Matching colors properly re: suits

help me ILS

yr my only hope

Solid color jacket/pant combos are simple and classy

don't mix the colors

correct me if im wrong but 'suit' implies that the pants and the jacket are the same color, since they're supposed to have been cut from the same cloth

Yeah u rite, what I'm looking at isn't really "suit" I guess. Maybe just color variation in jacket/pant combos

If so, make sure the pants are lighter than the jacket.

hoos fwiw i wouldnt be afraid to be "boring," in a job where you have a dress code its probably better to be seen as a 'boring' dresser than a 'shitty' dresser

if someone wants you to wear a suit, they don't want you to wear two different colors. if they do in fact want you to wear separates, don't wear pinstripes.

Fair enough! thx ILS for saving my style-impaired ass from embarassment

you get three or four jackets and three or four pairs of pants and make sure they can all go together like greens and tans and browns if that works for you, then like eight or nine shirts in white/parchment that you can rock with any other combo

or else pants-blazer-shirt two sets of each in navy-navy-parchment ish and black-black-white/grayish and be all brokerage about it

the second option makes tie selection easier but is que boring unless you pay for a better cut and thereby make everybody else look like an asshole

pinstripes are dead

In govt work the older fellas will do the earthy separates thing while all the young dudes pony up for men's wearhouse full suits

personally I think the latter option looks dorky but that's because the people I associate it with are frequently dorks
self included

oh and I forgot the other option though I mostly see this carried off by black dudes, which is solid black/dark gray blazer+pants combo with a really saturated color on the shirt (NO SHINY) and a slick solid tie

it is basically awesome but I, for one, do not have the skin tone to do it

PS if you do that and add shiny to the shirt and pinstripes to the suit then it is just "The Deion" and you are ridiculous

hoos read gq there are like 8 pg features on this topic every issue

yeah this idea is mostly born from flipping through GQ at the drug store while I'm waiting in line to pay for girlfriend's ice cream or whatever

The only really acceptable mix of colours and patterns in suiting is the morning suit, grey often pinstripe trousers, black (very occasionally dark blue) tail coat and grey top hat. A very classy look but not really current, you would look like a hotel manager c. 1935 or banker any time in the early part of the century.

http://vintagedancers.org/images/1920_morning_suit_b.jpg

men's wearhouse full suits

I would only like to say that I ignored an earlier ilx suit thread's advice about NOT shopping here and now am very sad about where several hundred dollars has gone.

Oh dear that's sad. I would have advised against it but I understand that you gotta start somewhere and I'm sorry it didn't work out.

I went to a MW once and the sales person was showing my friend a few suits and I was like, "Why is there so much puckering around the pockets?" and "Why doesn't that hang better?" and the salesman basically said "You think you're going to find good tailoring here at our prices? Think again, sister, this is a discount store" and I was like whoah hello get out of here.

That's my story.

http://www.hatsharpening.com/j&w/newimages/photos/jeeves2.jpg

This is also an acceptable combination of stripes and solid. Probably held on in the hotel trade till the early 60s.

um no one in America would be caught dead like that unless he was cultivating the dandy/fop/macaroni look

Whilst we are on the subject of that adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster. Bertie Wooster/Hugh laurie has the most awesome single breasted 3 piece suit with a double breasted waistcoat which I would love to have a copy made of.

I am only slightly suggesting that a HOOS might want to dress like an early 20th century butler.

HOOS if i remember correctly the last time you thought a normal wardrobe was boring you ended up wearing red-tinted shades and talismans around your neck, so keep that in mind when trying to jazz up your clothes

Having Oscar Wilde for a butler = pretty great

Jeeves and Wooster starring Fry and Laurie: well worth downloading for amusement and fine sartorial tips.

HOOS, I think the proper term for a jacket that does not match the trousers is an "odd jacket," though that term implies that the jacket is sold separately and not as part of a suit. It's worth saying that a properly fitted suit jacket is a distinctly different garment than a sport coat and they're not completely interchangable.

That said, stay away from the nazy jacket / khaki trousers look. From what I know of how you look, I think you'd look quite good in a double-breasted suit as long as the lapels aren't peaked.

I think that is just a sportscoat and trousers, which in my book != suits. I don't think double breasted jackets are a good idea unless you are basically shaped like Mr Strong:

http://www.penguin.com.au/covers-jpg/9781846462931.jpg

i'm rather square-shaped -- broad shoulders and hips -- and i cannot wear DB jackets, sorry Ed -- they make me look even wider than I am. I tend to go for a low two-button single-breast since the long inverse triangle of visible shirt lengthens the torso and doesn't emphasize the waist.

the double breast actually looks best on narrower guys as it creates a strong diagonal line which broadens the look of the shoulders.

also, Ed, and pardon me for saying, but I'm not inclined to take you as an authority on suits -- based solely on your WDYLL posts, but for all I know you may wear a suit more often than I do (I don't wear suits hardly ever)

http://www.askmen.com/fashion/fashiontip_300/314_fashion_advice.html

an 'odd jacket' - not a very current term, i don't think - is a species of non-suit coat and may in fact be the one that hoos wants if he is not wearing a suit (or may not).

basically no one should wear double-breasted suits, afaic, but in my experience they are generally worn by big fat guys

i should note that i used 'separates' incorrectly above to refer to coat and trousers - it refers to suit pieces that you buy separately

the suit article there is also useful: http://www.askmen.com/fashion/fashiontip_250/274_fashion_advice.html

particularly this: Choosing the right shirt and tie is your opportunity to play with color.

i really love cream/ivory mens suits right now. they kind of look 70s YSL, no? here is joel mchale in one with probably the wrong color shirt:

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/6867/aolsoupgx7.jpg

you might have to be tall and thin to pull this off.

