Find out those essential touch points that ensure your men's suit fits your body shape, and get a good tailor to work on them.
The gold standard of wearing formal attire is to make a men's suit fit your frame in a stately and natural way. It will require the help of an adept tailor, and a handful of details you take seriously, to seal it. Your ability to craft or secure a suit that aligns well with the contours of your body will greatly enhance your carriage, comfort, and confidence while wearing it. It will also guarantee that you will enjoy and use your suit for much longer. If your suit fails the fit test, it creates an amateur or childish look that will downplay the brand, the fabric, the colours, and your manly posture. It does not matter how good each of these details are.
Truth be told, you may find it daunting to get that perfect men's suit fit for your body shape in a bespoke suit. Because depending on your body size, there is no ideal suit fit. Made-to-order suits are crafted using an estimated size chart to classify wearers into generalized categories. You may find one or more body measurements unique to you but difficult to fit into a particular category.
This is a clear challenge for men with plus size or shorter body parts, with a focus on shoulders, chest, belly, waist, hips, arms, and legs (or even the neck). For such clients, getting a custom-designed men’s suit fitted from the onset from your actual body measurements is the surest bet. But with an off-the-rack suit, the options are limited.
You can trust us to solve your men's suit fit issues at Twelve19styles. We are a foremost brand focused on styling men’s suits with the finesse and precision worthy of a gentleman. Step into our dedicated store to sample exquisite made-to-order men’s suits that match your fantasies.
Suggested Reading: How to Get the Right Men’s Suit Fit
Target Fit Points that Determine a Men's Suit Fit
The ideal suit fit should tick certain boxes in the list of suit features that meet the standard. For a start, the perfect suit fit should exhibit balanced proportions, good structure, a streamlined fit-to-form appearance, and tidiness. And it must be comfortable. No excess material, sagging or bulging areas, wrinkles, or unseemly tightness that inhibit free movement.
In this suit fit guide, we have curated a list of the essential fit points to target when you are on the lookout for the best men's suit fit for you.. With some luck, you can team up with a dependable stylist to make some needed adjustments to a suit. Because your body proportions or taste may change over time. Or you may find yourself in possession of an adorable suit with fit flaws here and there.
Understand that it is easier to adjust downwards than upwards. Trimming down a suit to fit is more practical. But adding more fabric to make a men's suit fit could be tough, disastrous, or requires supreme expertise. You cannot guarantee the best result.
Check the critical fit points listed below to ascertain if your men's suit fits perfectly, or needs some touch-ups where possible.
Shoulders
By nature, the shoulders of your suit command immediate attention when anyone glances at you. It is an intricate task attempting to adjust the shoulders of a suit to perfection; one wrong cut and the entire suit is damned. Get it right at the shoulders, and you have overcome the toughest fit test.
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The shoulder seam should lie neat and flat on your shoulders; no crooked or bunchy look, or jutting angles.
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The length of the shoulder seam should neither exceed the joint where your collar bone meets with the arm, nor fall short of it.
Chest
The chest of your suit jacket can contribute to that sharp looking and masculine silhouette only a good suit fit can achieve. The most vital criteria is for the chest area to remain decently flat.
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The space in the chest area should accommodate the size of a fist at most. It should be neither tight nor gapping.
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No stress lines should appear when you button the jacket - particularly the upper button in a 2-button suit.
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It should be a stress-free task to fasten the buttons.
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The positioning of the button(s) should be above your waist to give a balanced look.
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The lapels should flatten against your body, with neat cuts and moderate proportion.
Jacket Length
Your suit jacket fit is critical because it reveals your style personality in an instant; it is the center of attraction in your suit. So it must have a structured build that aligns with and enhances your body frame, creating a clean silhouette.
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Your jacket should be long enough to cover your backside or seat, at least up to mid-crotch level. The typical measurement for an average-length suit jacket is within 30 to 31 inches long.
Aside from the trendy casual jackets worn in some mix-and-match suits, a shorter length jacket may throw the entire suit out of proportion. Again, vintage suits may sport long jackets with sleek cuts and a powerful, trim silhouette. But longer jackets in a contemporary suit should not exceed 33 inches, otherwise it may look disproportionate.
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You can suspend your arms beside you to also check if the jacket length reaches your knuckles, which is a good indication.
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With fastened buttons, the jacket should look slightly tapered.
Sleeves
Don't allow the arms or sleeves of your jacket to nearly cover your hands, or be too short, to avoid looking like a clown.
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The sleeves of your jacket should reach just up to your wrist, giving some allowance of about one-quarter inch to half-inch of your shirt cuffs (0.5 to 1.5cm) to peek out.
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The inner space should be just large enough to accommodate the shirt sleeves, not in excess and not tight. If any wrinkles or twists appear in the sleeves, get your tailor to amend it.
Note that the armhole close to the shoulder can be difficult to adjust without distorting the entire structure.
Collar
Your jacket collar can enhance a clean look if it does not fall out of shape. Take the following hints:
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The jacket collar and the shirt collar should lie flat and comfortably against each other without rolls or unruly spaces between them.
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The cut of the jacket collar should follow the natural curve of your neck.
Trousers
A good design of your suit trousers or pants should create room for comfort and free movement without rupturing the classy look.
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The break is the fold of cloth where a trouser meets your shoe. The premium length of trousers should be when they form a slight or no break with your shoes at the hems. They should neither be so long as to form excess folds of fabric, nor so short that they expose much skin (or socks).
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Another wise idea is to taper the pant legs to give a modern and streamlined appearance.
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Side pockets should not bulge out in an unsightly way when you carry small items in them. Nor should they flare out on a normal. The side pockets should flatten against your body.
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The seat area of your trousers needs to fit nicely around your bums; no sagging, stretching, or wrinkles. Get this area right from the onset because adjusting the seat of your trousers can be hard.
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The waistband should neither be so tight to pull on your skin, nor feel loose when walking or seated. Fasten the buttons and slide two fingers inside the waistband; if they conveniently go through then you have a perfect fit. This ensures the waistband balances well around your hips, allowing you to walk around and breathe with ease.
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Check the height (or rise) of the waistband. The high-rise waistband/trouser stays above your waist and emphasizes your legs; a look that favours a more formal or vintage dressing. A low-rise waistband/trouser is situated closer to the hips and can be uncomfortably tight. But the mid-rise waistband/trouser is ideal for most men - it hangs just around your waist or a bit lower.
In Conclusion: Don't Trade a Perfect Men’s Suit Fit for Anything
The dividing line between a good suit and a splendid one is a subliminal but critical feature - how well such a men's suit fits your body frame. So critical that colour or fabric or brand cannot correct its absence, so you should not joke with it. To avoid further embarrassment, you will abandon a supposedly good suit that suffers from a poor fit with the speed of lightning.
You can employ a skilled tailor to make certain adjustments to your suit, but not in all cases. Adjustments to the shoulder, armholes, and the seat of your pants can be a delicate task or worse. To get a satisfying suit tailored to your body dimensions, invite Twelve19styles to be that trusted stylist ready to craft a well-tailored bespoke suit for you.
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