Fit Above All Else

Several men’s style websites run forums that ask ‘what am I wearing today?’ Several blogs out there do the same. A few days ago I made the mistake of perusing them, looking for inspiration.

In my mind, the people on the site would look like those photographed on The Sartorialist. They would be dressed with obvious care and knowledge of the pieces that clothed them, with a spark of originality that inspires. Each would be a budding style expert, translating the experience of such forums into fresh, personal creations.

Instead, it was all rather depressing. First, they were keener to talk about the brands that made their garments than about how those garments were made, cut or designed. Each person listed the relevant brand for each item – Loro Piana, Zegna, Brioni – without anything about why they thought a particular combination worked, or why they admired the shape of a particular piece.

Second, not one single post impressed with its understated elegance. Each seemed to equate an interest in men’s style with flamboyance. One individual was particularly pleased with his cream suit, cream tie and white shirt. With a white fedora. This is not style, it is caricature. Another finished off his grey jacket and black trousers with a pair of white clown shoes. With their pointed toes they were almost as long as his shins.

Thirdly, most depressingly, and in a way linked to the other two sources of woe, none of them showed any knowledge or indeed any interest in fit. Trousers puddled on shoes. Shirt cuffs hung three or four inches beyond the jacket sleeve. Shoulders bulged out of jackets that were too small. Indeed, several jackets weren’t even done up, which is not a good sign in itself but also prevents anyone seeing whether it fits.

This is linked to the first two points as fit had obviously been sacrificed to brand and exuberance. There were many discussions of shops and over-the-top accessories. But none on cloth or cut.

One gentleman was very proud of his Zegna jacket, which was lovely except that his shoulders were visibly straining against the top of the jacket sleeve. Not just a little, but a lot. It looked like he was wearing a sweater. A polite suggestion from another contributor that his jacket was too small brought the response that “I like my jackets in this style, it’s a personal thing. I think it makes the outfit tighter and sleeker.”

Now, fit is obviously a variable. There are many questions of personal choice, and many variants in style around the world. But the variations are all more subtle than most people think (with the probable exception today of Thom Browne). The difference in silhouette between the Sack, the Drape and the Continental is largely in the waist and the trousers, in small alterations to the length of the jacket or the curve through the chest. No one advocates puddled trousers. No tailor has ever deliberately made jackets so tight that the back strains against its stitching. If you want a tighter suit, this is achieved through darts and a sleeker chest; perhaps through less shoulder padding or a shorter jacket. Material does not strain on purpose, because it is uncomfortable and because it is inelegant.

Fit is more important than anything else. If I have realised one thing about menswear in past five years, it is that. Clothes can be cheap, they can be threadbare and they can be hideously patterned. But the man wearing them will always look better than his contemporary if they fit him well, and his contemporary’s do not.

Of course, this tenet is debateable at its extremes. But rules are always so – they are simple in order to be easy to remember and easy to bend. I believe that fit is more important than anything else, and this is the first advice I would give to any style novice.

While there are few websites that display photographs of their authors wearing well-fitting clothes, they seem to be vastly outnumbered. Hopefully, there is a forum out there on fit that I am yet to discover.

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The Loci of Style Satisfaction

There are few things more satisfying than raising your arm to read the time, and being presented with a perfect triplet of complimentary colours: on your jacket sleeve, on the inch or so of cuff, and on the watch strap. Today that is tan (a houndstooth linen jacket), sky blue (a cotton shirt) and dark brown (leather watch strap). That triplet sums up my outfit for the day; it is its locus.

There are two other obvious loci on the body, which sum up an outfit. The first and most direct is that contained within the gorge of a jacket – the triplet of shirt, tie and lapel. This gets the greatest attention when dressing, and deservedly so. That combination of colours and textures is the first thing that hits people. To distort (and I suppose contradict) an old phrase, it walks into a room almost before the man wearing it.

It is worth spending the time getting that combination correct. But it is unfortunately the area of your outfit you are likely to see least. Unless you spend a large proportion of the day looking into mirrors and shop windows, you are unlikely to be struck pleasantly by how that combination works together.

As such, the wrist is a much more satisfying locus. It strikes you as you glance at the time, as you stretch for the computer keyboard, as you reach out to shake a colleague’s hand. It reminds you of how well your outfit goes together and, perhaps more importantly, of how well your clothes fit. The length of jacket and shirt sleeves have to be exact to get that pleasant combination in all its harmony.

The other, less direct but no less satisfying combination is the trouser/sock/shoe triplet. This mainly reveals itself when you cross your legs, and is therefore probably displayed less often than the wrist. But there is something very pleasing about seeing your grey flannel trousers complemented by dark brown leather brogues and pumpkin-coloured socks. And even without the flare of a tie, or cufflinks, its harmonies are both pleasing and reassuring, akin to catching a fleeting scent of your aftershave.

The last, possible locus is that containing belt, shirt, trousers and tip of tie. While this does sum up an outfit it its harmonious combination, it displays itself rarely to you (given location on the body) and almost as rarely to others (presuming your jacket is buttoned when standing). Plus, you won’t necessarily be wearing a belt everyday, certainly not with more formal outfits and suits.

The style loci have this to teach us: appreciate them, for they are your reward for an outfit well bought and well assembled. And if they do not work, let it irritate you to the point where you have your clothes altered or think more carefully about your combination the next time.

