[Closed] How do business men stay looking smart?

[quote=andysredmini ]I just put on my £1700 suit and will I admit I looked pretty smart.

😯

Are you leasing it?

They don't do whatever it was you did in the last 20 mins. What were you doing?

You missed your decimal point. You mean your £17.00 suit from Aldi?

I bought it when I had a high paid job. I haven't worn it for 8 years when I had my last interview. It has emerged today for a funeral. All I have done so far is drive to the after venue to drop a car off.

Some people seem to be able to maintain smart effortlessly throughout the day. I can look smart for about 5 minutes and then this quickly degrades to barely presentable. I do not know why.

No idea. Maybe it's an inbuilt thing. I have just put my suit on for the same reason as you and I look like a tramp already.

I feel a million dollars when I put it on but I'm glad I don't have to wear one anymore. I'm happier with dirt under my fingernails wearing my scruffs.

Are you the same shape as you were 8 years ago?

Have you worn it for 8 years?

Still fits really well after losing 1.5 stone in the last couple of months.

A lot of off the peg big name designer expensive suits are made from very lightweight expensive clothes by so so cutters, which don't seem to bear up to travelling very well. You have more chance of staying smart in a well cut suit.

Some suits stay looking 'fresh' much better than others. Certain materials look creased & knackered in minutes, whereas others look good having been worn all day.

Perhaps the material your posh suit is made from isn't very 'forgiving' in that regard.

I've got a French Connection suit that cost me about £180 & it never ceases to amaze me how well it copes with being worn for a whole day - not that it comes out very often!

I feel a million dollars when I put it

It's not that far off! Canali?

[img] ?3529[/img]

10 points to who can spot what's wrong with that picture.

Are you leasing it?

I didn't expect sensible answers! It's definitely not the suit. That still looks good. It's just me.
On the scale of expensive suits mine is on the cheap side compared with some of the others available when I bought one.

White socks and loafers?

Don't drive in it. Suits only hang properly if you've not sat in them, that's why you see reps hanging their suit jackets on hangers in the back of the car. When I drove a lot with work but had to look smart at the customer, I'd buy an extra pair of trousers with every suit, still wasn't enough to get enough wear out of the jacket before the trousers were shagged. Politicians and businessmen can wear suits as they stand around all day doing naff all.

Suits don't look good based on cost, it is all about cut, I have seen loads of people who have spent fortunes on suits and they look rubbish because they have not been tailored for them.

No, cut matters but the cloth is more important. Some crease easily and take up the shape of the wearer and some don't. The answer is to have three or four suits and rotate them, same as good leather shoes, which you should never wear continuously.

10 points to who can spot what's wrong with that picture

There are at least 4 different but equally intense suns

10 points to who can spot what's wrong with that picture

There are at least 4 different but equally intense suns

and he's wearing his dad's suit

Has the suit got any linen in it? Linen suits are supposed to look creased 😛

Despite having my own suit which fits really rather well I still feel like I'm wearing my dad's suit when I have to put it on... just feels like I'm still playing at being a grown up... maybe that's why I feel scruffy all the time...

Only suits that ever look right on me are the ones that are bespoke, anything off the shelf looks as if I am wearing a potato sack.

Now issues I have found with bespoke suits is, go to the gyme, gain a bit of bulk, now they don't fit properly.

GO to the gym gain a bit of bulk and don't burn off fat - hmmm, now you look like a fat **** in a suit

what's wrong with that picture.

Do you mean the continuity mark on the floor?

Or his shoe/sock combo?

I just put on my £1700 suit

Gold leaf creases easily, well at least that's what I hope it's made out of for that price!

I had a Hugo Boss suit, bought half price in a sale, it pretty much always looked good, till I caught the pocket of the trousers on a seat arm and ripped the buggers!

He certainly shouldn't wearing that jacket, it doesn't do him any favours at all. Trousers too baggy, white socks and loafers and previously mentioned. All in all looks like he wasn't at home when he dressed this morning. Is he shagging the bosses wife and wearing his suit?

He's got what appears to be lunch

10 points to who can spot what's wrong with that picture.

10 points to who can spot what's wrong with that picture.

White socks and loafers?

There are at least 4 different but equally intense suns

and he's wearing his dad's suit

Do you mean the continuity mark on the floor?

Or his shoe/sock combo?

He's got what appears to be lunch

The thumb going around his hot beverage looks incredibly long.

Good grief. Do you lot have no dignity? His bottom button is the only one done up. That's the only one you're not supposed to do up.

Only on single breasted two button suits (the only suit a man should wear in the day). He's wearing a single button double breasted jacket, much beloved of the red glasses and braces brigade in the eighties. I believe his Filofax is in the paper bag

Next you'll be telling me that wing collars for black tie affairs is acceptable - back to prep school for you sir

Good grief. Do you lot have no dignity? His bottom button is the only one done up. That's the only one you're not supposed to do up.

