Off the Cuff

by Carson Kressley

  I divide my sweaters into two categories: city and country. City sweaters are lean and mean, and country sweaters are big, and chunky. The first rule of thumb is that your top and bottom halves need to match. If you’re wearing a big, chunky, rugged fisherman knit sweater, your bottom needs to be rugged, too. Unlike your favorite bisexual, your country sweater doesn’t go both ways. Don’t wear a big fisherman’s sweater with a beautiful silk-and-wool suit pant. Instead, wear it with something as casual as cargos or jeans, or dress it up with a Harris tweed blazer.

  Your Shirts: When to Say Good-bye

  • If it’s stained

  • If you can see your elbows

  • If the collar is as yellow as the “before” pictures of dentures in those Efferdent commercials

  • Pitted out shirts are just plain grody! If you haven’t been able to Shout it out, throw it out

  The Sweatshirt and Sports Jersey: Proceed with Caution

  Sweatshirts are only for the gym, people. Anything with the word “sweat” in it should not be part of your regular wardrobe. I don’t mind a classic collegiate sweatshirt or a classic Champion to work out in, but not to wear out to dinner. The only exception is the vintage sweatshirt, which can be fun. What I really hate are the gigantic oversized sweatshirts that say “Minnesota Golden Gophers” or some other slogan. People in sweatshirts just look sloppy, like they should be at home painting their bathroom.

  Let’s be clear about something: Sports jerseys are a uniform. Period. If you’re actually a professional athlete, or you’re the guy who drives the Zamboni, they’re okay; if you’re watching in the stands, you’re not fooling anyone. We know you’re not Wayne Gretzky. A jersey should never be worn on a date, unless it’s a same-sex date with a member of the opposing hockey team. The best thing you could do with team jerseys is take some advice from the Hard Rock Cafe and frame them. They’ll be just the thing for the walls of your basement rec room.

  You’ll also want to remember that super chunky ski sweaters and really thick fisherman knit sweaters were designed with a purpose: to keep you super warm outdoors . Keep in mind that in today’s climate-controlled world, if you’re going to be indoors, at work, shopping, or wherever, you’re probably going to be too warm in one of them. They tend to be expensive because they use a lot of yarn, so invest in only one or two, because you won’t have that much occasion to wear them unless you live in Maine. Otherwise, these sweaters are best left for skiing and outdoor activity, perhaps some apple picking on a brisk November morning.

  Shirts

  Short-sleeve dress shirts. Please.

  No pocket protectors. Ever.

  Mock turtles. The mock neck is called such because people mock you when you wear one. Any slinky silk mock neck tees should be avoided at all costs; you’ll look like an eighties porn star.

  Novelty sweaters. Turkeys, Christmas trees, football logos, and fire trucks are all wrong, wrong, wrong. The one exception is the snowflake and reindeer sweater, which might be just too cute to pass up. All others are left for grandmas, babies, and preschool teachers.

  A shirt and tie with no jacket. If you go that far, you should go all the way. Otherwise you look like an IRS employee. Note to IRS employees: Put on a jacket with that tie!

  Fashion tees with logos. When your shirt says Duffer or Polo or Tommy Hilfiger, you risk looking like a walking billboard.

  CHAPTER 5

  Everyone Looks Good in a Suit, Period SUITS, BLAZERS, TIES, AND POCKET SQUARES

  SUITS

  There are two kinds of guys: Guys who wear suits every day, and those who wear them to weddings and funerals. No matter which kind of guy you are, and whether you have ten suits in your closet or just one, your suits should all be fantastic.

  Nothing makes you feel as good, important, and powerful; and nothing makes a guy look more handsome than a good suit. Just look at Donald Trump, from the forehead down. And nothing makes a guy look more pathetic than a bad one.

  As much as we’ve become a casual society, I still believe that every man absolutely needs to have a suit in his closet. Not everyone goes to fancy coming out cotillions and needs a tuxedo (shocker, I know), and not every man wears a suit to work every day anymore. But weddings, funerals, and divorce court are just part of our lives, people. And for those occasions, you’re going to have to buy a suit.