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The Menswear Poll

This poll is intended to take the temperature of menswear at a particularly interesting time for the industry, with a resurgent interest in more formal attire and explosion of debate and discussion online. Thank you for taking the time to fill it in. I will be fascinated to see the results.

Many assert that style goes in phases, with daywear or office wear being relegated over time to semi-formal wear, and semi-formal to formal. Tails, for example, have fallen through all three stages, and the lounge suit has gone from casual wear to smart office wear today…

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Odd Colour Combinations

There are a good few ways to stand out in a suit, almost as many as the chapters of a style book: cloth, cut, pattern, accessories etc. But one of the most rewarding and hardest to master is colour. It is so easy to get wrong – everyone can summon some lurid combination from his or her memory. I saw someone in a suit recently that had bulbous red chalk stripes on a grey/green ground. It was hideous.

Colour is also relatively easy to get right – blue suit, white shirt, blue tie; grey suit, pink shirt, black tie; grey suit, white shirt, almost any tie. What is genuinely difficult is a colour combination that is right but unusual. Something that stands out because it is not safe, and therefore is rarely worn; but that works.

Combining colours does not come naturally to many men. It is an artistic talent at heart, and one that few have pursued or developed. Most would ideally have a colour combination chart to refer to, but disliking such artifice, choose to re-wear the same few combinations.

I cycle to work most days, and keep a few suits and pairs of shoes in the office. So every morning I have to pack a shirt and tie, trying to picture how they will go with the suits, shoes and other accessories I have at work. It makes picking combinations even harder.

There are three combinations that I like particularly because they are different, and that I think stand out because they work. They are pink and green, purple and yellow, and blue and brown.

Pink and green works best as a shirt/tie combination: pale pink shirt, bright green tie. The tie I have is a sharp green polo tie, complete with small red insignia. I’m sure the red helps a little to harmonise with the shirt, but the pink and green themselves work wonderfully. Unusual, yes; but it works. I also have a dark green handkerchief with brown detailing that works just as well to complement an open-necked pink shirt. Red and green are of course contrasting colours, but they are too strong on their own to pair off well. With the red diluted into pink, it works.

Which segues nicely into purple and yellow, as they are also contrasting colours (for those who can’t remember art class, a primary colour’s contrasting colour is the result of mixing the other two primaries). Now purple and yellow are hard to match in a shirt and tie. I have one very pale yellow shirt that does work with a dark purple tie, but I think the two are best put together in bright but separated combinations – shirt and pocket handkerchief or socks and tie/handkerchief/shirt. Mostly I think yellow works best as the first of these pairings. Try a purple paisley handkerchief with your yellow shirt; or bright yellow socks with an otherwise sober purple tie.

My last combination is less unusual, but it is a perennial favourite. All too often I feel men reach for a drab or washed-out tie to go with their blue shirt – grey, black or a pale version of one of the colours above. Instead, try a brown tie, perhaps with a white stripe. The richness of the colour is unusual and draws the eye; the same works with a brown handkerchief (perhaps yellow/orange pattern) to an open-necked blue shirt. The same rule applies to brown shoes with a blue shirt, as is often said. The Italians like brown shoes they hardly wear anything else. Black is reserved for formal wear. Get a nice pair of chocolate Oxfords and you may find yourself doing the same.

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Thanks, and the Influence of Others

Thank you to all of you that took the time to respond to the question I posed in my last posting, on the best material for odd trousers – something between flannels and jeans. You’ll be pleased to hear that I found a good compromise in a pair of dark khaki cotton trousers from Zara. Not the most luxurious pair in the world, but then they are an experimentation still. The next pair may be made by Mr Tam in Hong Kong.

Cotton trousers are clean and crisp, yet light and casual enough to do without a crease, for example, and be more casual. This weekend, to use one commentator’s advice, they may find themselves paired with loafers. Perhaps even Converse, which are the only trainer slim and simple enough to work with trousers such as these.

The shoes and the accessories are as important as the clothes they complement. And given that my tastes are always screaming for an opportunity to wear a pocket handkerchief, everything else needs to run down the other end of the spectrum.

The responses to my question also highlighted a thought I often have – the surprising extent to which the people around us affect what we wear and what we think about what we wear.

This has several levels. First, working in an office will have its own dress code and expectations. In mine many people wear jeans. Senior management wear suits, but a t-shirt and jeans are perfectly acceptable in junior staff. I dress smarter than most, and give it more thought than most. But given the low average, the upper reaches of sartorial expression are probably inadvisable. I should have described these circumstances in detail in my question, as they affect the answers more than anything else.

Second, most people have insecurities and fears, no matter how small, about their clothes. Especially if they put a lot of thought into them. Every stylish man has moments he would rather forget in his past, and is a little afraid of it happening again. You check yourself in shop windows, tug at that handkerchief even though you know you shouldn’t, or straighten and tighten your tie. Confidence builds with age and experience. But it’s a long time to wait.

Third, other people affect you in subtle ways no matter how confident you are. Would you wear a handkerchief so often if everyone else did? Absolutely everyone else? You might like to think you’d feel gratified that everyone embraced a piece of clothing you love so much. But would it hold quite the same importance for you? And how about if no one else wore the same thing? Not in magazines, not across history – if it had no precedent, all of a sudden? Does it not almost entirely determine your impression of an item of clothing?

No matter how confident we are, what we see around us affects our more than we realise or would wish. The question I posed is one of personal taste, only to a certain extent. Fuddy-duddiness is a question of attitude, only to a certain extent. After all, we see what other people wear far more than we see our own outfits.

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