
How clothes should fit - lampe3
http://howclothesshouldfit.com/
======
pvnick
This is a fantastic primer on how to fit clothes. Since taking care to get
well-fitted, nice clothes, my confidence has skyrocketed and I seem to get
more respect. This is a great way for career advancement - ever notice
managers are generally better-dressed (ignoring Zuckerberg, the exception to
this rule)?

What I recommend to get started is go to a consignment/thrift store such as
Goodwill and liberally buying cheap clothes that fit decently well. For shirts
this mainly just means ensuring the shoulder crease lines up with the "angle"
at the end of your shoulder. Take them all to an alterations store and have
the nice lady fit everything for you. This will be the most expensive part of
this whole endeavor. As a result you'll get a better feel for the types of
clothes that work best for you as well as how clothes are supposed to fit, all
for relatively little upfront investment.

Also get nice shoes. Reddit's malefashionadvice is notorious for advocating
Clarks Desert Boots. There's a reason for this; they're fantastic. I own a
pair, wear them all the time. Whatever you do, don't wear sneakers around
unless you're a personal trainer. You're probably not in high school anymore,
and nice shoes will instantly help you present yourself more professionally.

~~~
stuartmemo
This comment is everything I don't want to be.

~~~
pvnick
Really, why is that? I don't believe I said anything controversial. I
personally haven't met anybody who, given the choice, prefers looking like a
disheveled slob.

~~~
mayanksinghal
For one, people who wear sneakers often do it because they are comfortable. To
equate them to high school teenagers if they are not personal trainers is
quite unfair. You are free to advocate a more professional look, but if you
get disrespectful on the way, people are going to hate your stance for it.

~~~
pvnick
I stand by that statement more-so than any of the other ones, and I'm sorry if
you found it offensive. Sneakers have no place in a professional environment.
There are plenty of comfortable options for professional footwear.

~~~
jrokisky
In a professional environment where you're trying to sell/ negotiate, I agree
with you. It's a natural reaction to make assumptions about people based on
how they dress, and anyway in which you can give yourself an advantage is
valuable.

Any other professional environment I disagree. Why? I wear crocs to work. I
wish I could go barefoot. What does footwear have to do with software
development?

~~~
peterwwillis
So, here's the deal with tech companies, lax dress codes, and professionalism.

When business came about, there was a general idea that the quality of a
person and their business dealings was reflected in the way they presented
themselves. This was a big deal back when you had to physically interact with
the businessperson. If their appearance was sloppy, cheap, unclean, or
otherwise with no care put into it, often the products would reflect the same
lack of care.

Fast forward to present-day. Joe Emacs sits in his Herman Miller, his "No, I
Will Not Fix Your Computer" t-shirt stained by cheetos and free mountain dew.
His sandals expose his grimy, untrimmed, twisted toenails. He smells of BO,
either because he forgot to put on deodorant or hasn't showered in days,
probably due to "marathon coding sessions". His hair is also greasy and
smells.

Joe Emacs likes to shout over his cube to his co-workers, because why should
he make the effort to get up? Joe Emacs likes to leave trash all over his
cube. Joe Emacs blares youtube clips over speakers instead of headphones,
annoying all his co-workers, preventing them from working. Joe Emacs likes to
talk loudly about subjects that bother or annoy his co-workers. Joe Emacs is
an asshole.

Compare Joe Emacs to Fred Altair. He comes to work in crisply ironed chinos
and a dress-shirt or polo. His hair is combed. He smells nice. His brown
leather shoes gleam in the fluorescent light. His desk is neat and tidy. He
walks over to his co-workers and politely asks questions without interrupting.
He uses headphones, and doesn't discuss religion, politics, or other
controversial topics in the workplace.

It doesn't matter which you would _prefer_ to be. Joe Emacs is going to annoy
his co-workers and make it a shitty place to work. Fred Altair will be
appreciated by his co-workers, and make it a much more relaxing place to work.

But it's not about clothes. It's about professional attitude and environment,
which is to say, respecting your co-workers and not becoming a burden on
others. If you can do that while still wearing Crocs, by all means go ahead.

~~~
jrokisky
I don't understand. How does clothing choice have anything to do with
respecting your co-workers? I think being judgmental about someone's sense of
style is more disrespectful to your co-workers than wearing fitting, popular
clothing.

~~~
peterwwillis
The clothing choices I mentioned are more classic examples of behavioral
stereotypes.... I don't encourage being judgmental at all. It's really not
what you wear, but how you wear it and how you comport yourself in the
workplace. But there are limits.

