The most common mistake in men's fashion is choosing poorly-fitted garments. Most men in buy suits and shirts
that are between one and two sizes too large for them. Closely-fitted clothing
is viewed as stifling and uncomfortable, the product of a bygone era when
individuals suffered for their style.
Jacket Fit
Jackets, whether individual sport coats or parts of suits,
are primarily characterized by their overall shape, often called the silhouette.
Without delving into the history of style too far, it is sufficient to say that
silhouettes usually fall somewhere between the very traditional European-style
suit and the loose, unfitted "sack" suit. A more fitted suit will
define the body beneath it more clearly, while a looser one will hide it. Most
jackets in America these days are something of a compromise between the two
extremes, soft and draping at the hips and shoulders but brought in a bit at
the waist and chest. Comfort is the best guide here -- a suit that constricts
around your flesh when you move is too tightly-fitted, and should be looser in
the constrained area. In general, you want your jacket to remain stationary as
you move; the fabric should not be tugged along with your motions. If cloth
billows or spreads when you move, the fit is too loose.
The movement of the jacket is also heavily influenced by the
venting - the presence and number of slits running upward from the base of the
jacket. While single-vented jackets (with a single slit up the middle of the
back) are the cheapest to produce, and have become the default style for most
manufacturers, they are also the least flattering option for most men. An
unvented jacket will usually provide the closest and smoothest fit, but bunches
in the back when a man sits or puts his hands in his pockets -- these are often
favored by politicians or other men who are required to stand in one place and
speak, but may not suit more active men, or men whose interactions are
primarily done sitting down. For them, the double-vented jacket is ideal, with
two slits up the back creating a wide square of fabric that moves with the
motion of the legs beneath.
Double-vented jackets also allow a man to put his hands in
his pockets without hitching the back of the coat upward, which has made them
very popular in England (where putting your hands in your pockets is considered
more normal and less of a social faux pas than in America).
Jacket lapels, the folded pieces of cloth that cover the
chest, have varied with fashion throughout the years, but a balanced look is
never unfashionable, and can keep a suit appropriate no matter what the current
trend is. Look for the outermost point of the lapel to fall halfway between the
shirt collar and the end of the shoulder, or just shy of that point. On most
men, the measurement works out to about 3 1/2", but there will be some
variation on broader or narrower torsos. So long as the lapel is near that
halfway mark, the numeric measurement is not an exact standard.
Jackets are generally longer in the back than they are in
the front, which allows them to flow visually down into the trousers; at
minimum, the bottom of the jacket should cover the bottom curve of the
buttocks. Anything shorter will rest awkwardly on top of the buttocks and look
like a tiny skirt -- the opposite of the desired effect. There is something of
an old wives' tale in menswear to the effect that the jacket should end halfway
down a man's hand when his arms are resting at his side; while being somewhere
in that neighborhood is visually appealing, there can be a large difference in
arm lengths even between two men of the same height. Use the curve of the
buttocks to determine where the jacket should fall instead.
Most errors of fit can be remedied by simply knowing the
warning signs of a bad fit. If cloth bunches or pinches in any place the fit is
too tight; likewise, if the cloth is loose and billowy the fit is too large. A
jacket collar is too loose if it stands off the neck with a gap between the
fabric and the shirt collar. Sleeves that completely conceal the shirt beneath
are too long. A half-inch of shirt fabric should show at the cuffs, allowing
the buttons of the shirt cuff to be visible. If a vest is worn, it should not
touch the points of the shirt collar at the top, but should reach the waistband
of the trousers at the bottom.
Shirt Fit
Unlike the jacket, which hangs along the frame and offers
its own unique shape, men's dress shirts are meant to be worn as close to the
body as possible regardless of your physical shape. Like jackets, the test of
the fit is first and foremost comfort -- a shirt that hangs loosely, or that
balloons around the waist when tucked in is too loose. A shirt that pinches or
bunches up with movement is too tight. The soft cotton of a quality dress shirt
allows a close fit to be very comfortable. Most manufacturers offer shirts
sized by both the collar and the sleeve length, which makes them somewhat
easier to fit than suits. Most humans have one arm longer than the other,
making some minor adjustments to the sleeves flattering.
The "yoke," the panel across the back of the
shoulders, is often made of two slightly differently-sized panels on custom
shirts, and as a result the "split yoke" is generally taken as a sign
of quality manufacture (although some mass-produced, untailored shirts have
begun to appear with split yokes for precisely that reason).
The proper fit for a shirt is easy to judge visually: the
two sides of the collar should meet neatly at the throat, with no overlap and
no gap requiring the button to stretch tightly. The collar should extend a
half-inch above the collar of a suit jacket or sportcoat. The cuffs of the
sleeve should reach all the way over the joining of the hand and wrist, easily
found by the two large knobs of bone on either side of it. At the bottom, the
shirt should fall four to six inches past the waistband of the trousers, giving
enough extra cloth for the shirt to be tucked in.
Many men struggle with finding a good trouser fit in the
dressing-room, and this is generally because they are attempting to wear the
pants too low on their body. Dress pants are cut to be worn at the waist where
they can fall smoothly past the belly instead of digging under it and creating
an unsightly bulge. Wearing trousers down at the hips requires them to be
belted tightly, and the extra fabric -- meant to cover the bottom of the torso
-- will sag and balloon around your middle. It also requires the dress shirt to
be longer so that enough fabric remains to tuck the shirt in with, and that
extra cloth also risks becoming loose and billowing.
Well-fitted trousers taper: they should be wider at the tops
of the legs than at the knees, and wider at the knees than at the base of the
legs. The cuff (or uncuffed bottom) of the legs should rest directly on top of
the shoe, and looks best when it is wide enough to cover between half and
three-quarters of the shoe's length. At the tops of the legs, the center seam
of the trouser should be as close to the body as comfort permits, preventing
the fabric from sagging. As always, move in the trousers when trying them on --
if the crotch sways and billows, it needs to be brought up further. If the
front of the legs wrinkles and bunches as you move, the trousers are too small
(seeing if you can fit your hands into the pockets easily is also always worth
testing).
Pleats are not strictly speaking an influence on fit, but
they do allow the trousers to move and flex more easily, and are generally
considered preferable to plain-fronted trousers. The small, vertical folds
require additional cloth in the seat and thighs, which billows when worn too
low, contributing to the modern misconception that pleated trousers make your
bottom look bigger. Worn high enough on the body, pleats drape in smooth,
vertical lines, which actually have an overall slimming effect. They open when
the fabric is stretched by sitting, preventing the fabric from pulling tight
and bulging. If you do opt for pleats, be sure the fit is loose enough that
they do not pull open when you stand still -- the pleats should only change
shape when you sit or bend over. Resting, they should be plain vertical lines.
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