The timeless rules of menswear
The last button, the length of the sleeve, the tip of the tie, the colour of your shoes after six: a well-worn suit comes down to a handful of rules that tailors have repeated for more than a century.
One look at a photograph of Cary Grant, Gianni Agnelli or Marcello Mastroianni is enough to understand that men’s elegance has nothing to do with fashion. Their suits could have been worn yesterday. What makes them timeless is neither the price nor the label, but a series of details the eye registers without always being able to name them.
These details are not invented. They are handed down, from tailor to client, from father to son, and they have barely changed since the interwar years.
The jacket
Everything starts with the shoulders. A jacket that fits at the shoulder can be saved by alterations. A jacket that is too wide or too narrow there never will be: it is the one part tailors cannot truly correct. When buying a suit, look at the shoulders first, and only then at the rest.
Then come the buttons. On a two-button single-breasted jacket, fasten the top one and never the bottom. On a three-button jacket, fasten the middle one, possibly the top, never the last. Undo everything when you sit down, and button up again as you stand, without thinking about it.
The rule of the last button is often attributed to King Edward VII. Having grown too portly, he is said to have left his undone, and his courtiers copied him out of deference. The story may be embellished, but the rule has survived for more than a century.
Sleeve and collar
The jacket sleeve stops at the wrist bone and reveals about a centimetre of shirt cuff. No more, and never less: that thin white line is one of the surest signs of a well-dressed man. The shirt collar, for its part, rises slightly above the jacket collar, by one or two centimetres, at the back of the neck.
The tie
Its tip should just graze the belt buckle. Not above it, which looks like a schoolboy, nor below it, which looks careless. The knot is tight, discreet and centred under the collar; avoid bulky knots that overwhelm the face. The small dimple just beneath the knot, which the Italians call the fossetta, is the signature of men who tie their ties with care.
The trousers
They fall onto the shoe with a slight break, or no break at all for a more modern cut. They never pile up in folds above the shoe. Turn-ups belong on more classic suit trousers, about four centimetres deep, and never on dinner-suit trousers.
The shoes
In town and in the evening, wear black or very dark shoes, in smooth, perfectly polished leather. The British have a phrase for it, no brown in town, long observed in the City. It has relaxed, but it keeps a grain of truth: a dark suit calls for a dark shoe.
- The belt matches the colour of the shoes.
- Socks are long enough never to show the leg when you sit down.
- They match the trousers rather than the shoes.
- Look after your shoes: regular polishing is worth more than a new pair.
The pocket square
It should never match the tie in the same fabric: this is the most common mistake, and the most visible. Choose a colour that echoes the shirt or the tie without repeating it. The most elegant fold remains the simplest, the straight fold, leaving a thin white line above the pocket.
Elegance is when people remember the person, not the clothes.
None of these rules is dogma. The most elegant men know them all, and only break them when they know exactly why. It is this controlled freedom, not obedience, that makes style.