  The great thing about suits is that they hardly ever change. If you buy a good quality suit with a classic silhouette and you take proper care of it, you can have that suit for a lifetime. It’s going to take a lot of cleaning and a lot of wear and tear, but you could put that suit on thirty years from now and you’ll still look great—provided you have not also put on thirty pounds. Lay off the Ring Dings, would you?

  Suits Are Like Meat, There Are a Lot of Different Cuts

  The American cut. This is also known as the traditional American sack suit. Giggle. I love a sack suit because it’s clean and simple, and much like a postcoital smile, it looks great on almost everyone. It’s a traditional cut, with a notched lapel and two or three buttons. The jacket has a center vent, and the overall silhouette is lean, with a narrow leg.

  The American suit is the Ivy League suit—perfected by makers like Brooks Brothers, J. Press, and Ralph Lauren. It’s the suit the Kennedys went to college in. It’s also the suit the Kennedys went to traffic court in! Because of its collegiate heritage, a sack suit is considered a casual cut. It looks best with a lot of student debt. Keep it traditional by pairing it with an oxford shirt and a rep tie. It’s also great with a T-shirt and sneakers, but that’s not for amateurs.

  The British cut is similar to the sack suit, with two or three buttons and notched lapels. But whereas a sack suit traditionally comes with a flat-front pant and a center vent, a British suit usually comes with a pleated pant and side vents. Yes, I said pleated pants. Don’t be afraid. With this kind of suit, they’re allowed.

  The Italian and/or double-breasted suit. Traditionally, most Italian suits were double-breasted, hence the name. Just to confuse you, though, Italian suits aren’t always double-breasted anymore. These days, designers mix and match influences, so you could get an Italian-designed suit in a British silhouette. You could get an American-made suit with an Italian silhouette. The world of fashion is becoming like a Benetton ad. Everybody’s mixing it up. Our diversity is making us stronger. And yet, more confused. I feel like the whole world is spinning out of control. What next, are they going to bring back the gaucho?

  Anyway, the Italian suit generally has a pleated pant and a wider lapel than the others. The jacket has military origins, and a certain Merrill Stubing elegance about it. In all honesty, this is my least favorite suit. It’s just a lot of suit, with a lot of excess material, which is not good for sitting down. If the reason you’re wearing a suit is for business meetings at which you’ll be seated, it’s just not flattering.

  This is the suit David Letterman always wears, and the one that always tends to hang open, making the wearer look like he has batwings. Or like he’s wearing a cape.

  Oh yeah. This is one of the few “you really should be’s” you’ll ever hear from me, but you really should be tall and slim to wear an Italian suit. One false move and you could look like an extra from The Sopranos. A dead extra.

  My favorite suit is a charcoal gray pinstriped Etro two-button. What I love about it is that it’s very subversive. It looks very calm and cool and safe, but that’s just a decoy. Still waters run deep, my friends. Because on this suit, the faint pinstripe that would normally be a chalky white is a luscious powdery lavender. And the inside has a zany paisley lining. Call the police—there’s a madman in town!

  It makes me feel warm all over when I wear it with a striped purple shirt and a black knit tie. Because it gives me that Wall Street kind of feeling of the power suit, but as people get closer, they realize I must work at Rainbow Investments, Ltd.

  So if you’re in the market to buy that one wedding-and-funeral suit, your best bet is to
invest in a classic style and not some flashy fashion suit that will look dated in a year. It shouldn’t be a trendy silhouette. It shouldn’t have eight buttons or contrast stitching, lapel pins, or rhinestones in the shape of Medusa.

  What it should be is a three-button classic British or American silhouette suit (see sidebar) that is going to last you as long as it possibly can—and that you are going to look really, really great in for as long as you possibly can.