Barefoot is just not acceptable. it's unhygenic. Nobody wants to smell your
feet, and even if your feet aren't smelly, you're at risk of developing a
fungal infection, injury, etc. Wear some shoes.

The other aspect to picking a particular style or dress (let's call it
"conservative dress") is that it makes people more comfortable. People are
weird. Often they get uncomfortable if people around them dress different than
they're used to. You see it in tech workers all the time: they say "I'll never
wear a tie! Oppression!" or somesuch thing. Ties make them uncomfortable, just
like people in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt with a slogan might make other
people uncomfortable. Something in the middle would make everyone more
comfortable, which makes for a better work environment.

But the way you dress can _influence_ the way you and your co-workers behave.
In my experience, dressing more relaxed leads to more relaxed personalities,
which has both great and horrible side-effects. People think they can act
however they would with their friends, which (for tech types) might be very
abrasive to strangers. It may also affect their work, or how they compose
themselves in meetings. I can't tell you how often i've heard the causally-
dressed guy tell someone to fuck off in a meeting, while the guy in business-
casual is much more tactful. These are just some examples.

~~~
jrokisky
I have very little "work" experience, but from my limited experience I've
noticed the opposite effect, the guy in a suit is way more likely to be a
bully. That being said, I can imagine people acting how you say. I think that
a company that has employees that act this way is seriously dysfunctional and
I have no desire to contribute to that.

~~~
bane
"I have very little "work" experience, but from my limited experience I've
noticed the opposite effect, the guy in a suit is way more likely to be a
bully."

After about 20 years in professional work, I can confirm that the nicer the
suit, the bigger the asshole. The hack is to dress in a nice suit as well and
then don't back down when the bully bombasts all over you. You'll probably end
up with a promotion. Not backing down form a T-shirt position will probably
get you laid off.

------
sdfjkl
Somehow I associate suits with either dishonest people who use them to try and
project false integrity (salesmen, bankers, recruiters, etc.) or servants who
are forced to wear them by their masters[1] (porters, security staff, heck in
some city offices even the cleaners wore them).

Since I like neither dishonesty nor subservience and find ties incredibly
uncomfortable, I intentionally don't wear any such thing. It is astonishing
how much we read into clothes though. I was regularly mistaken for a bouncer
while standing outside a club wearing plain black clothes (despite drink in my
hand).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livery)

~~~
bane
"Somehow I associate suits with either dishonest people who use them to try
and project false integrity (salesmen, bankers, recruiters, etc.) or servants
who are forced to wear them by their masters[1] (porters, security staff, heck
in some city offices even the cleaners wore them)."

You associate it correctly in all cases. As somebody who's come to appreciate
suits as a powerful tool, it's worth learning the game. Wear a suit to a car
buying negotiation and save a few thousand dollars on your next car, or wear
the "livery" of your company and find yourself promoted faster than if you
don't. It's stupid, but most people are stupid.

(I've learned how to wear a suit without a tie, try and project a comfortable,
casual, glamorous [bm]illionaire look, they almost never wear ties with their
suits [1][2][3]

1 -
[http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/320x480/s_v/scowell_GL_15dec09_P...](http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/320x480/s_v/scowell_GL_15dec09_PA_b.jpg)

2 -
[http://thenextweb.com/files/2010/11/branson2.jpg](http://thenextweb.com/files/2010/11/branson2.jpg)

3 -
[http://edition.cnn.com/video/business/2010/09/27/sesay.niger...](http://edition.cnn.com/video/business/2010/09/27/sesay.nigeria.billionaire.cnn.640x360.jpg)

------
acuozzo
This should have been titled: How Clothes Should Fit __Thin_Men__

The same rules don't apply when your body is basically an amorphous blob.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Nobody's body is an amorphous blob, male or female.

It's simply a matter of design and convention - clothes are designed to fit
some body types, and conventional clothing styles are predicated on "degrees
of freedom" of possible design that can only comfortably suit some body types
without looking like a tent or a gorilla suit.

Actually "male" formal styles have more give in their degrees of freedom than
informal styles for either gender, or formal styles for women, because fat men
have often been suit wearers.

Still, IMO, designers ought to see "fat people of any sex" as a challenge to
their ingenuity. I'd really like to see what people would come up with if
effort was applied, rather than merely shifting the proportions of something
designed for thin people.

