How
to wear the right suit the right way
How
you wear your clothes is almost as important as what you wear!
THE MATERIAL
One way to appear cool is to avoid heavy fabrics.
Double-knit fabrics have the immense advantage of holding their shape, and are
particularly good for travel.
SUIT
Make sure your suit is simple, single breasted and
either dark blue (the darker the better) or dark gray. The cloth should not
have any fancy textured pattern. It is also important to avoid contrasting
stitching or piping, pockets with buttons on them and lapels so wide that they
come to the shoulders. It’s not how
costly it is; but how fit it is!
The left lapel of your suit should have a
buttonhole. It is correct, it is traditional, and it belongs there. There
should be at least three (3) buttons on the sleeve cuffs of a suit and if
possible four (4). Ideally the buttons should be real – that is, you should be
able to button and unbutton them – but to get this small correct touch, you
have to go to a tailor!
Another thing to beware of in having a jacket
altered is the collar at the neck. It is vital that the collar be raised high
enough so that it’s close to the back of the neck, rather than hanging away
from it.
Blazers should be dark blue, single breasted, with
plain gold buttons. They should never, never
have a badge on the right breast, and should always be worn with dark gray
trousers (Black). If you are in the kind of business where you can get away
with a sport jacket from time to time, pick a very lightweight tweed in a
subdued and small check. Suede patches
on the sleeves are ridiculous on the new jacket, except you’ve owned it for
about ten years!
TROUSER
Trousers are almost always worn too short. Nothing
looks worse than a man whose ankles show when he’s standing up. You must insist
that the trousers be long enough to “break” gently over the shoes. Whether they
have cuffs or not doesn’t matter, though in fact cuffs make the trousers hang
better by adding a bit of weight to the bottoms. Beware of trousers that are too long or baggy at the bottoms.
SHIRT
A simple white shirt looks better than anything
else when worn with a suit. Men look best in plain shirts, and most successful
people either wear white or blue shirts. One basic rule: short sleeves are out! A man
who doesn’t have a good inch of shirt cuff showing when he’s wearing his suit
jacket looks naked!
It is also a mistake to put anything in your shirt
pocket (if there is one). Shirt pockets are purely decorative, and a row
of bell-point pen and pencils clipped in one merely makes you look like a
filing clerk!
CUFF LINKS
If
you are going to wear cuff links, they should be as simple and inconspicuous as
possible. It doesn’t matter how much they cost, they shouldn’t draw attention to themselves.
Plain gold ones are probably the best.
TIES
Never buy a tie that is very thin or very wide! As
to colour and pattern, the less conspicuous and flashy, the better. Subdued
stripes, checks, polka dots, and paisley patterns are fine. But no tie should
ever look as if you are wearing a neon sign on your chest.
HANDKERCHIEFS AND SO FORTH
The pocket of your jacket should contain
handkerchief and nothing else. It should be plain white linen, or just possibly
a muted silk paisley square, which should never match the tie!
Very little of the handkerchief should be visible. It should be unfolded and
slightly crushed, rather than arranged in neat little triangle or folded
straight.
Under no circumstances carry pencils, pens, or
glasses in clip cases in your jacket pocket.
SUSPENDERS AND BELTS
Many successful people wear suspenders instead of
a belt, but never wear suspenders and a belt! Heavy tooled belts with
fancy buckles are fine on cowboys, and look great with blue jeans, but serve no
purpose when worn with business suit!
SHOES
There’s no point in dressing carefully if you wear
heavy soled shoes that makes your feet look like King Kong’s. One of the
purposes of shoes is to indicate that the wearer doesn’t need to plod through
the muck and rain like ordinary people. Any well-made neat light shoe is fine,
so long as it’s well shined and not run-down at the heels.
On the whole, black shoes are more useful for the
success look than brown ones. Avoid shoes with very pointed toes or heavy
square toes; they should look as much like your foot as possible. High heels
are definitely out, and have no place in the success look.
SOCKS
Apart from showing several inches of ankle by
having your trouser hung at half mast, few things look worse than short socks,
or socks that fall down in rolls around your ankles.
FOR WOMEN
By and large, women can wear what they want to,
within obvious limits; but the women who get ahead take great care to dress
unobtrusively and conservatively. Avoid very bright colours, “fussy” clothes
very tight pants suit, skirt so short they make you look like a high school
cheer leader, plunging necklines and blue jeans. The extremes of
high-fashion makeup and hairstyling are usually a mistake. Long fingernails
make you look like you are incapable of performing any real work, so nail
fixing should not give that idea at all.
CONCLUSION
In
general, successful women and men avoid extremes of dress. What you
have to do is to project the appearance of someone who is never affected by the
elements, and always manages to appear fresh, energetic, and ready for
anything.
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