  Perhaps more so than any other garment you own, suits are about quality over quantity. A suit should be one of the most expensive things you buy, and it will most likely have to last you the longest. If you have the sort of job where you need to wear a suit every day, you probably need to look like you know what you’re doing. Invest in three or four high-quality suits. If you have the kind of lifestyle where you only need a suit for weddings and funerals, why not invest in one suit of the very best quality you can afford? And you do have to think of it like an investment: If you’re willing to spend just a little bit more at the outset, you’ll have it forever and won’t have to replace or update it four or five times over the years to come. Ultimately, you’ll save money. Good grief, I sound positively thrifty.

  And let’s just get it out of the way, shall we? Here in the U.S., a really good quality, ready-made suit off the rack is going to cost you about $750; a custom, handmade suit from a reputable tailor will run upward of $1500. So start clipping those grocery coupons, will you?

  I know, I know, you’re thinking that you can get a perfectly good suit for $299 at a place like Today’s Man. Well, I always say that Today’s Man is yesterday’s mistake.

  You really shouldn’t scrimp on a suit. Don’t buy a suit that’s normally $299 or $399 on the rack at a discount suit warehouse. In fact, avoid buying suits at any place that has the word “warehouse” in its name. Warehouses are best left for things purchased in bulk, like plumbing supplies, lumber, and porn. Not clothing.

  If you really don’t have a lot of money to spend, department stores have sales twice a year on suits. With some savvy shopping and forward thinking, you could pick up a quality suit at an affordable price, like a fall suit in spring for half off.

  What should you be looking for in a suit? Let’s talk about fabric first. This is simple. Suits are made of 100 percent wool. It’s always the right answer, because you know what you’re going to get. There are blends out there, but you just don’t know what the materials are. They seem to come up with a new fiber every day. It’s like they have people up in their labs twenty-four hours a day inventing the next rayon or gay-lon.

  Lightweight wool suits are ideal, because you can wear them in every season. If you only have one suit, that’s what you should get. Wool keeps you cool in the summer and warmer in the winter. Because it’s a natural fiber, it breathes and keeps you dry. It’s easy to care for and it wears well. And the most important thing: It’s durable, which is why a good suit can last just about forever.

  If you wear a lot of suits, it might be worth investing in a few suits just for summer, in lightweight fabrics like seersucker, poplin, or linen. Seersucker and poplin are made of moisture-wicking cotton, and linen is a kissing cousin of cotton, made from flax. Its texture allows you to feel the breeze through the gauzy weave. (I think that’s a Jimmy Buffett song!) It’s like the air-conditioned suit, quite frankly. But again, if you’re only going to buy one suit, you’ll be fine with a lightweight wool year round. In today’s climate-controlled world, do we really need to worry about being too hot?

  Color

  Suits obviously come in many colors and patterns. But if you’re that one-suit kind of guy, your best bet is to get a traditional American-cut suit in a solid navy or charcoal grey, or perhaps a classic chalk stripe. Navy and gray are the most versatile, and will allow you to wear endless shirt-and-tie combinations. You can actually renew your suit every year by just buying a few new shirts and ties. (Yes, this requires the occasional shopping outing. Good times!)

  TOP

  Fairy Godstylist Carson

  Keep a lint roller handy by your door, right next to wherever you keep your car keys. Just before you go out, especially if you’re wearing a dark suit and/or you have an animal friend in your home, you might want to give it a little lint roll and spiff yourself up.

  A general note about all suits: Keep the color palette simple and traditional. A mustard-colored suit à la MC Hammer is so very rarely the right look. When I see someone in a mustard-colored suit, I’m tempted to say, “Pardon me, do you have any, um, taste?” Save the mustard colors and eggplants and aubergines for sassy sport coats to be worn during the summer months in the hot resort spots of Nantucket, Catalina, or Omaha.

  I’d also steer away from the black suit unless you have many suits to choose from. Black can be very very severe, and/or a little flashy and a little showy. Paired with a white shirt and a black tie, you’ll undoubtedly look the limo driver at the wedding or the only Amish mourner at the funeral. The only exception is when you’re the groom at a semiformal wedding. Then a black suit is cool.

