He wears a suit well.

August 15, 2011 10:00 PM

What does it mean to "wear a suit well?" Interested in specifics.

A bit of a frivolous question, but I run across the phrase "wears a suit well" every so often in fiction usually pertaining to fit but not hypertrophied tall (Western/Caucasian/White) men.

Does this refer to a
- particular body build
- specific body part (Z)

Is it because of
- particularly X people have "good looking" Z
- Z is something that on most people don't look flattering
- "off the
- some particular technical aspect of tailoring/fashion-history makes suits fit one body type more than all the others
- production stock department-store suits are made in one dimension but multiple sizes, and are all based around a single height-weight-whatever ratio

I can't believe that it originates from the lyrics of a song published in 1999. But then again, I've been known to be stunningly wrong about pop culturey stuff.

Is there a psychological/posture aspect that I haven't been beanplating enough?

posted by porpoise to Society & Culture (30 answers total)

Best answer: One of the things about trousers is that they're not really supposed to fit right at your waist. People new to suits are usually surprised to find that trousers fit much higher up than they're used to.

For people with anything but a mostly-vertical thigh-to-chest line, this is pretty awkward.

Someone who doesn't wear a suit well is going to have 1) love handles that protrude out from under the belt in an awkward way, which can be painful or 2) love handles that due to possible weight fluctuations are keeping their trousers down at their waist, which subverts the nice long-leg look and leaves a pile of fabric at their ankles.

Just an idea.
posted by circular at 10:12 PM on August 15, 2011

I've generally taken it to mean that the person is slimmish with wide(ish) shoulders, and the suit:

1. Is not too long in the sleeves.
2. Not over-large (i.e not baggy around the chest, shoulders and back).
3. Nor too small such that wrists are showing chest is popping out etc.

In short, the person is wearing a suit that fits them well, either because they have a mannequin-like build, or an expensive/well-tailored suit.
posted by smoke at 10:13 PM on August 15, 2011

I believe you're over thinking this.

I've always assumed it's just another way of saying any (and all) of the following:

He's classy, he has style, he has grace, he has good mojo, he has an air about him, etc

As you can see, all of the above is similarly, uh, obtuse when you really think about it, but we all know what someone using those phrases is trying to say. It's saying they have a quality hard to define, a good/handsome/charismatic kind of thing. In the case of this phrase it's specifically addressing being well dressed, but it's no more complicated.


But then again, I could be completely wrong, I suppose.
posted by Patbon at 10:22 PM on August 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

Honestly, I'm a bit confused by this phrase, too. If you're suit is properly cut for your body-type (i.e., you choose the proper size suit and have a good tailor custom fit it to your body), then you should automatically wear a suit well.

Circular's idea about the waistline of a suit being higher than most people are used to is somewhat accurate, but I've had tailors intentionally cut my trousers so that they sit on my hips (as that's how I wear more casual clothes) -- not at my request, mind you -- and they look pretty good that way, so I'm not sure it's as simple as that.
posted by asnider at 10:23 PM on August 15, 2011

You're suit = your suit. It's late and I should not be typing things on a public forum.
posted by asnider at 10:24 PM on August 15, 2011

I've always read it like Patbon does. "He wears a suit well" means the character is clean-cut, stylish, classy, and put-together. And, in this case, wearing a suit. Think the exact opposite of Comic Book Guy.
posted by phunniemee at 10:28 PM on August 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

In my experience (I wear suits every day at work), an ill-fitting suit jacket will either have stretch lines where it is too tight, or wrinkles due to excess fabric in some places. These things are usually most pronounced around shoulders. If you're unlucky, you could have both problems in the same jacket.

Trousers can also have similar problems around the hips. And then there is the matter of having the right spot on the waist at which to fit the trousers.

Tailored-to-fit suits, when tailored well, are, well, fitting. With some experience, you'd be able to tell if a person is wearing his suit well. But I have never heard the phrase being used in a very specific sense of cut/fit/design/body type etc.
posted by vidur at 10:31 PM on August 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I think Patbon has it. The Italians have a word for it: sprezzatura.
posted by cazoo at 10:31 PM on August 15, 2011

Top ten men in a suit, and why.
posted by unliteral at 10:35 PM on August 15, 2011

Best answer: From my personal experience, "wears a suit well" = Has large shoulders and a tight midsection with long legs.

I'm a shorty (5'10") with great shoulders, but short legs. The two suits I had tailored in Vietnam two years ago fit me like a glove. Both times I wore them into a meeting, I got accused of overdressing/asskissing. YMMV.

