How to Choose a Quality Suit Part Two

How to Choose a Quality Suit Part Two monkeysee.com See how the experts do it. Another thing to consider is how the button holds or sown, there’s nothing more frustrating than having the buttonhole unravel. You can always depend on a quality buttonhole when it’s hand sown versus machine sown. The attention of detail from the people behind the machine making it correct is sometimes suspect. It’s easier to tell a hand sown button basically by feeling the thickness. You can feel— if you compare a machine sown buttonhole to a hand-sown buttonhole it’s usually a little bit thicker. There’s more thread around button. Another thing too is you can sometimes see the imperfection of the hand-sown buttonhole. What really counts is the front side, the back side is some of the detail, their just making sure that everything is put together correctly but the again the main thing is to make sure that it’s a little bit thicker and there might be some imperfections on the back side and when you can compare that to a machine sown buttonhole it makes a difference. The other some minor details with suits is what to look for in a button. You can buy higher quality button and usually the higher end suits are going to have higher quality buttons such as horn for example versus plastic and as far as a buttons go the top one here is a plastic button and it’s quite a little bit tough to see on camera, but if you compare that to these two which are horn buttons, it makes a big difference as far as just a quality button. It really gives a more rich finish in appearance so again there’s something you’re probably going to see on the more expensive suits ranging probably $800 or more the less expensive suits are $200-$300 suits are most likely going to have plastic ones. Another thing to consider is how the buttons are attached. Ideally, you want them hand sown on and sometimes that’s a little bit hard to tell but you can look at it and see typically if it’s hand sown and also there’s a bit of a stem. So if you have a stem in between the button and the fabric, that little space there, that’s ideal, you don’t want the button flush up against there. It’s harder to button and it doesn’t work as well. Another thing to consider with the suit is the lining. Now most suits off the rack have an acetate lining, these are more interesting lining sometimes but the main difference is that it’s less expensive for them manufacturer to use it. Acetate cost less than a higher quality natural lining. This is an example of an acetate lining but you can look at most suits off the rack and generally at least for the medium to lower end suits they’ll have the acetate lining and they can be plain black. It doesn’t have to be necessarily be a pattern. What you prefer to have is something that breathes well. That’s a down side of the acetates that doesn’t breathe, it’s heavier and it’s hot. What you prefer having something that’s a Bemberg Rayon is the ideal lining to use. It’s a lighter weight and it breathes well. So the next thing you want to look for in a suit is— and this is not, you’re going to not necessarily find this all the time off the rack but it’s a nice feature to have, it’s basically what we call a perspiration piece so if you do perspire while wearing the suit, it’s going to go in this extra piece of fabric here and not show through on the other side of the suit. Ultimately what this means is less dry cleaning which will give your suit a longer life. Another fun kind of feature to have with a suit and it’s necessarily of quality but I mean you can get a fairly cheap suit off the rack with functional buttons also known as surgeon sleeves historically meaning when doctors for example or delivering babies or something it unbutton the buttons of the sleeve and roll it up. In this case, you can see it has got functional buttons where it buttons and unbuttons. Again hand sown button holes. Lastly, we’ll talk about, just a couple of things to look for in the trousers. You can ideally like to make sure if the seat in the crotch of the trousers are reinforced and there’s sometimes we look inside and see a piece it’s added to the seat of the trouser or the rear end and that’s something that will help it wear longer. Usually a trouser is one of the first things to wear out. The other thing you want to keep in mind too is that the pants are lined so when you can invert these and you can see here that there’s a lining in here right over the knee. Now it feels nice to have a lining but really from a durability standpoint when it’s lined you’re going to have less wear on the knee of the fabric which is again when those high stress points and something that’s good to have. I would say the majority of off the rack sews do have lining but you want to probably stay away from those that don’t. And then one other little detail that you may or may not find off the rack is just an extra what you call a heel guard and that’s just an extra piece of fabric here that prevents the bottom of the trouser fraying against the back of the shoe. Next we’re going to talk about, how to take care of your garment.