~~~
ksar
Mid-high end brands build their clothes to an aspirational fit model. Most
people are forced to make that fit work for them, either through tailoring, or
optimizing around what attributes of their clothing are important to them.
Fashion is pretty backwards on fit - bottom line is wear your clothes the way
you want to wear them, swag or no swag.

------
xentronium
I believe this is sourced from reddit's MFA FAQ.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice](http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice)
sidebar has more useful info.

------
Fargren
_" No pants should need a belt to stay on your hips."_

So I suppose I should quit pants altogether, or only wear pants with elastics,
since I can't find pants long enough for my legs that don't fall off anywhere.
I have only one pair that fits me without a belt, and I had to buy it in Spain
(I'm from Argentina); apparently teenagers are taller there so a they had my
size.

I know these articles can't work for everyone, but it really bothers me how
hard it is to find clothes for some body types.

~~~
coldtea
> _So I suppose I should quit pants altogether, or only wear pants with
> elastics, since I can 't find pants long enough for my legs that don't fall
> off anywhere._

Or, you know, you could always have the longer ones adjusted at a tailer.

Or you could order made-to-measure pants if you are such an outlier.

~~~
Fargren
I know there are solutions to the problem. I don't particularly care for going
to a tailor, so I wear belts (which are also hard to get in my size, but using
kid's belts is viable, and I change belts a lot less than I change pants). But
I'm still annoyed whenever I have to shop for clothes; it's an extra effort I
don't care for.

------
dhruvmittal
This would have been pretty useful to me back when I was 15-18. I've got some
heinous pictures of me wearing a suit jacket that was much too large and dress
pants that were far too baggy. And pleated.

~~~
antidaily
Same here. I recently read somewhere that certain men's stores purposely sell
suits that are too big. Not sure why that would be a good idea.

~~~
alex_anglin
Tailoring services.

------
jonsterling
God, they had me until they made the mistake of advising against pleats. I
personally prefer them, but I'm not going to say which you should wear, and
anyone who does is trying to trick you.

Pleats come in and out of fashion, whereas fit is something that is pretty
well-understood across time. Bitch, please.

~~~
bhughes
I don't know if it is a question of whether they are in or out of fashion.
Some people can pull off pleats, but when they don't look good, they _really_
don't look good. If someone is reading this primer, they are probably not in a
position to tell which is which.

~~~
jonsterling
A fair point. I suggest only that whether or not you can pull off pleats has a
lot less to do with your build or any other personal characteristic and a lot
more to do with the kind of pants you're wearing (and whether you are wearing
them properly). (To be fair, if you have massive thighs, you basically have to
have pleats; this is not an issue for most people though). And so as regards
fashion, it's not a matter of whether pleats are in fashion, but how high a
rise is fashionable.

If you wear your pants anywhere near your hips, you will look like a clown if
you have pleats. Likewise, pants which were made to be worn near the hips are
clown-pants if they have pleats.

If your pants, however, have a high rise, and you are man enough to wear them
at your natural waist, then pleats will make it possible to sit _and_ stand in
your pants and not look like a total fool.

------
spajus
This should have been titled "How Clothes Should Fit __Corporate_Drones__"

~~~
voidlogic
Oh, you never go to weddings, funerals, dedications, meetings with old school
customers, benefit dinners, graduations, award ceremonies, court, formal
dinners or church?

Just because people are not required to wear formal clothing everyday does not
mean they don't want to look sharp when they do-

------
Qz
How [Men's] Clothes Should Fit.

~~~
lampe3
i just chopped the url :) iam not the author of the site!

------
reneherse
A good reference for anyone encouraging "Formal Fridays" or something similar
around the office. There's a lot to be said for the occasional break from the
routine of t-shirt and jeans.

------
calanya
This is incredibly American centric and ignorant of variant weather
conditions. Try wearing a fit shirt, long pants and leather shoes in 90+
weather...

~~~
coldtea
> _Try wearing a fit shirt, long pants and leather shoes in 90+ weather..._

That's around 32 oC? Yeah, what about it? People working in "serious"
businesses, like banks, etc do it all the time. Not only in 90+. Even in 105+.

And even I, that dress casually (t-shirt, jeans), have never had a problem
with jeans and leather shoes even in 105+.

You really think that shorts, that get you direct skin exposure to the sun are
...better than long pants?

Even people in African deserts and such (were it's more like 110+) are wholly
clothed (covered).

~~~
Dewie
humid 32 C in a dress sounds like death.

~~~
coldtea
Don't know about "dress" (I'm no cross-dresser), but humid 32oC was OK for me
in Singapore in jeans. And businessmen wore long pants too.

Ditto for New Orleans -- though I've only spent like 2 weeks there.

