Shorten Your Sleeves

I do not have short arms. In fact I’ve always thought them a little long if anything; average at the very least.

Yet every suit I buy has arms that are an inch too long. Surely the rest of the male population with a 40-inch chest can’t have arms that are that much longer?

The truth is, they don’t. Suits are just manufactured with longer arms than average because few men notice that their sleeves are too long. They’d notice if they were too short, as there would be a startling excess of cuff. But an inch or two too long goes unnoticed.

It’s the same with a jacket’s waist. Every off-the-peg jacket is made with a waist that is far bigger than the average for a man of that chest size. Because many thin men don’t notice that it’s too big about the waist. They don’t even do the jacket up most of the time. Yet fat men notice when the waist is too small. The physical discomfort ensures it.

Now I can just buy a 40 short, when the retailer offers it. The jacket will be shorter as well, but I generally prefer that style anyway. But if my arms are longer than average and I’m on the 40 short, what does everyone do that has shorter arms?

They don’t do anything. They let their sleeves be too long and as a result lose one of the joys of formal dressing – that colour combination that occurs at the end of the arm where cuff peeks out of jacket sleeve. If the sleeves are the correct length (shirt stopping at the base of the thumb, jacket at the wrist bone – when arms are at your side) there is a lovely dash of colour at the end of the arm that serves to flatter and highlight its length. It is one of the style loci (see previous post).

A sleeve that is one inch longer than it should be is just enough to cover the shirt cuff, but not enough to look wrong to the untrained eye. So men do not have it altered.

They should do. It is cheap to change, probably around £15 to £20 depending on your tailor – and assuming the jacket does not have working buttonholes. If it doesn’t have buttonholes the tailor can shorten the arm and move one button from the bottom to the top of the row. If it does, the shortening has to be done from the shoulder, with the whole sleeve being unsewn from the main body, shortened and reattached. That will be more like £35 to £40.

If you can change it cheaply, do. It’s another one of those little things that makes a big difference to how an outfit looks.

Go Bespoke and Prepare to Suffer

Buying bespoke will never go out of style, but are stylish men destined to suffer as they turn dressing into an art form? This is a question that has recently troubled me.

Was the great German philosopher Schopenhauer right? Is humanity trapped in an endless cycle of willed desire, relieved only briefly through the sating of this desire before the yearning just rises again. I want a well fitted dinner jacket, I venture out, I hand over my abused credit card and as I walk home I am happy but for how long?

One of my New Years resolutions is to buy less (I used to be the ultimate consumer personified) but what I buy will be quality. “Less is more” should ring true in every man’s wardrobe. This has brought me into the well cut and measured world of bespoke, a which has always been attractive one to me; consider me the chubby cheeked child with face pressed against the shop windows of Savile Row. However, my new mantra could also be my downfall, I urge you to have a degree of caution when visiting your tailor.

The greatest danger of bespoke is its very nature. Bespoke clothing means that the consumer doesn’t want an existing item; they crave something that is theirs, something perfect. The road to perfection is far from the easy path. Like most creative goals the quest for perfection could prove elusive. Furthermore, bespoke is not entirely a matter of purchase anymore it is more a matter of creation. On bespoke tailoring Hardy Amies remarked: “The whole process should be a harmonious co-operation between designer, tailor and customer, with the salesperson as a sort of referee.” In essence bespoke gives a great deal of power to the buyer, changing their ordinarily passive role, at least in the garments creation, to one of collaboration between tailor and consumer.

Another potential problem with bespoke is the process does not allow instant consumer satisfaction that most of us crave. Rather than a quick off the rail, transaction, and into the bag, the process takes weeks, where the consumer is left in animated suspension and open to spot the next perfect piece and therefore ultimately delaying gratification. As you visit your tailor you could easily spot the perfect cloth or a variant cut that will soon make you think of the next suit.

Regardless of the above I am still going to take the risk and I urge you to do the same. As you get dressed in the morning finding that your clothes fit perfectly, the cuffs peeping out just enough from your jacket’s sleeve, with your trousers breaking at just the right point on the shoe, it will be well worth it.