that go into making a soft suit which actual tailors have described in detail, so I defer to them. Descending to specifics, we may divide the coat into five basic parts: shoulders, gorge, chest, waist, and skirt. Shoulders may be built up or "natural." I put natural in quotes because there is no such thing as a truly natural, unpadded shoulder. That’s a cardigan sweater. But a “natural shoulder” suit has very thin, soft padding, and little of it. Furthermore, shoulders may be more or less sloped from the collar to the scye (armhole). Sometimes they are even concave; that is, they curve gently downward from the collar, and then rise again at the sleevehead. Further still, they may be “roped”: that is, the sleevehead may be raised up a tad from the shoulder line. Another refinement is to make sleevehead a more "oval" shape, rather than conventionally round. Then there is width: true natural shoulders tend to fall exactly on a man’s true shoulder-line; but some structured shoulders also do this as well. Or shoulders may be “extended” by a half and inch or so. This can help the "drape" (excess cloth over the chest and blades) hang more elegantly, but it's not essential: not all draped coats have extended shoulders. Also, tall guys, guys with slight chests and shoulders, and guys with big heads benefit from an extended shoulder. On muscular guys, it is "gilding the lily." Any more than a half inch, however (depending on a dude’s size), is costumey and not generally done. The “gorge” is where the lapels meet the collar of the coat. This may be high (collarbone or so) or lower, in the upper ribs. The width of the lapels is also a factor to consider, though there is no direct relationship: a coat with a high gorge may have wide or narrow lapels, and vice versa. Wide lapels tend to "widen" the silhouette, and are thus not recommended for heavy guys or short guys. Though, as always, there are exceptions. No one would call the average Neapolitan male "tall," and yet he wears what is essentially a widening silhouette with great elegance. The chest of a coat may be full (swelled) or lean (shallow); and draped or clean. Basically, on a jacket with a lean chest, the outer edges of the jacket are pretty close to your actual torso. A swelled chest means there’s extra cloth that stands apart from your chest, making it look bigger (wider). Swell is generally convex: billowing out in a gentle curve from the waist (or bottom of the ribs) and then back in under the armscye. "Swell" is not be confused with drape. A really good tailor can make a chest that fits close to your torso at the sides, but has some drape (excess vertical folds of cloth) in the hollow area below your collarbone. Other tailors will make the cloth here lie completely flat and clean. Three things about the waist of a coat: is there one, and if so where is it, and how dramatic is it? Few completely undarted, waistless jackets are made any more, but they exist. Most coats have a waist of some degree. Tailors can alter the look of a coat by simply raising or lowering the "latitude" at which the jacket’s waist is “suppressed.” Then there is the question of degree. Most suits today have reasonably subtle waist suppression, but a few have a really pinched waist. Also: the suppression may be acute at only one point (like this: } { ) or else over a longer span (essentially like this: ) ( ). The placement of the waist also determines the placement of the buttons. This is known as the “button stance.” The middle button (or top button on a 2-button coat) -- i.e., the button that you actually fasten -- should be positioned on the exact latitude of the coat's waist. Fashion houses do not always follow this rule, but classic RTW manufactuerers and bespoke tailors virtually all do. Skirt: this is the part of the jacket that hangs below the waist. It may be full or sit reasonably close to the hips. Also, the coat front edges that fall below the waist button may hang straight, or be flared away from the button. (SB only. Only one edge of a DB skirt front is visible, and it should hang relatively straight.) Before I describe the few truly identifiably silhouettes, I must say two things: 1) the above points are just the basics; there are a zillion ways that one coat can be different from another, so that truly the number of silhouettes that are possible are infinite; 2) (this one may well get me flamed) well dressed guys and the bespoke obsessed tend to prefer certain things: natural shoulder on the shoulder line; high gorge; high armholes; draped but close chest; high waist and button stance; medium waist suppression (err on the side of more rather than less); close skirt with flared away front edges. But many very well dressed men do not like some or all of these things. Now, there are a handful of famous silhouettes. The Scholte/Anderson & Sheppard/Neapolitan/Flusser cut is one. This was invented by the Dutchman Frederick Scholte, who perfected in the late 1920s, and died in the 1950s. This is a natural shoulder, minimal padding, gentle downward slope, no rope. A&S and Flusser extend the shoulder by about a half inch. The Neapolitans generally do not. The