Also, here worn by decapitated model:

http://mensflair.com/media/mens-suits-summer-fashion.jpg

as much as i like those cream-colored suits, HOOS, if i were you id stick to a versatile/conservative color--charcoal or brown say--for your first suit

youll look dumb wearing an off-white suit after labor day anyway.

not that i know that much about any of this, just suggesting that for your first suit for your first job wearing a suit, you probably want to go with "not standing out"--i.e. no wacky colors, no pinstripes, probably not double-breasted. not that any of this stuff looks bad!! but if youre asking i love style for suit advice you should probably stick to real basic stuff.

I could imagine narrow black pants matching with a variety of suit jackets

yeah, narrow pants are good. narrow ties too.

mixing different shades of grey and black = encouraged

Just sayin':

Wouldn't be caught dead in non-matching suit!

Please carry on.

pinstripes do not necessarily 'stand out'. some do, sure, but less obtrusively-colored and narrower (but not too narrow?) ones don't, much. whether pins are appropriate in hoos' context, i can't say. they do have a hint of presumption about them that might be inappropriate in a service industry (like the law, lol).

i generally wear pins about 1/4-1/3 of the time, which might be close to pushing it, but my navy pin suit is my favorite.

elmo, I can brush up quite nicely. I should take a photo in my price of wales check threepiece with Ianthe Jaquard shirt, as I look rather dapper in that.

Navy Pin-stripe is my least favourite suiting, I am a little suspicious of navy in any case, but each to their own.

i think navy looks nice on people who have blonde hair

if your not wearing a tie, it's ok to mix the colours as long as the jacket is kinda blazer-ish.

btw, why does every man under about 22 who wears a suit always have it at least two sizes too big?

i thought navy-khaki was coming back in or something

not for hoos per se but just in general

btw, why does every man under about 22 who wears a suit always have it at least two sizes too big?

-- jeremy waters, Tuesday, July 29, 2008 2:38 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

bcuz they dont have the $$$ to get it tailored i would imagine

dude try every man under 30 for serious

bcuz they dont have the $$$ to get it tailored i would imagine

-- deej, Tuesday, July 29, 2008 8:40 PM

i buy off the peg and find stuff that just about fits me.

lucky man

i'm not talking about suits that don't quite fit perfect, i'm talking about huge baggy clown pants and sleeves down to their fingernails.

Because their mothers used to buy their dress clothes "to grow into" and they never figured out that it was an imperfect solution. Either that or their mothers are still buying their dress clothes.

Navy-khaki makes me think of little boys at Easter, most likely young brothers in matching new jackets and trousers that will be handed down to the boy in the family by the next time they're worn.

Err, the NEXT boy in the family...

hoos, youre only looking to buy one suit right now, right? not a bunch at once?

if hoos has to wear a suit to work every day, he definitely needs more than one

yep

one of my bosses has nearly 20 suits

and he's like 6'6" or taller

3 suits to start with

should be reasonable

btw, why does every man under about 22 who wears a suit always have it at least two sizes too big?

To be fair, the cheaper off-the-rack suits at Men's Wearhouse or Filene's type places (where young guys' suits often come from) always seem to be built to accommodate stout, tubby older guys, too -- so if a young, fit guy finds something that fits his shoulders, it's liable to be too huge everywhere else. Add that to young guys being used to baggy fits, unfamiliar with suit-proportion rulebooks, and usually buying suits in a grimacing mom-made-me "when am I ever going to wear this anyway" style, and there you go.

I have some sympathy on this one, because I was looking through some designer resale shops for a decent suit the other day, and even the smallest sizes I could find (36S!) were just MASSIVE on me, totally unworkable. The only times I can grab a jacket off a rack and have it fit is when it's some kind of skinny designer-ish hipster suit (last two successes were, like, Jil Sander and APC), which is why I was looking in designer resale shops in the first place.

are you above getting a suit from a vintage or thrift store and having it tailored? I love menswear styles & used to find lots of cool suits at the thrifts.. sleeves always too short though :(

DC is also overloaded with giant, ugly suits in the women's stores btw

are you above getting a suit from a vintage or thrift store and having it tailored?

Would do this in a heartbeat.

it always bummed me out finding really beautifully made suits in thrifts, while new stuff is just.. not so much, unless it's very expensive. but the thing is I never have to worry about matching a shirt and tie! So confusing.

are you above getting a suit from a vintage or thrift store and having it tailored?

I'd have to get it mildly tailored, yes, but I also need to find something close enough to start with! There are a few great consignment / resale shops in Manhattan that carry lots of good designer suits, most of them looking like they were worn for about a year before being cast off. Some of the ones downtown wind up with slim enough designs and sizes that I could skip the tailoring (just adjust the trouser length and go), but the ones uptown are just ... large.

(ACTUALLY! while swimming in giant 36-shorts at one of the uptown stores I was shopping alongside Michael Clarke Duncan of Green Mile fame, who I imagine was having something of the opposite problem.)