No matter your profession is, we are all in the business of self-salesmanship. Every day you set out to put your best foot forward for your employers, clients and potential partners. The honest truth is that there is no more influential outfit to date than a custom suit and there probably never will be. A suit is a garment that if properly cut and styled by a custom tailor, will give any man confidence, and in turn give others the assurance to always trust in that man in a good suit. Encompassing a jacket and trousers in an identical cloth, the custom suit as we know it has certainly changed a little over the last century or so. It is simply unquestionable that there have been instabilities in the amount of men and women wearing custom suits due to trends in fashion, but the classic suit you should aim to add to your quality wardrobe should be invulnerable to being outdated it tailored right. Speak to your custom tailor and choose a suit of satisfactory high quality and ageless, classic style, as it should last you a lifetime.
What to Consider
First, you need to consider what purpose or event you are buying the suit for and of course the latest trends in fashion when you go in to see your custom tailor. A suit bought for work in a serious office atmosphere will be very different to one bought to wear to a summertime wedding in the country. You need to ask yourself what are you trying to lead into with the suit, what image do you want to create for yourself in the suit? What type of weather conditions will it be worn in, does the suit need to keep you warm or cool? All of this is going to determine the cloth used in your high quality custom suit. Lighter wools, linen, cotton or even seersucker for summer suits, and heavier, worsted flannel or cashmere for the colder seasons. Then there is style preference. Double- or single-breasted jackets; peak or notch lapel; two- or three-piece; flat-front or pleated trousers? Single-breasted is more versatile and conservative, while double-breasted is confident and can, contrary to popular belief, have a slimming effect on the heftier men, who’d also be well advised to choose a roomier pleated trouser – a flat-front pant flatters the flat bellied. A peak lapel lends a sense of suppleness to the men with slanting shoulders. The waistcoat of a three-piece vaunts the key benefit of allowing a man to still look put-together even after doing away with his jacket.
How It Should Fit
Fit is the foremost concern when buying a suit together with the latest trends in fashion. Though maybe ‘fit’ is the wrong word. I mean after all head-to-toe Lycra fits a man perfectly, but does little to accentuate his better attributes and hide his failings, which is a suit’s ultimate goal, this is something highly understood by a custom tailor. Here is how you’ll know if a suit fits right. The shoulder’s shoulder pads of your custom suit should lie flat on your shoulders and not protrude beyond them. The seam of the shoulder should always be in line with the seam of the sleeve where your arm meets your shoulder. The closure of the jacket should fit closely around your stomach but not too tight to avoid the awkward gaping at the buttons. A fist’s worth of room should be between yourself and the jacket. The back of the jacket should always fall as comfortable as possible in a straight line with the bottom edge wrapping over the top of the arc formed by the backside but not any lower than your knuckles. It should certainly not flare at the back above the buttocks or fall past them and sag, if it does then the jacket is too big. The seat, also known as the buttocks, should not pull tight against your buttocks - you will notice horizontal strains under the buttocks if this is the case, or drape loosely down the backs of your thighs - at which point you will notice gathered material, if you see any of these, then the pants do not fit. The length of the sleeve should never fall any lower than the base of your thumb. In fact it should show about half an inch of the shirt beyond the jacket cuff, always. The trouser break refers to the point where your trousers touch your shoe. The cuff should rest on the top of your shoe but it shouldn’t do much more than that, trousers that are too long will look sloppy.
Fabric
Your choice of fabric weight and texture dictates how a suit drapes on the body and its suitability to environmental conditions. The pattern, meanwhile, determines whether or not the suit will flatter you. Super-fine wool cloths would seem the obvious choice for warmer climates, but they’re delicate and easily damaged or worn out, with a short lifespan.
Structure
By making use of varying levels of lining and padding, suit jackets can be made rigidly structured, light and fluid as a shirt or somewhere in between. The descendant of British military dress uniforms, a heavily structured suit will make a fellow stand ramrod straight and endow him with a heroic silhouette. As such it may be ideal for a formal occasion such as a wedding, but could feel overly restrictive during the workday and will certainly reduce comfort in a leisure setting.
The above mentioned are only a few points on how to buy a custom suit. There is of course more too it but the truth is that the suit should always reflect who you are. When you find a great suit style, despite the trends in fashion, you will be confident wearing it and thus you will look great.