Neapolitans also add that famous sleevehead (a much larger opening at the top of the sleeve is carefully hand-pleated into a much smaller scye). Both have a pretty generous drape in the chest and over the shoulder blades. Both use minimal padding and very soft canvas. Waist: A&S and Flusser: 1/2" below the natural waist; the Neapolitan waist is often a little higher. Flusser has a unique "not quite American, not quite English" shape to the waist; plagerizing from A Harris: "straight (diagonal, and actually slightly concave) line from the bottom of the armhole to the waist, and back out, again in a straight (in actuality, slightly convex) line to the bottom of the jacket." All these, however, have close skirts, but the Neapolitans flare the front edges more. This silhouette really shines in DB, 6 on 2. Also in this category: Attolini: Soft like the true Naples cut, with the famous sleevehead, but much, much leaner. Almost a mean between Kiton and Brioni. Super high gorge and waist -- probably the highest there are in RTW. Isaia: Much like Kiton. Less dramatically draped. Less "rounded" chest. Borrelli: A more "widening" silhouette. Buttons spaced apart more, wider lapels, etc. Otherwise, pretty classically Neapolitan. The classic “Roman” silhouette” as exemplified by Brioni: Structured shoulders, on the natural shoulderline. An obsessively clean and structured chest. A very lean silhouette overall. Close and flared skirt. A great SB, 2 button silhouette. The Roman "soft" suit (Carceni, Raphael NYC): what I described above as the "ideal" bespoke silhouette: natural shoulder on the shoulder line; sloped, concave shoulder with a slightly roped sleevehead, high gorge; high armholes; draped but close chest; high waist and button stance; medium waist suppression; close skirt with flared away front edges. Milan (Barbera, A. Caraceni): tends to be a shorter coat overall. Shoulders about halfway between Naples and Rome; "oval" shape, and roped, more often than not. High gorge and armhole. Soft construction, but clean without a lot of drape. Medium waist height and suppression; subtle skirt. "2 1/2" button stance is prefered; overall leaner than the Neapolitan. English military (e.g., Kiglour, Dege, Logsdail) or "equestrian" (Hunstman): very enlongating overall; structured shoulder on the natural line. Roped (Kilgour, Logsdail). Lots of structure on the chest. Clean chest. Very lean; high gorge, high waist. Wasp waist, flared skirt, one-button stance (Huntsman). Narrowish lapels, true three button (i.e., two to button) stance (Kilgour). If there were such a thing as "typical Savile Row" it would be: natural shoulder on the shoulder line, roped; chest with a little swell and a little drape; high gorge and waist; lapels slightly narrower than halfway across the jacket's chest; lapels gently curved from the waist button to the gorge; pinched waist; flared skirt; side vents; 3 piece SB 2 button. Many of the "second tier" tailors make exactly this, and it looks good on a lot of guys. This is basically the Gieves and Poole silhouette. (I know Gieves is a big maker of uniforms, and so perhaps should be in the "military" section, but their silhouette is a little softer than those mentioned above. Check out the picture of Robert Gieves in Roetzel's book -- can't remember the page). French: this one is hard, but I take Cifonelli as my guide: lots of structure, high everything, but an unusual “columnar” waist: the suppression starts very high, “straightens out,” continues to about the hips, then the skirt flares out slightly. Odd. I don’t see this anywhere else. The French also tend to make smaller (narrower) than average lapels, too. Cifonelli and Cristiani certainly do, at any rate. And the "wrap" of the DB is smaller. Beyond this, I’m not sure there is a typical “Paris” silhouette. The French are always being knocked for the Cardin et al supertight suits of the 70s, but that was a long time ago. Lanvin, Hermes &c. make (or sell) pretty conventional silhouettes if you ask me. I don’t know about Arnys. The “Sack”: now made pretty much only by J Press. No darts, a straight hanging coat with practically no waist, natural shoulders (but huge armholes) a rumpled chest, and a full skirt with no flair. Then there is the typical “Ameican” silhouette: bland shoulder, chest not really clean, not really draped, slight waist suppression, straight skirt, two button, center vent. Oxxford (thanks johnnynorman3): Manhattan II: "Americanized Neopolitan shoulder -- very little padding, very sloped, but more rounded at the shoulder seam than a true Neopolitan. I wouldn't call it 'classic' American because it is more lightly padded and close to the natural shoulder line than say, Hickey Freeman." Gibbons: "Gibbons model falls somewhere between a Neopolitan and a Brioni, though it doesn't have the same skirt because of the center vent." St. Andrews: Anyone? RL Purple: in the old days, when these were made by the late, lamented Chester Barrie, they struck me as an attempt to copy Kilgour's as exactly as possible for a RTW garment. Now that they are made by St. Andrews, I must admit that I have never tried one on and so do not know. Anyone?

