How to Look Good in a Suit: The Ground Rules

Try Conservative Colors

Bright colored suits or suits with patterns look cheap and highlight the poor materials they are made of, especially if you are shopping on a budget. The best choice for a good suit will be conservative colors - black, grey or navy. With these conservative colors, your suit won't attract extra attention if the material quality isn't up to the mark.

Opt for Fitting Shoulders

Always pay attention to whether the shoulders of the suit fit perfectly with your body. The shoulder pads of the jacket that you buy need to end right where your shoulder end, and not a centimeter outside. This is a very important feature that can change your whole look.

Check the Jacket's Length

Remember this at all time: the length of your jacket should be enough to cover the zip of your trousers as well as your behind. A jacket that is too long or too short can make or break the whole outfit, no matter how much you paid for it.

Know How to Button-Up

Buttoning up your jacket follows a special rule that should never be broken. In a two-button jacket, only do the first one, never the one in the bottom. Similarly, in a three-button jacket, only the middle one should be buttoned up. Also, a gentleman is required to undo his jacket button every time he sits down, and redo it when standing up.

Go for a Waistcoat Sometimes

Waistcoats look good both with and without the jacket; so, it is a good investment. Also, you are not supposed to button-up your jacket when you are wearing a waistcoat inside.

Choose Your Shirts Carefully

It's not only the jacket that matters the most, but the shirt too; a hastily chosen shirt can ruin the whole look of an expensive and fitting jacket. Buy shirts that are formal and not fluffy; steam clean your shirts to make them look airy and comfortable.

Make Your Trousers Fit

Your trousers should also fit you perfectly. This is extremely important if you want to know how to look good in a suit. Your trousers are required not to be too tight that you have discomfort sitting down or crossing your legs; neither should they be too loose that they stick out from the rest of the outfit. The trousers need to be just so long to show the socks a little bit - but only when you are sitting and not when you are standing.

Be Sure of the Tie

A tie, although smaller compared to a jacket or the trousers, is an important part of the outfit. There are a lot of knot styles to choose from, and the one you should choose for your personal style is related to the size of your head. The general rule of knotting a tie is: for a big head, a Windsor knot and for a slightly smaller head, a half Windsor knot!

A proper tie should be knotted so that the top rests tights against the collar of the shirt, and the bottom just barely reaches below the belt on your trousers. The design of the tie should depend on your shirt and jacket, but it's always best to opt for a conservative dark and solid color that matches your jacket.

Match Your Shoes and Belt

This is a simple rule that not everyone remembers to follow: always match your belts and your shoes. Black belts go with black shoes, and brown belts go with brown shoes - easy!

Learn to Accessorize

Wearing a suit is when you have the chance to accessorize to your heart's content. This includes a good watch, a smart belt and tie, pocket squares, an optional tie pin, a pair of cufflinks, and clean and bright socks. Everything that you are accessorizing with should be perfectly compatible with the suit you are wearing, i.e. if you match a flimsy colorful watch with a formal suit, it will make the whole outfit look ridiculous and incompatible.

A good and expensive (if you can afford them) watch and a pair of cufflinks, if bought right, can be worn with almost every suit and made companionable. If you have a family heirloom watch or tiepin that is vintage and classic, wearing them would flaunt your personal style, not damage it.

Reveal Your Cuffs

The symmetry of the shirt and the jacket should be so that your cuffs show a little around your wrists, just enough to give others a glance of your cufflinks during a handshake or a gesture with your hands. Showing the cuffs too much would mean that your jacket is either too tight or too loose - not good signs of a fitting jacket.

Pay Attention to Your Shoes, Too

Finally, it's your shoes that deserve some concentration, as well. As trivial as they might seem, your shoes actually have a crucial bearing on how to look good in a suit. The shoes you wear with your suit should be spotlessly clean, which takes less than a few minutes every morning but is well worth the effort. If it is raining outside, you need to visit the shoe-shiner immediately before an important meeting, because even the smallest speck of dirt on your shoes is enough to spoil the charms of a well-suited man.