Hey everyone,
I am trying to buy a new suit, so I am ready for potential interviews. I know the most important part is to get it tailored and that color should be charcoal/navy blue. I found a nice suit online that fits my budget, the website states it is charcoal, but it looks almost black. Is that ok, or should it be more on the grey side?
And what about shoes? I like brown shoes, but is that appropriate?
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you are fine with both.
If it’s navy blue, brown shoes are fine. You can go with other shades of blue too, as long as it’s not too bright.
What about the charcoal suit? Black shoes?
Yeah black shoes with charcoal.
I feel a blue suit is more versatile though and have gotten my last three suits in blue.
You might want to go into a suit shop in person over online. Although M Tailor seems like they might have something, but I’ve never tried them.
Once you find a good tailor, they can just pop out new suits when they have your measurements. You just go back in and look through swatches and you’re set. So find and stick with a good tailor.
Also, get good shoes, a good belt and a good tie. A shitty tie is easily recognizable. A decent tie costs $100-200. It better be a good triangle on the knot. Always belt length. You need at least one baller tie / interview tie, so it’s worth it.
White shirt - no buttons on the collar. French cuffs optional (sometimes they are fun to rock).
If you prefer a different color shirt than white, it shouldn’t be too dark. And don’t double stripe (striped tie + striped shirt). Too much activity can be bad. If you want a tie with little animals, offset it with a light solid shirt.
Don’t get Gordon Gekko heavy pinstripe suit styles unless you are one closing mofo rolling around in a Rolls Royce Phantom with a driver. You can get pinstripe, but subtle is key. A navy suit with light lines (ie light blue lines) on it can look super crisp.
Light plaid is okay, but heavy plaid is distracting and dated.
What's your budget?
I guess as low as possible, but do not want the suit to look cheap, so around $300 maybe.
A $300 budget is kind of low for a good suit but if you compliment it with a high quality shirt, nice tie and power watch, it might work
Since this is your first suit, I'd recommend the following:
More than happy to expand on any of these if anyone has any thoughts. If I had to look back on my first suit, this is what I'd want.
Not OP but what is the correct style to tie your tie?
the "four in hand" knot is the most classic one. you really don't need any others, in my opinion.
Thank you for the nice write up. I just found a suit from Jos. A Bank for $250, so I think I will go with that! It is also great to hear about the shoes, I wanted to go cheap, but now that I know they will hold up such a long time, I rather invest some money into them.
Also glad to hear that the tie is up to personal preference. I have a pretty basic maroon tie that I like a lot, I think that should go well with the suit.
That's perfect. Beware, however, that, depending on your measurements, you may want to purchase suit separates. Most suits come in a package where you fit the blazer and only a certain waist size of pants comes with it. JosABank, from what I understand, is like that. I'm a 42R but 32 waist - so if I bought a suit from JosABank with a 42 shoulder width the associated pants are a 36 waist - which cannot be tailored down to a 32. So, I couldn't buy from them. The same goes for high level brands, like Canali, for instance. But, I could go to Jcrew and buy a 42 jacket and a 32 pair of pants for the same suit, separately, which fits me.
Also, regarding shoes: I'd learn how to shine your own shoes. A brush and some shoe polish are maximum $15 off amazon (kiwi polish is the standard), and its as easy as put a light coat on with a paper towel and brush it off with your brush. You can find plenty of good videos on youtube about it. If you brush your shoes once a week you'll eliminate scuffs and keep your shoe leather healthy and hydrated. Make sure that you get a different brush to use for each color! Once you use black shoe polish on a shoe with a brush, you have to only brush black shoes with that brush. If you brush brown shoes, you'll end up making your brown shoes a weird black / brown color!
go to indochino
Charcoal is almost black. You think there's no difference, but go to a store and ask to see a black suit and you'll see the difference. You're fine w charcoal, in fact I'm sure its the most common suit color.
If I were to start from the ground up, here's what I'd buy:
That's $775 before shipping and taxes, and will you lots of options. Add $400 for another dark grey suit, and $200 for a couple of dress slacks - and you've doubled your options (and bought enough clothes to last you a season in the office if you take care of them well - which means spot cleaning, hanging trousers, taking care of your shoes, and learning how to carefully press clothes).
Match it with the same type of leather for belt and shoes. Keep belt and shoes shined.
For ties, get one that is 1 color, conservative: navy blue
Avoid the power tie, you don't want to be remembered as the guy with the red tie, not in this current day and age.
A younger family member recently purchased his first suit via Suit Supply in Miami, and the solid navy w/ white dress shirt came to a little over $500 w/ taxes. He should be set for a little while, adding a few shirts in the wardrobe of course.
I like this dress. Of course, it doesn't look much like Sleeping Beauty's dress, but the color fits the description perfectly. Also, I saw a picture of Jimin wearing a dressy tuxedo of the same material. If I'm not mistaken, it was during last year's comeback. Their suits in that interview were similar to those of the wedding suits https://www.gentlemansguru.com/product-category/wedding-tuxedos/ they wore them all evening. I like guys in dressy suits. If I can find pictures from that conference, I'll show them here. Don't forget to remind me of that. By the way, I recognize Anne Hathaway, but I don't know the actress in the second picture. I understand it's an actress, but I can't figure out who she is.
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