How to Talk to Your Tailor
Knowing what you want out of your suit—and how to communicate that to a tailor—is critical to making the most of this important purchase. —Cam
Wolf
Get your shoulders rightbeforeyou visit the tailor. A good tailor can be your suit’s best friend, but they aren’t miracle workers. Shoulders are notoriously difficult areas for a tailor to fix if they’re too far gone. When trying on a suit at the store, make sure the seams of the jacket align with the end of your shoulders—there’s only so much tinkering you can do here.
Wear it with your chest. The literal rule of thumb here is pretty straightforward: tailor the jacket so that, when buttoned, the jacket fits snug enough that you can get your thumb in between the jacket and your stomach. If the jacket is so tight it krinkles into an “X” shape around the fastened button, you need to let it out a little.
2021 fashion, though, has rendered this less a rule than a suggestion. Maybe, like Justin Bieber, Elliott Page, or ASAP Rocky, you want the jacket to fit a little too snugly, or to remind you of your prom look. That can be done! But that’s why it’s so important to know how you want your suit to fit before visiting the tailor. The same rules apply to the next two sections, too.
Arm yourself with knowledge. Traditional rules prescribe that the suit should fit nicely around the arms and stop just above the wrist bone. If you want a classic-looking suit, ask for that. However, Thom Browne ushered in an era of shrunken suits that stop a little further up the arm to show off the whole cuff of the shirt. (Typically, you’d only want a quarter-inch of the shirt sleeve to peek out of the suit!) Or maybe, like NBC, you consider the ‘90s the golden age. In that case you’ll want a baggier suit that’ll happily gobble up all your sleeves, your wrists, and maybe even some of the hands. Check out Fear of God—or your local vintage-wearing influencer—for styling tips here.
Get a leg up. As we reach the end of our journey, there are still plenty of decisions to be made. Whether you want a straight, tapered, or baggy leg is up to you. Tapered may have been the look through the 2010s but we’re settling in with a more classic fit now. If you really want to go turbo with your suit, try the Armani look: billowing pants and a pleat or two for good measure.
Then we get to the break, meaning where and how the pants hit your shoes. No break means the pants end just above the shoes—this has been the dominant style over the past decade or so. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ask for a quarter, half, or full break. A bigger break usually signifies a more conservative suit (though these days, it can signal that you’re letting your freak flag fly, too). Most off-the-rack suits come with long, unfinished hems so even if you aren’t interested in perfecting the fit of a jacket or the length of sleeves, this is one part of your suit that will require a trip to the tailor.
Throw Away Your Pocket Square: Suit Styling for a New Era
For about a hundred years, suiting accessories didn’t change much. Tie, pocket square, cufflinks. Those were the rules. Simple, easy—and boring. Luckily, the tie has been sacrificed at the altar of personal style, and these days there is practically no limit on the styling moves you can introduce into your tailoring wardrobe.