It might have been the shoes.
posted by Sphinx at 10:36 PM on August 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

I was recently in a meeting with 4 men in suits. I happen to know that two of these men wear suits every day, and the other two tend to dress more business casual. All of them were well dressed to my eye (no cheap suits, no loose collars, well-tied neckties, etc), and they were tall, reasonably lean men. There was a perceptible difference between the suit-wearers and non-suit wearers. The suit wearers made it look natural. This could have been a function of just better tailoring and quality, but at least part of seemed to be attitude. One dude is now my mental image for "wears a suit well."
posted by cabingirl at 11:03 PM on August 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Posture is huge.
posted by troublesome at 11:16 PM on August 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I don't think it has anything to do with the physical shape of the guy or the suit. I think it's an attitude thing. You're not pulling at it, you're not scrunching it by sitting on it weird, you're not shifting uncomfortably because your neck is constrained... in short, you don't look like a cat who has been forced to wear a Halloween costume. You look like you were born to wear a suit, it's effortless.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:20 PM on August 15, 2011 [5 favorites]

You're not pulling at it, you're not scrunching it by sitting on it weird, you're not shifting uncomfortably because your neck is constrained... in short, you don't look like a cat who has been forced to wear a Halloween costume. You look like you were born to wear a suit, it's effortless.

I contend that most of those things you describe are not due to an attitude, but rather due exactly to the shape of one's body or one's suit. I say this as a dude who wears suits every day for work.
posted by smoke at 11:31 PM on August 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

From About Looking by John Berger: The Suit and the Photograph
posted by Mister Bijou at 11:32 PM on August 15, 2011

Best answer: One of the things about trousers is that they're not really supposed to fit right at your waist. People new to suits are usually surprised to find that trousers fit much higher up than they're used to.

Well, technically they do fit at the waist. The natural waist in slim men is about an inch and a half above where the hips are, but most men are not skinny enough to wear trousers there without braces to hold them up so they wear them at the hips.

I also think posture plays a role, slouching is something that you can pull off in a t-shirt or a shirt. If you slouch wearing a suit, all the extra fabric will pool and you'll look really sloppy.
posted by atrazine at 11:33 PM on August 15, 2011

Ok, take a twelve year old into his father's closet and put him in a suit. That awkward ill-fitting trying too hard result is the suit wearing the man.

A man who wears a suit well is the opposite. There is the aura of not seeming over-dressed or trying too hard despite wearing the little black dress of the men's fashion world. It implies that yes, the suit fits impeccably, but the wearer could convincingly say "this old thing? I keep meaning to retire it."
posted by politikitty at 11:46 PM on August 15, 2011

Standing up straight, with your pelvis level and your shoulders back, will surely improve anyone's appearance in a suit. It certainly makes my (non-suit) clothes appear to fit a lot better.
posted by emilyw at 12:25 AM on August 16, 2011

Standing up straight, with your pelvis level and your shoulders back, will surely improve anyone's appearance in a suit. It certainly makes my (non-suit) clothes appear to fit a lot better

Yes, and that's because that's the posture for which most clothes (incl. suits) are stitched.
posted by vidur at 12:37 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Yeah, I think in the context you're encountering it, it's shorthand for being a trim, broad-shouldered, hail-fellow-well-met, white-toothed handsome fellow who is confident in his own skin. Maybe not James Bond (though he does wear a suit well), but certainly no slouch in the charisma department. And he wears a suit well essentially because he's not covering up any shortcomings, so it can go about its job of being suity without worrying about making his ass look too big.

That said, Put This On Episode 6: Body might help to more directly illuminate what it means to wear a suit well. Or to wear a suit that's well-suited to you. It begins on the topic of dress shirts, but at 4:30 it segues into talking about body types and some aspects of suit tailoring which serve them.
posted by mumkin at 1:07 AM on August 16, 2011

These scans from a japanese magazine answer some of the questions of what makes a fitting suit: one, two.

You can be fat or skinny—in a well made (likely made to measure if not bespoke) suit you will still look like one million currency credits.
posted by oxford blue at 3:13 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

PS If anyone speaks Japanese and could translate those pages I'd be in your debt.
posted by oxford blue at 3:18 AM on August 16, 2011

Aside from having a suit that fits well, the keys are posture, confidence, and ease. No guy will wear a suit well the first time he puts one on. Some guys look like they were born in a suit, which to me is something thst only comes with time, no matter how well-tailored it is.
posted by fso at 4:17 AM on August 16, 2011

Best answer: From Paul Fussell's "Class"

"The difference between high- versus low-caste effects in men's clothes is partly the result of the upper orders' being used to wearing suits, or at least jackets. As Lurie perceives, the suit "not only flatters the inactive, it deforms the laborious." (And the athletic or strenuously muscular: Arnold Schwartzenegger [sic] looks especially comic in a suit.) For this reason the suit-preferably the "dark suit"-was a prime weapon in the nineteenthcentury war of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. "The triumph of the . . . suit," says Lurie, "meant that the blue-collar man in his best clothes was at his worst in any formal confrontation with his `betters.' " We can think of blacksmith Joe Gargary in Dickens's Great Expectations, dressed miserably to the nines for an appearance in the city, being patronized by the comfortably dressed Pip.