There are different conventions on the planet Zorg, with it's four suns.

he's clearly not snorted enough coke

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The one-legged purple jacket woman is falling backwards.

Leo is wearing the wrong clothes for Irish dancing.

The bank robber concealing a hand gun forgot his face mask.

The props guy forgot the flag's stars.

Do I win a prize?

I've had loads of suits in my time, from cheap supermarket ones to well, slightly more expensive ones, and they've all looked shit on me - I just don't suit a suit.

Yeah you can get them to suit you perfectly and good tailors can even make your body look slightly differently shaped and all that, but I firmly believe if you don't wear them with a certain sense of arrogant entitlement they just don't work and I'm too much of an introvert for that - perhaps that's going overboard, but you can ALWAYS tell when someone isn't used to wearing one, they stand, slightly red faced with a look of "what the balls is all this fuss about" about them.

I've always, always hated the pointlessness of them, they're not comfortable, they're not practical, they serve no purpose - I was glad to give them up when I left the bank in 2009 and a few weddings and funerals aside, I've haven't worn one since.

I was glad to see things were moving a bit in my old place when I walked by a few weeks ago, gone are the boring black and navy pinstripes, now it's more trousers that seem to bridge the gap between suit trousers and jeans, patterned suits with no tie and brown shoes and belts.

back to prep school for you sir

Nowt wrong with the photo, it was the 80s and all good. Burgundy and grey, Mmmm!
Back then we thought that blokes with beards were wierdos. Funny ol' world.

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One disagrees.

The bank robber concealing a hand gun forgot his face mask.

...and was handed a grey suit jacket by the wardrobe dep't, to match his black suit trousers.

10 points to who can spot what's wrong with that picture.

he’s not quite hitting his mark but it’s a wide so the focus puller probably isn’t having a fit.

pistonbroke - Member

Don't drive in it. Suits only hang properly if you've not sat in them, that's why you see reps hanging their suit jackets on hangers in the back of the car.

Ahem...
Bloody philistine.

GQ - how very 'new money'.

i'll send my man round with a card for my tailor. delightful chap, the family have used him for years

Generally, I don't take reps to be the arbiters or style or behaviour. Otherwise we'd all be removing a sock to **** into every time we got stuck in a traffic jam.

The experienced traveller keeps an extra sock in the glove compartment.

On a slightly related subject, I've sometimes wondered about taking "proper" clothes on leisure trips - a dashing linen suit for example, instead of a deplorable t-shirt and shorts.

The experienced traveller keeps an extra sock in the glove compartment.

....next to the travel beaker.

wear a suit with a bit of room to move around inside, it'll minimise creasing.

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On a slightly related subject, I've sometimes wondered about taking "proper" clothes on leisure trips - a dashing linen suit for example, instead of a deplorable t-shirt and shorts.

i do this as i hate looking like a brit abroad dressed like a sack of shite. nothing fancy just linen trousers and a few linen shirts a smedly polo in a slightly different colour to trousers with lightweight leather shoes. swap the shoes out for some thin soled black trainers with minimal branding and breathable mesh (new balance, vivo barefoot etc) if i have a lot of walking to do.
i never ever put the jumper tied over the shoulders though.

[i]I just put on my £1700 suit and will I admit I looked pretty smart. For about 20 minutes. Now I look like a bag of rags as normal.[/i]

Is it an off-the-peg one?

IME pay a third as much (or far, far less abroad) and get a properly fitted one made from quality materials at a tailor.

the family have used him for years

As has been said, cost is no measure of a suit. You could spend less than that and have a proper bespoke mid-weight English woolen cloth single breasted suit that would have a proper floating canvas and look great for as long as it held together and fitted you. Fused jackets tend to look crap very quickly and respond badly to dry cleaning and warm weather.
If it looks bad on you now, did it ever really look good on you back then?

become a gangster?

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Grooming and deportment

I think I'm naturally scruffy, I have trouble looking smart for even 5 minutes. Some people look smart even after being caught in a rain storm without a coat.

http://thechap.co.uk/

They don't do proper work.

On buttons, I would never doubt HRH's sartorial judgement so I would agree that on a two-button double-breaster jacket both buttons must be done up to maintain the line of the front.

On a single-breasted, a gentleman doesn't do up the bottom button.

To the OP it seems you may have paid £1600 too much then.
Decent cut and fabric should hold up on to most normal business day activity. Less so to anything abnormal like skiing or swimming.

As for the DiCaprio pic - the multitude of suns was the second thing I spotted, after the ill fitting suit

Buttons?
Sometimes, often, never.
Well, on a single breasted suit anyway..

To the OP it seems you may have paid £1600 too much then.

Now come on! There's putting folk down for having money to spend on stuff (which I accept is the way around here), then there's just being ridiculous.