  Though I’ve tried to keep this book from being too technical for you, you do need to know a little bit about how a suit jacket is constructed and the details to look for. I promise this won’t hurt and will be over before you know it. Just hold on and have a Ritalin smoothie, ok?

  DETAIL # 1 The Shoulder

  The most important detail on any suit is the shoulder. Why? Because constructing a suit is an art. You’re taking a two-dimensional fabric and turning it into a three-dimensional object. It’s like a sculpture made of sewing.

  The way that the shoulder meets the armhole (that sounds really kinky) is going to affect how the rest of the jacket fits. In a well-tailored shoulder, the sleeve will fit smoothly into the armhole at every point, with little or no puckering. Sometimes when you see a bad suit, it almost looks like it’s pleated around the armhole, or it looks like a woman’s suit sleeve with a bit of a puff to it. That’s exactly what you don’t want. You want it to be almost seamless, so that the jacket doesn’t pull at all.

  Unfortunately, it’s really difficult to finesse that, especially if the suit is not sewn by hand—and almost every suit that you buy off the rack in a department store or discount store is going to be machine made. But there are some machine-made suits out there—by designers like Calvin Klein, Brooks Brothers, Ralph Lauren, and even some more modest brands—that really look like they’re hand-sewn. You just have to look for them.

  DETAIL # 2 Buttons and Buttonholes

  The buttons on your suit jacket should be made of natural materials like horn. Plastic buttons are always a no, because during various dry cleanings and whatnot, plastic will deteriorate and crack and become brittle. How can you tell if your buttons are plastic or horn? Plastic buttons will be shiny and uniform in color. But horn buttons are marbled in appearance, like a good cut of beef.

  The buttonholes on a well-made suit will be clean and neat and tight. You should test them out by fastening and unfastening the button a few times. The buttons should just barely fit in the buttonhole and should stay fairly snug; they shouldn’t have too much room. The holes themselves shouldn’t have any frays or any loose threads. Loose threads only indicate that the buttonhole will have a tendency to unravel. You’ll be in a real pinch if you have a problem with your hole.

  On a really, really high-end suit jacket, you’ll find working buttons and buttonholes on the sleeves, so that you can actually open and close them at the cuffs. These are sometimes called doctors’ cuffs. Originally when doctors were working on patients, they would wear a jacket and they would have to roll up their sleeves, so as not to get who knows what on their suit. (Amaze your buddies on trivia night at Joe’s Bar!) There is no longer a practical use for doctors’ cuffs and it’s a very expensive detail that most suits just don’t have anymore. I just wanted to share.

  DETAIL # 3 The Lining and Interlining.

  A good suit should have a full lining, meaning the enti
re interior, including the sleeves, will be lined. The best linings are silk, but a nice rayon will work as well. A suit lining helps with moisture and creates a barrier between the actual suit and your body. It also allows you to improve the fit of the suit, as slippery silk makes everything drape better. And it makes the suit jacket easier to put on and take off. If your suit is not fully lined, when you slip your arms in the armholes, it causes friction with your shirtsleeve. That can make the jacket hard to get into, not to mention cause extra wrinkling. And we all know how unfortunate that can be.

  Examine the lining to make sure it’s all sewn beautifully and tacked down. If the lining is loose or shabby or cheap, that’s an indicator of a lesser-quality jacket.

  A good suit jacket should also have an interlining to give it structure. The interlining is like a little woven grid, kind of like a teeny-weeny miniaturized latch-hook rug, that is sewn into the shoulders and the chest of a jacket. It’s the armature or “bones” of the suit that keep it properly proportioned and help give it a permanent three-dimensional shape and structure. The interlining allows places that need to drape to drape and makes sure that the places that shouldn’t drape don’t. It’s the “looks like a pump, feels like a sneaker” mentality at its finest.