"This strategic disadvantage," Lurie goes on, "can still be seen in operation at local union-management confrontations, in the offices of banks and loan companies, and whenever a workingclass man visits a government bureau." That's an illustration of John T. Molloy's general principle of the way men use clothing to convey class signals. When two men meet, he perceives, "One man's clothing is saying to the other man, `I am more important than you are, please show respect'; or, `I am your equal and expect to be treated as such'; or, `I am not your equal and do not expect to be treated as such.' " For this reason, Molloy indicates, proles who want to rise must be extremely careful to affect "Northeastern establishment attire," which will mean that Brooks Brothers and J. Press will be their guides: "Business suits should be plain; no fancy or extra buttons; no weird color stitching; no flaps on the breast pocket; no patches on the sleeves; no belts in the back of the jacket; no leather ornamentation; no cowboy yokes. Never."

It's largely a matter of habit and practice, says C. Wright Mills in The Power Elite (1956): no matter where you live, he insists, "anyone with the money and the inclination can learn to be uncomfortable in anything but a Brooks Brothers suit." And, I would add, can learn to recoil from clothes with a glossy (middleclass) as opposed to a matte (upper-middleclass) finish. Middleclass clothes tend to err by excessive smoothness, to glitter a bit, to shine even before they're worn. Upper-middle clothes, on the other hand, lean to the soft, textured woolly, nubby. Ultimately, the difference implies a difference between city and country, or labor and leisure, where country betokens not decrepit dairy farms and bad schools but estates and horse-leisure..." (via)
posted by kmennie at 6:16 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It has little to do with the build of the individual, but everything to do with the care and attention of the wearer. When someone wears a suit twice a year they don't look nearly as comfortable as someone who does it often. Here are signs of wearing it well:

* The shoulder sections fit properly. Many ill fitting suit jackets (and dress shirts) have the shoulder section extending over the edge of the shoulder. This looks sloven on a shirt and on a jacket makes the head look disproportionately small.

* No exterior tags are shown. That little tag on the left sleeve is meant to be removed. It is only there at the sales shop to make it easy to identify the brand.

* The back collar lays flat.

* The sleeves of the jacket are a little shorter than the dress shirt sleeves, thereby showing about a quarter or half inch of fabric. This requires the shirt to be the right length, but when done well it really sets off the look well.

* The neck tie is appropriately tight, forms a downward "v" in the knot and is drawn up to the neck rather than hung loosely about. It should be tight enough to hold still but loose enough to put two fingers between the neck and the dress shirt.

* The points of the shirt collar are fitting to the shape of the face of the wearer. For people with round faces, they often look better with collars that point downward to create an elongated profile.

* The contrast between the tie, jacket and shirt complement the contrasts of the wearer's face. The easiest clue is to look at one's hair and eyebrows versus one's complexion for clues.

* Slacks should break well at the shoe, neither looking like the wearer is preparing for flood or forgot to wear a belt.

* Particularly savvy dressers will choose textures for their jackets which fit well with the town or the country. Flat finishes are common for the town while tweeds and rougher textures play well in the country.

The combination of many of these little things adds up to the unmistakable impression that the person "wears it well." Many of the "rules" noted above are dated and certainly debatable, but I hope it gives a visual of how a gentleman dresses well.
posted by dgran at 6:45 AM on August 16, 2011 [8 favorites]

Atrazine's comment explains something that has puzzled me for many years: I once read a comment by a men's fashion guru that men's trousers had to be worn with braces (suspenders to you in USA, I think) rather than a belt to look superb. Braces would automatically put the waist in the right place. I have to admit that I once wore a suit reasonably well, but aging and too much good living means no more Mr Suit Guy.
posted by Logophiliac at 6:55 AM on August 16, 2011

I've been told I wear a suit well by a few folks, and I'm not long and lean. I'm a tall, but short-limbed, long-torso'd, wide shoulders but wide everything else, too.

I think the compliment is aimed at a well-tailored suit with attention to small cosmetic details - cufflinks, belt, shoes, socks, tie, hair, grooming all contribute - and wearing it naturally and without affect. Do you look like you're at a funeral, or do you look like you're a captain of industry?
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:14 AM on August 16, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks everyone, especially for the history/cultural lessons!
posted by porpoise at 11:50 AM on August 16, 2011

square shoulders
erect posture
long straight arms and legs
thin neck
posted by ohshenandoah at 5:52 PM on August 16, 2011

Good advise all around from the above, and the central answer to the above...

"What does it mean to "wear a suit well?"

...is to wear suits often. When you wear suits often you learn what works, structurally, texturally, compositional, etc. This cannot be 100% taught or book learned; it must be experienced. The experienced man can wear ANY kind of good quality suit and pull it off. I see 80+ year old dudes rocking the old skool seersucker in Midtown in summer and still turning the pretty heads of both sexes. I occasionally, rarely and quite surprisingly see guys pull off a Mens' Warehouse (granted, it'll be shot in a year, but no matter; on that day, they are *wearing* that suit).

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go brush my PS for a meeting tomorrow....
posted by digitalprimate at 7:11 PM on August 16, 2011