If you’re looking for a suit for a job interview, to impress an important date, or just to make the right impression, you might have must less money than you want to invest in a suit. (Yes, the higher the suit’s quality, the more it costs, but it’ll also last longer. That becomes an investment – but it’s not scary.)
So, while you’ve seen stylish choices at the major or high-end retailers, Macy’s, Saks, Bloomies, etc, you haven’t yet won the lottery or gotten an inheritance. So you’ll have to satisfy that interviewer or that great date with a fundamental suit.
There’s one great reality about that suit: it’s the fit and your physique that matter – the suit must fit you; not the other way around. Former fashion teacher, Tim Gunn, continually presses a fundamental and simple lesson.
- Learn and focus on two concepts: fit and proportion.
I won’t be technical here.
- At some point, and a tailor will help with this, you must know your measurements.
- Off-the-Rack clothes haven’t been made to fit your body. If you don’t know your measurements, you can’t emphasize your best, or impress that boss or broad.
Now you’ll know how to choose fundamental items that fit most of your body. (This will make visits with a tailor simple and more affordable.)
When you accept the easy task of visiting a tailor – a very talented one – they will make sure that the suit makes you look as great as you can. A frustrating, vital secret: tailors are not automatically costly! They’ll make your suit accentuate the best of your body, (even if you say you don’t care, or you scratch your head about what that is).
I’ll mention posture; The posture part is on you. Walk with your shoulders back.
- The tailor can only ensure that the suit sparkles when you walk with pride and self-confidence.
- If you shuffle the suit and the tailoring will be moot.
If you don’t walk like you deserve and are supposed to look good, you’ll look like crap.
The tailor visit isn’t an extra expense or an extravagance. Making sure that that entry-level suit you buy fits your body perfectly is what will make you stand out to that interviewer or that woman. It’s very subtle, but so is much of the meat of communication.
- Body language is one of the most powerful ways that we communicate with one another; it’s also the least understood.
- The fit of your suit has that kind of power.
After buying, if not investing in, a suit, there is a decisive step – choose and then work with a tailor who has artistic gusto and expertise. A professional tailor. In my experience, there’s a difference between the in-house and the independent tailors. The major retailers provide in-house tailors, but you don’t know them, and they don’t know you. They do not care about making you look great.
The independent tailor will make you stand out in that suit. He or she will make it special because it will distinguish you and your physique, and that vital part of your personal brand. Your style sense.
Go to the Men’s Warehouse…or where ever then, and buy that suit. And then find a local tailor who has good “bed side” manner. You’ll be walking around with the correct fit and proportions that flaunt your best assets.