A £1700 suit by a proper outfit (Canali/Zenga etc) whether fitted or not, will be a lovely thing and will look good on a slim gentlemen. A £300 suit from say Ted Baker or Hawes & Curtis, taken in to suit Sir, will also be very nice.

A £100 suit will explode in a fireball.

Suits. They keep hanging around. I realised I was the only guy not in a suit at a meeting of folks from a number of companies in my industry on Friday. Most of the other guys had dark grey suits on. Some wore ties too. Me? Black jeans, black T-shirt, black crew necked sweater. I'm kind of glad I don't feel the need to wear a suit.

The women wore a diverse range of clothes from suits to blue jeans.

Starch the collar and cuffs on your shirt. Avoid shirts that crease too easily. There are plenty of high quality low iron shirts. Ted Baker are worth a look for shirts.

Make sure hankerchief is starched, ironed and matches the tie.
Assuming the suit fits you properly then it's the details that make one look scruffy. Suit fashon also changes annoyingly often. You might look smart at home, but then you go out and spot someone in a brand new suit. Subconciously you think you look scruffy.

The smartest looking people tend not to wear suits....

I have 4 clones who are direct impersonators who undertake my daily tasks, whilst I lord it up on a small island just off the Croatian Coast.

I like suits , it makes me feel and look good and gave me sense of arrogance and and very high level of confidence state of mind, like I am driving a Focus but everytime I wear a suit my Ford Focus becomes a Jag in my head 😛 .. too bad my job requires me a fireproof overall and 9100FX Helmet instead of a suit 😕

but you don't wear suits straight out of Tesco or Hugo Boss hangers..always have it tailored to fit you and how you want to look at it and always wear it with pride, style and class otherwise you will feel exactly what you just described like a rag ....people always sense this, aura and body language you cannot defeat this .. take this mantra "if you dont feel good, then you also dont look good"

Suits, along with those sports branded football managers coats, will be consigned to the fleet of empty oil tankers that I will be mooring off the coast, when I begin my rule & the big clearout begins.

suit by a proper outfit (Canali/Zenga etc)

Proper? Only if you wish to dress like a spiv.

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I suspect you either look good in suits or bike gear but never both. I'm part of the former camp and unfortunately nowadays I only wear suits for weddings or funerals and pretty much live in MTB clothing during the week (I commute off-road and run my own business)... Never owned an expensive suit either!

Make sure hankerchief is starched, ironed and matches the tie

Let's get a few things straight here, it's not a hankie, a snot rag or a handkerchief. It's a pocket square and should go nowhere near a nose apart to be offered to a damsel in distress for drying tears and then politely refused if offered back.
Also it should never 'match' the tie, it should compliment the outfit but if it matches it looks like you bought a 'wedding kit' where you get a box of stuff for men who don't know how to dress.
Also it shouldn't be starched or ironed as it's likely silk or linen and should be worn with a tousled elegance that looks effortless, if it's folded to within an inch of its life with a regimented 1cm strip on show it just shows you as a corporate conformist follower not a leader.

Proper? Only if you wish to dress like a spiv.

I was about to post a fierce retort, then just googled their current range.

The world's gorn mad etc. Canali used to do bloody gorgeous, timeless suits 😕

bearnecessities - Member
To the OP it seems you may have paid £1600 too much then.
Now come on! There's putting folk down for having money to spend on stuff (which I accept is the way around here), then there's just being ridiculous.

A £1700 suit by a proper outfit (Canali/Zenga etc) whether fitted or not, will be a lovely thing and will look good on a slim gentlemen. A £300 suit from say Ted Baker or Hawes & Curtis, taken in to suit Sir, will also be very nice.

A £100 suit will explode in a fireball

But the OP felt he looked awful in it which he wouldn't had he spent £300 wisely. I get your point though 😉 Off the rack can be fine but for £600+ I'd be looking at made to measure/tailored to fit. My Armani wedding suit still looks and feels great. Can't wait for the slightly baggy single breasted look to come back in!

Let's get a few things straight here, it's not a hankie, a snot rag or a handkerchief. It's a pocket square and should go nowhere near a nose apart to be offered to a damsel in distress for drying tears and then politely refused if offered back.
Also it should never 'match' the tie, it should compliment the outfit

If we're going to be sticklers for doing things properly that should be complement, not compliment.

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A suit certainly creates an impression! I believe these are Armani. Look more like Vango to me.

Well spotted.
There's probably some grammar mistakes in there you missed, but I don't have to do perfect written English for my job so errors happen.

"Whats that Luv?, you say the wedding cars here?, fine.. I'll be down in a minute"
...

..

"Yeah, the suit still fits"

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bearnecessities - Member
10 points to who can spot what's wrong with that picture.

21st century McDonald's cup in mid 80's set fillum?