MEN'S STYLE

The Types Of Suit Every Man Should Own

Sort the wheat from the chaff with our guide to the tailoring that ticks all the boxes

Image: Charles Tyrwhitt

BY FASHIONBEANS EDITORS

T RENDING ART ICLES

There are few guys who don’t aspire to one day own a walk-in wardrobe lled with
every type of suit, but we’re often in the dark as to how to get there. For the
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remainder, suits are a necessary evil: an insurance policy for professional and social 1 Styles For Summer
occasions that you want to spend the bare minimum on. 2020

Whichever camp you fall into, allow us to illuminate you. This is the FashionBeans How To Dress Well:
The 15 Rules All Men
guide to building a tailoring wardrobe. Not in the IKEA sense, more along the lines 2

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of what to buy, and in what order, to most economically cover your event bases and
get maximum bang for your sartorial buck. How To Choose The
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1. The Plain Navy Two-Button Suit

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The tailoring equivalent of the little black dress, if you buy just one type of suit,
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make it a plain navy two-button with a notch lapel. You won’t get more use out of Right Now
anything else.
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Weddings, job interviews, err, court appearances, it’s got you covered. Especially if 5 Dressing Guide You'll
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you choose a mid-weight fabric – around 11-12oz – so that you can wear it all year
round. Every Moustache Style

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Don’t be swayed by high ‘Super’ numbers – a measure of the material’s neness. Have In 2020 (And A
Few That Aren't)
‘Super’ sounds good, but they’ll also wrinkle more, making them unsuitable for daily
use. ‘Fine’ also means ‘delicate’. So if this is your rst – or only – suit, then you’re
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likely to blow through it after a couple of months of continuous wear. Stick instead 7
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to around the 100 mark for a sound mix of affordability and durability.

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A textured fabric, like a hopsack, birdseye or even a light annel, enables you to
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wear the jacket and trousers as suit separates with the rest of your wardrobe. (This Space
does not, however, work with generic shiny worsted wool, so don’t try it. Ever.)
Details like patch pockets and contrast buttons help in this regard, although they’ll
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also make the suit slightly more smart-casual. 9
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2. The Plain Grey Two-Button Suit

The other type of tailoring workhorse. The cavalry. Just when your navy suit was
about to give up the ghost (or just head to the dry cleaners), grey rides to the rescue,
ready to make you look good.

As a general rule, charcoal skews formal and wintry, while light grey is more casual
and summery. A mid-grey will give you the most scope for day-in, day-out, year-
round wear. Ideally, you want to choose a shade – and fabric – with mileage, such
that you can wear the trousers with your navy jacket and vice versa.

Until the foundations of your suit wardrobe are in place, avoid patterns like a plague
of ravenous cashmere-chomping moths. Nobody will notice that you wore the same
navy or grey suit for two or three days out of the week. Whereas nobody will miss
you repeating a Prince of Wales check.
3. The Dark Double-Breasted Suit

It’s at this point that American style guides (and others based in more forgiving
locales) would recommend a summer-ready suit in lightweight khaki cotton.
However, for those in less forgiving climes, there are more pressing issues.

Instead, now is the time to make a case for a muted, double-breasted type of suit as
your dark horse: speci cally, an almost-black grey, or navy that’s close to midnight
blue, maybe even in a fabric with a bit of a sheen, like a mohair, and with peak
lapels.

The reason? A dark ‘DB’ is versatile enough to enter your everyday rotation. But
with the shape, sheen and sharp lapels, it’s also got a bit of swagger about it for
those times you need to wear a suit but don’t want to look like you came straight
from the of ce – e.g. cocktail attire invitations and weddings. Just make sure the cut
is trim and not too long in the jacket.
4. The Dinner Suit

Black tie invitations may be few and far between — as infrequent as one a year, even
— but they will come, with increasing regularity as you get older. And when they do
come, they’re invariably for occasions when you want to look and feel at your top: a
swanky work party, a wedding, a long-overdue Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

They’re not times when you want to don an ill- tting hire suit that reeks of the
soaked-in sweat of a hundred other uncomfortable men before you.

If buying off-the-peg, you could get your money’s worth after as few as two or three
wears (bespoke will require considerably more wears). And look at it the other way,
how often could you wear a dinner suit? Instead of fudging those ‘black tie optional’
invitations, you could boss them.

You could don ‘black tie creative’ for parties even when the invitation doesn’t call
for it. If the jacket is cut slim and a tad short, you could even wear it with jeans and a
T-shirt on a night out.

The point is that if you have a great tux that ts you like a (possibly velvet) glove,
then you’ll nd excuses to wear it. And you’ll probably get a lot more invitations as
a result.
5. The Summer Suit

It’s common knowledge that a pair of swim shorts goes far better with the summer
season than a suit. However, that’s not to say the warmer months don’t cater for the
man who needs to dress with a touch of formality.

The trick to staying cool when the weather’s not isn’t just in choosing the right type
of suit, but the right textiles. Tightly woven fabrics such as twill and arti cial bres
may be less prone to creasing, but they restrict the amount of air that can circulate
through the garment, making ultra-lightweight open-weave linen, seersucker or
hopsack a far better choice.

It’s also wise to pay attention to construction. Slightly relaxed-cut, unstructured

jackets not only remove the sweat-inducing insulation of padding and linings, they
also speak more to the Riviera spirit of summer, as do earth and pastel tones, which
never fail to look good next to tanned skin.
6. The Check Suit

Though it might not be the most pertinent type of suit to purchase, few things
promise to supercharge a sartorial rotation like a check. Be it a tartan, Tattersall,
Prince of Wales, windowpane or houndstooth (and breathe), an all-over pattern is
one sure re way to stand out from the suited crowd.

Of course, just because your two-piece is checked, doesn’t mean it has to be in

everyone’s face. Aside from opting for more subtle patterns in tonal colours, wearing
the suit as separates – say, a Prince of Wales check blazer with black trousers – is an
easy way to make a statement without straying into peacock territory.

As for pulling off the look as a whole (you maverick, you), the most important thing
is to make sure the suit is cut sharper than David Gandy’s jawline, then simply pair
it with a solid shirt and tie and you’re ready to join the menswear big leagues.