Looking more professional, a fashion thread

[DegenGambler]

[ QUOTE ]
its about 1$ a shirt. I dont wash any of my nice stuff, everythign goes to the drycleaners, the time saved is immense, and it keeps the shirts in much better shape imo, plus, they look a lot cleaner and crisp, comming righth out of the plastic and on me, than if I did the ironing myself.
I wear a dress shirt, every fri/sat night, and maybe 3 to 4 days out of the work week, if I have meetings or something. I spend about 5$ or 10$ a week, depending on whehter I take my suits in too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just curious but would price change your mind? Here, the cheapest I can get per shirt is $1.75 and it's a horrible job. The service at my future employer is $4-$5 per shirt, which is criminal. Do you have a break even point when you would say, screw it, I'm doing this myself?

[guids]

PS- If you are going to get your shirts laundered on a regular basis, and like me you dont care about the enviroment, find a place that doesnt use a closed system to do their stuff. A place that has all kinds of enviromental things in place, uses recycled water, and your shirts dont come out smelling nearly as nice as a place that doesnt care and uses an open system.

[4_2_it]

If you buy wrinkle resistant shirts, then you do not have to iron them if you pull them right from the dryer and hang them up. Taking shirts to a dry cleaner reduces their useful life. I have some nice shirts that are 4-5 years old and they look just as good as the ones I bought last fall.

Regarding Jos A Banks. The key is to get a Corporate card. Your company doesn't have to be involved. I think they include credit union members and AA members and probably some other BS stuff just to get you on their mailing list. Now I get an email a week from them. They usually have 2-3 blow-out clearance sales a year. Last fall I got one of their most expensive suits ($1299) for $299. I usually stick to their mid-low stuff, but this one was too good to pass up. If you know when to go, you can find very good deals there.

[miajag]

Forgot about the Corporate Card. They give those out to pretty much anyone, including students, in my experience.

[*TT*]

[ QUOTE ]
PS- If you are going to get your shirts laundered on a regular basis, and like me you dont care about the enviroment, find a place that doesnt use a closed system to do their stuff. A place that has all kinds of environmental things in place, uses recycled water, and your shirts dont come out smelling nearly as nice as a place that doesnt care and uses an open system.

[/ QUOTE ]

The key words to look for in a dry cleaner/laundry are "Organic", Coterie and/or Couture, and French. Most "French" cleaners will clean your collars and cuffs by hand, and to my knowledge has nothing to actually do with the ethnicities of the owners. Make sure you test the cleaner - go for a walk through their facilities, ask about the pressing and cleaning processes, their environmental policies and the chemicals they use. If the clothing smells like a dry cleaner - run away. Make sure you separate your laundered shirts (never dry clean cottons unless they are very dark colors, never wash synthetic materials without checking with the advice of the cleaner first) because the cleaner will often screw this up on their own. You generally have to pay a small premium for these extra features in a dry cleaner, but your clothing investment is maintained much longer.

Note: I stopped ironing. It was a tossup between getting a maid or using a dry cleaner for everything that needs to be ironed - I chose the cleaner, my average cleaning bill per week is around $35.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[NajdorfDefense]

Grey and solid black are both bad choices.

In general, I think custom-fit is the best way to go if you're buying more than 1, it looks better, fits better, you get better material and advice from a tailor who does this for a living. [not Bespoke, unless you want to spend $4-6k per suit.] Machine-cut, off-the-rack suits look terrible on most guys unless you're a perfect 40R or 42L, etc.

Your basic suits, 2 or 3-button, for light-skinned guys should go like:
navy pinstripe with a light chalk stripe, very sharp. [stripes are great for you if you're wide.]
Charcoal, or charcoal with pinstripe [better than black]
solid navy or Navy w/soft glenplaid pattern,
houndstooth looks very sharp as well, [women always comment on when I have mine on]
nice brown, or chocolate brown color - very businesslike and the right shade of brown looks great in fall.

black is okay but gets hot and not for all occasions, [& you may get mistaken for a waiter], I would get this one later, [i.e. get charcoal instead] but is fine for nighttime instead of the office.

A solid, dark olive is a nice change if you don't want to look like every other guy in the room wearing navy or white shirt/dark suit.

Avoid: I would strongly suggest you avoid gray at all costs unless you have a solid tan 100% of the time. It will make you look washed-out and overly pale. Your tailor can help with these kind of details. [colors like orange, mustard, celadon, purple, etc generally go w/o saying].

Think about if you like back vent, side vents, or no vent. Also, tailor should help you match your shirts and suits obvs, think about bringing ties along if you wear them. Spending $$ is only one step in looking good, after that you have to match what you're wearing [easy with some practice]

once you've picked out your type of suit, pleating, button, vents, colors, you still have to figure out which style/patterns you like:
solid is obvious,
so is pinstripe, altho there are different widths apart and width of striple from wide to extremely narrow

chalkstripe is a faint pinstripe, often better looking than the narrow, bold pinstripes [unless you like loud pinstriping, nttawwt]
glen plaid - http://www.polo.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2370792
-i.e. looks like faint squares/windows
herringbone - http://www.tmlewin.co.uk/product.asp...wearSuits!SHBN
houndstooth - http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showt...10&t=14067
scroll down to see, 'loudness' depends on size of pattern
nail head - http://www.execstyle.com/Sproducts_sepa.asp?pid=1758#

No man should be cursed with having only 1-3 plain, navy, solid suits.

Shirts:
There are several different great cotton fabrics in the $100 price range [or less], Sea Island, Turkish, Swiss is really good stuff - some thicker, some softer than others.
Get 2-3 white, 1-2 blue, 1-2 white with a colored stripe and you're all set with your starting lineup. Add in greens, yellows, pinks, purples, deep blue, very pale blue, windowpane as needed. [I have a lot of custom shirts...]

I like french cuffs, as the $0.05 cent plastic buttons on $100 shirts break as easily as the $10 shirts, plus cufflinks look good and mark you as more stylish than the average joe [and chicks are always fascinated by them] & you don't have to spend a lot on them - Cole, Nordstrom, etc will all have them on sale now.

Your tailor can steer you to the right kind of collar and spread, a bigger guy needs a narrower collar & vice versa. There are like 20 diff kinds, just take her advice if you can't see a difference.

Ties: to really look your best, get a few nice ties from Hermes, Versace, Ferragamo, Zegna, Barneys, etc. Wear the suit/shirt combo when you go to buy them.

Pick up a few cotton/[silk] solid/pattern pocket squares, you likely have a nice watch already, and you're all set.

As my old tailor would say, 'fashions come and go, but good style is timeless.'

[JaredL]

najdorf,

The suit I posted a pic of above is charcoal, yes?

[The DaveR]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with sack. In court, I've seen a lot of black suits. Surprisingly, many people don't wear white collared shirts underneath (lots of blues and stripes), despite the general conservatism of courts.

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Ok, I checked with big law firm friends in NY/SF. They say no black. Is this something unique to trial lawyers? I've been in a courtroom exactly once, serving on a jury in NYC, and over 3 days none of the lawyers (2 defense--one with lame ponytail and one would think likely to wear black--and 1 prosecutor) wore black suits. Navy pinstripes, navy, and olive.

[NajdorfDefense]

Yeah, hard to tell how dark it is. Here's another one I think of as 'Charcoal':

[guids]

All,

Someone on 2p2 reccomended this site, I love it:


yoox.com



find suits you like, order them, have them tailored.