~~~
Dewie
Oops, yeah I meant suit. I got my languages mixed up.

------
cmod
For more, in video form: Put This On [0]

[0] [http://vimeo.com/putthison](http://vimeo.com/putthison)

------
dschleef
Fat shaming in the first sentence.

~~~
hellephant
Yeah, not at all.

------
ladybro
I have a feeling that a lot of people on HN could truly benefit from this.

~~~
Dewie
You've seen a lot of pictures of people here? Or are you purely basing that on
stereotypes?

------
nisdec
Just sent it to Mr. Zuckerberg.

------
bane
If you're cynical like me and think "dressing well" is a code word for
"conform!", you can look at adopting the costume every once in a while (used
judiciously) as a kind of hack that will get you what you want more often than
wearing my normal uniform of loose shorts an old t-shirt and flip flops.

Knowing when to throw on a decently tailored suit, a nice shirt and a pair of
well matched shoes (even if your screaming inside to kick them off after a
half hour) has gotten me contracts, procurements, jobs, raises and let me get
away with figurative murder quite a few times. It says "I'm part of this club,
I'm playing this game, let's not let a few hundred thousand dollars come
between us."

I hate suits and think they're a symbolic harness the modern world uses to
remind workers they're one step away from either a hanging or working as a
beast of labor, but using them as a tool to extract money from people is a
perfectly valid tactic. In other words, I hate not making money more than I
hate wearing a suit.

The problem? I'm personally built like a square, and when I was younger and in
better shape it was even worse. Very little on this page is relevant for me.
Years of kickboxing built up thick thighs and calves and makes slim cut pants
look ridiculous, likewise a 17.5" neck means I _might_ find a single Oxford at
any given store regardless of style. Wide feet and high arches mean fine shoes
feel like Chinese foot binding. Round or narrow tipped shoes look absolutely
absurd on my frame, square toed shoes look far better and much more
consistent.

Here's my hacks that end up looking decent if I need to: Go west coast, no
tie. Leave the top button undone. No shirts with button-down collars, those
are meant for ties. Slip on wide square toed dress shoes with good grippy
soles. Sleeve length and shoulder fit here are dead on (you wouldn't believe
how many people aren't aware of how shoulders should fit). Never button your
blazer or suit jacket -- keep at least one hand in your pocket for the cool
"I'm a guy in a suit" look, everybody will be doing it anyway. A barrel chest
and years of _not_ kickboxing have given me a healthy man-gut no blazer fit
will ever work with. Just make sure the shoulder and sleeve length is right
and you'll be fine. I take the jacket off at the start of meetings anyway. If
negotiations of lots of paperwork start, roll your sleeves up, it'll cool you
off and make you look serious while working on this "hard stuff". Regular cut
pants, no low cut, shirts don't like staying tucked in well. Being built like
a square means coats below the waste are an absolute no-no. P-coats work well
if you absolutely need a coat. Avoid pleats at all costs. Flat-toed shoes,
round or pointy toes look absurd on my square body shape. Tuck your shirt in
properly, and starch the collar. Nothing says "retail worker forced to wear
this" more than shirts that aren't tucked in right or messed up collars.

To paraphrase the Romans, worship these gods in public for approval, abandon
them in private for a comfortable life.

~~~
encoderer
Just curious why you feel so paranoid about "conforming"?

I feel like until somebody tells you that you "must" dress some way, then
anything else is just opinion that you may or may not agree with. There is so
much anger directed towards the top post on this thread because he shares his
opinions on mens haberdashery.

My bottom line is that when I wear a suit that fits me like a glove, when I
have a crisp, clean collar stand up against the back of my neck, when I slip
on a nice pair of shoes -- carefully crafted and made with great materials,
the kind that will last you easily 20 years -- when I do all that, I always
just feel so good about how I look and how I feel.

Sometimes a tie isn't comfortable. So sometimes I endure the discomfort for a
specific reason, other times I just don't wear a tie. But I never bristle with
the anger at 'conformity' so I thought I'd ask you.

------
esalman
The illustrations are not loading properly on FF24.

~~~
illyism
Odd. All the images are SVG. And they revert to PNG when SVG is not an option.

------
cheshire137
Oh, men only. :(

~~~
WhatAboutObama
[https://reddit.com/r/femalefashionadvice](https://reddit.com/r/femalefashionadvice)

