A suit is a set of garments made from the same cloth, consisting of at least a jacket and trousers. Lounge suits are the most common style of Western suit, originating in England as country wear. Other types of suit still worn today are firstly the dinner suit , part of black tie, which arose as a lounging alternative to dress coats in much the same way as the day lounge suit came to replace frock coats and morning coats; and secondly, rarely worn today, the morning suit. This article discusses the lounge suit (including business suits), which is part of the 'informal' dress code.
The variations in design, cut, and cloth, such as two- and three- piece, or single- and double- breasted, determine the social and work suitability of the garment. Often, suits are worn, as is traditional, with a collared shirt and necktie. Until around the 1960s, as with all men's clothes, a hat would have been also worn when the wearer was outdoors. Suits also come with different numbers of pieces: a two-piece suit has a jacket and the trousers; a three piece adds a waistcoat; further pieces might include a matching flat cap.
Originally, as with most clothes, a tailor made the suit from his client's selected cloth; these are now often known as bespoke suits. The suit was custom made to the measurements, taste, and style of the man. Since the Industrial Revolution, most suits are mass-produced, and, as such, are sold as ready-to-wear garments (though alteration by a tailor prior to wearing is common). Currently, suits are sold in roughly three ways:
- bespoke , in which the garment is custom-made from a pattern created entirely from the customer's measurements, giving the best fit and free choice of fabric;
- made to measure , in which a pre-made pattern is modified to fit the customer, and a limited selection of options and fabrics is available;
- and finally ready-to-wear , which is least expensive and hence most common.
History
Main article: History of suitsThe current styles were founded in the revolution during the early seventeenth century that sharply changed the elaborately embroidered and jewelled formal clothing into the simpler clothing of the Regency period, which gradually evolved to the stark formality of the Victorian era. It was in the search for more comfort that the loosening of rules gave rise in the late nineteenth century to the modern lounge suit.
Etymology
The word suit derives from the French suite , meaning "following", from some Late Latin derivative form of the Latin verb sequor = "I follow", because the component garments (jacket and trousers and waistcoat) follow each other and have the same cloth and colour and are worn together.
As a suit (in this sense) covers all or most of the wearer's body, the term "suit" was extended to a single garment that covers all or most of the body, such as boilersuits and diving suits (see Suit ).
Parts of a suit
There are many possible variations in the choice of the style, the garments and the details of a suit.
The cut
The silhouette of a suit is its outline. No suit is skin-tight; the amount of extra fabric and the way it hangs is known as the drape. The shape of the front of the suit is particularly affected by the way the suit buttons. The two main cuts consist firstly of double-breasted suits, a conservative design with two vertical rows of buttons, spanned by a large overlap of the left and right sides; and secondly, single-breasted suits, on which the sides just meet at the front down a single row of buttons.
British suits are characterised by moderately tapered sides, minimal shoulder padding, and two vents. Italian suits are characterised by strongly padded shoulders, strongly tapered sides, and no vent. American suits are considered more casual than the preceding styles, and are characterised by moderate shoulder padding, minimally tapered sides, and a single vent. The sack suit is a loose American style. Contemporary is a term that includes a variety of recently designed garments that do not fit into the preceding categories.
The suit is cut out from a length of fabric from a roll by a cutter using a cutting pattern, a paper outline of the parts. The pattern can be draughted in various ways. With a ready-to-wear suit, the same pattern is used many times to make identical suits. Made-to-measure and bespoke cutters can work by pattern manipulation, altering a stock pattern, or by using a drafting formula to calculate adjusted lengths. Some bespoke tailors work by "Rock Of Eye", drawing and cutting by eye.
Fabric
Suits are made in a variety of fabrics, but most commonly from wool. The two main yarns produce worsteds (where the fibres are combed before spinning) and woollens (where they are not). These can be woven in a number of ways producing flannel, tweed, gabardine, and fresco among others. These fabrics all have different weights and feel, and some fabrics have an S (or Super S) number describing the fineness of the fibres. For hot weather, linen is also used, and in North America cotton seersucker is worn. Other materials are used sometimes, such as cashmere. Silk and silk blended with wool are sometimes used. Synthetic materials, while cheap, are very rarely recommended by experts.
The main three colours for suits worn in business are light grey, dark grey, and navy, either with or without patterns. In particular, grey flannel suiting has been worn very widely since the 1930s. In non-business settings or less-formal business contexts, brown is another important colour; olive also occurs. In summer, lighter shades, such as tan or cream, are popular.
For non-business use tweed has been popular since Victorian times, and still is commonly worn. A wide range of colour is available, including greens, browns, reds, and greys. Tweeds are usually checked, or plain with a herringbone weave, and are most associated with the country. While full tweed suits are not worn by many now, the jackets are often worn as sports jackets with odd trousers (trousers of different cloth).
In the US and UK, suits were never traditionally made in plain black, this colour instead being reserved for formal wear (including dinner jackets or strollers). However, the decline of formal wear in recent years has meant that black, as well as being popular in fashionable scenes, such as clubbing, is now also being worn in formal contexts (such as to a funeral or religious function) in place of the traditional more formal wear.
Traditional business suits are generally in solid colours or with pin stripes; windowpane checks are also acceptable. Outside business, the range of acceptable patterns widens, with plaids such as the traditional Glen plaid, though apart from some very traditional environments such as London banking, these are worn for business now too. The colour of the patterned element (stripes, plaids, and checks) varies by gender and location. For example, bold checks, particularly with tweeds, have fallen out of use in America, while they continue to be worn as traditionally in Britain. Some unusual old patterns such as diamonds are now rare everywhere.
Inside the jacket of a suit, between the outer fabric and the inner lining, there is a layer of fabric that has the purpose of letting the coat keep its shape; this layer of cloth is called the canvas. Expensive jackets have a floating canvas, while cheaply manufactured models have a fused (glued) canvas. A fused canvas is less soft and, if poorly done, damages the suppleness and durability of the jacket, so many tailors are quick to deride fused canvas as being less durable. However, some selling this type of jacket claim that the difference in quality is very small. A few London tailors state that all bespoke suits should use a floating canvas. In June 2008, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a British advertising regulator, ruled otherwise, citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of bespoke as "made to order".
Jacket
Front buttons
Most single-breasted suits have two or three buttons, and one or four buttons are unusual. It is rare to find a suit with more than four buttons, although zoot suits can have as many as six or more due to their longer length. There is also variation in the placement and style of buttons, since the button placement is critical to the overall impression of height conveyed by the jacket. The centre or top button will typically line up quite closely with the natural waistline.
Double-breasted jackets have only half their outer buttons functional, as the second row is for display only, forcing them to come in pairs. Some rare jackets can have as few as two buttons, and during various periods, for instance the 1960s and 70s, as many as eight were seen. Six buttons
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