 

[DocHolliday]

What sets a good suit apart from a bad one is construction, for the most part. Poor-quality suits feel stiff and unpleasant to wear; the fabric is often coarse and scratchy, and they don't hold up well in the long run. A good suit, on the other hand, will feel much more comfortable, breath better and gradually mold to your body. A good suit should give you many years of dependable service.

Perhaps the most significant distinction between good suits and poor ones lurks inside the coat. Top-quality suit coats have guts that are stitched in place, while cheap ones are essentially glued together. The latter are made using what is called "fusing." One problem with fusing is that it can come unfused inside the coat, and you end up with bubbles in the fabric. Once this happens, there's nothing to be done except throw the coat in the trash. Thankfully, fusing has improved over the years, and this is much less of a problem than it used to be, at least among better-made fused suits. In addition, good-quality fused suits are now much lighter and more pleasant to wear than in years past. Some fused suits, including Ralph Lauren's "Polo" line, are very nice indeed.

The best suits, though, are "fully canvassed," meaning they have a canvas stitched inside the jacket that runs the length of the coat front. This canvas gives the jacket its shape and definition. (To be clear, all suit coats have a chestpiece of some sort inside them; with a fused suit, it's just glued in place.) Fully canvassed coats remain the benchmark by which all other suits are judged; they're also the most expensive kind. Most fully canvassed suits retail north of $1,000, but many can be found on discount for much less. Some can often be found for less than $600 new.

Other factors that determine suit price include the quality of the fabric and the amount of handwork that has gone into the suit. Most low-end suits have no handwork at all; they're just churned out on machines.

So how do you go about picking a suit? It's a matter of finding a suit in a style you like, at a price you're comfortable with, of a quality you find acceptable. My advice would be to go to Neiman Marcus, Saks, or other high-end stores and try on a wide variety of the suits they offer. See what looks good on you, what works with your build, what styles you like. See how they feel when worn, and then compare that to less expensive suits elsewhere. I think you'll quickly see the difference, and that will help inform your future purchases. Also, it's very helpful to research specific brands by searching here and at Ask Andy. There's more information here than you could ever read.

If your clothing budget is limited, like most folks' are, you can make your money go farther by hunting up sales and online bargains. Stores such as Filene's Basement often offer very nice suits on deep discount. Online, Sierra Trading Post is an excellent resource.

As for style, I'd suggest you stay conservative. Navy or charcoal solids are the basics, and every man should have one or both in his closet. They're much more versatile than pinstripes and patterns, because they're less memorable. Very helpful when trying to work within a limited wardrobe.

When starting out, it's also best to avoid anything too trendy. Mens' classic suit styles haven't changed that much since the 1930s, and if you stick to a conservative style, in a conservative color, with a medium-sized lapel, you'll have a suit you can wear for years.

I'll close with a couple of book recommendations: Alan Flusser's "Dressing the Man" contains all sorts of excellent information on the hows and whys of dressing well, and Bernhard Roetzel's "Gentleman's Guide to Grooming and Style" offers a much more romantic look at why one would want to do so. (Roetzel's book was available through Barnes & Noble until recently, but I believe it's been discontinued. You might have to poke around a bit to find it.)

Good luck. Sorry this was so long.

 

[oldseed]

the best suit is one that fits. frankly for your first suit, which you probalby won't even wear that much (i imagine interviews and parties), there will be no difference between fused and canvassed (

i just committed heresy on this board).

learn about fit. get the right chest measurement and waist measurement. try on tons of suits from different stores, cheap to expensive, to get the one that fits your body the best. if you're athletic, get one that shapes to your curves while staying straight and unwrinkled. if you're fat, get one that is loose and stays unwrinkled.
no wrinkled on the shoulder behind the neck; preferably no wrinkles on the sleeves to shoulder. oh. and there will be compromises. figure out what's more important than other things.

talk to salesmen. fit is not easy to learn.

seed

 

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by oldseed

talk to salesmen. fit is not easy to learn.

I agree about the importance of fit, but whatever you do, don't trust a random salesman. Most will have you wearing a jacket two sizes too large, with your sleeves down into your palms.

 

[Lamo]

Originally Posted by oldseed

there will be no difference between fused and canvassed (

i just committed heresy on this board).

i have a few fused suits including an etro which i wear quite often. Canvassed is always nicer but it's only a part of the equation.