Men's Fashion - How to Buy and Fit a Suit

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• Elanimage Flag

  Good content
  Great information for men on how to buy a well fitted suit. Many men do not know these details!

Transcripts

Hi, my name is Matt Landsberg, I am president of Eric Finn Custom Clothiers. We make custom suits, custom shirts, and a host of other custom garments for Executives, Attorneys, Athletes and Professional Entertainers. We have been featured in a number of area publications including the Washington Post and probably a dozen other publications, and serve primarily Washington D.

C.

, New York and Miami.

Today were going to talk about how to purchase a custom suit, how to have it fit well, what to look forward when buying a custom suit, including quality aspects of it, if you choose to have something made custom, how to find a good tailor, and ultimately, how to take care of your suit. Next, were going to talk about, and were going to show what an ill-fitting suit looks like. Here we have got Brice wearing a shirt bought off the rack, thats a little too big in the waist, thats a first glaring issue I see. So, here he has got all kinds of extra room, and if you were to tuck it in there would be all kinds of blousing, and it would look fairly poor. What you want to do for this is take this to your local tailor, a quality tailor that works on clothes frequently, and have it adjusted. Its not something that cost tremendously a lot of money, but probably around $20-25 per shirt. The other thing I see here is the sleeve is pretty long on Brice. He has got a lot of extra bunching here, and so you can have this shortened as well by a qualified tailor. The other glaring aspect I see is a watch. He has got a larger watch, and that the cuff, the cuff doesnt cover the watch. What you can do with your tailor as well is have them take off the button and reestablish it where its slightly bigger, so it slides over the watch. In the shoulders it fits pretty well, and in the neck it fits pretty well also. Ideally when I get about one finger there, if its too tight, obviously you can strangle yourself, if its too full, it looks sloppy. Next thing we will do is talk about the suit, and how it should fit the jacket. So, this jacket as a whole is just a little too big for Brice. First thing I notice is its too full on the chest here. So, youve got a little bit of buckling, especially if he is not standing completely straight, youve got all kinds of extra fabric here. Its not too bad in the shoulders, but just a hair big, you might be able to see that Im pinching a little bit of extra shoulder padding, ideally that shouldnt be case. The biggest and most glaring issue about this jacket is he has got way too much room in the waist. A lot of times when somebody buys a suit off the rack, its going to be too big in the waist. If you dont get a quality tailor to adjust it, then thats going to be too full, but again, this is something that can be pulled in on the side of the jacket. The sleeves of this jacket are too short. You can even see the button, and again, the shirt sleeve is too long, but the jacket is too short. Ideally what you want to show is about a quarter inch of shirt sleeve underneath the jacket sleeve. In this case, again, because the shirt is not coming over top of the watch, you cant see any sleeve at all. Again, these are all things that should be considered when buying a suit, and once you have the suit having them altered properly. The other thing about this jacket is that its too long. Tailoring is very much about balance and proportion. The jacket should cut the ware in half. So, from behind the neck to the floor, if for example thats 60 inches, your jacket length should be about 30 inches. This one is too long, and it makes Brices legs look shorter, so there is lot of illusion there. So, this is one of the things where you can have the jacket shortened, or ideally if youre buying off the rack, you know its a look forward with the right jacket length. Next thing thats very glaring about this, and we see it frequently is the trousers he is wearing is too long. You can see here its buckling both in the front. So, there is not even a proper break as it should be, but its all together buckling. If he turns 90 here, you can see how it is in the back, its bucking and its dragging along the back. Thats another very simple thing for a tailor to fix, but its one of the things that really needs to be paid attention to, and it shows youre paying attention, youre polished to your overall appearance. Here we can see that the trousers are too short, some people might refer to this as high water, or wearing high waters. This is one of those cases where the trousers clearly need to be lengthened, and in this case a good two or three inches. Here you can see from the back how high it is. Now, ideally its going to go basically right above the heel. Once thats corrected, you shouldnt have a problem. Now, if youre buying something off the rack and its significantly short like this, you might want to check the inside of the trouser to make sure there is enough fabric where it can be let out. One last thing I am going to show, turn Brice 90 here, is frequently, and this suit particularly isnt too bad, but a lot of guys you see a collar roll right here. Thats another fairly easy thing to fix, again, take it to a qualified tailor, and what theyre going to do is lower the collar and take out this extra fabric, so everything lays smooth around the back. Next were going to show how a suit should fit properly.

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