When investing on your first suit, you may consider the following aspects:

1) Price

Choosing something within your budget is crucial especially for graduates. Brand name is not necessary. Fit is more important than brand or quality.

2) Quality

For entry level suits, you do not need super high quality fabric (unless you do not have any price concern). 100’s or 120’s wool quality will be good enough. Just beware of polyester fabric i.e. those give a lot of shin.

3) Fabric features

The first suit, of course you want it to be versatile and able to wear for many times. Choose one with all year round fabric i.e. not heavy thick fabric for winter nor summer light fabric.

4) Color & pattern

We have shared in another article about what color is good and safe for beginner. Mostly solid and medium-to-dark colors. You may buy shirt and tie with solid color for matching too! Remember never have more than 3 patterns on your body (among suit, shirt, tie, pocket square)

Order your first suit from Suitable Pro!

When talking about what suit to wear for work, the first question is “What COLOR” since that’s the first thing you will see before getting closer for details.

In the past, most of the people wear black suits. Black is the most classic and safe option. Yet in recent decade, workplace accept more color options.

Black is the classic safe color

For formal office like banking/ finance sector, law firm, accounting firm; besides black, navy blue and charcoal grey will be some other good options. Medium to dark shades of color are your good choice. Pattern-wise, solid color or some subtle tone-on-tone (e.g. herringbone) will be good enough.

For regular business workplace, some medium – light grey, greyish-blue in solid or stripes are acceptable. If office has casual wear Friday, khaki color tops/ pants, bright/ ocean blue, some checks pattern can be considered too.

More color options in workplace

We would like to share some little tips on wearing suit with you.

1) Never button up the last jacket button when standing

Though there are 2 buttons on your suit jacket (old style may have 3 buttons), you will not close the second (last) button. You only need to close the first button.

2) Unbutton the suit when sitting

When you sit down, unbutton the suit jacket, some the chest area will not be bursting out.

3) Shirt and jacket sleeves length

The shirt sleeve should be longer than the jacket sleeves for around 1/2 inch, it creates a better look for able to see the shirt cuffs or cuff-links.

Showing the shirt sleeves

4) Shirt is too transparent?

Cotton shirts, especially for light color, is quite transparent. Choose a V-neck t-shirt as your undershirt if you do not wear a tie

5) Socks color

Nowadays people do not like heavy break on the pants i.e. prefer relatively short length of pants. Therefore whenever you sit, your ankle will be shown.

So, put on dark color socks or socks in same/ similar color to the pants/ shoes. You may choose some playful / colorful pattern too but with dark color background.

Put on dark socks for business look.

While dressing up, you need to care from head to toe. So what shoes to pair with your suit?

Most common type of formal lace-up shoes will be Oxford shoes and Derby shoes. Oxford shoe is characterized by shoelace eyelets tabs that are attached under the vamp while Derby has shoelace eyelets sewn on top of the vamp.

A brown Oxford shoe

A pair of chocolate brown Derby shoes

In terms of shoes color, black is the safest option, it goes well with many colors of suit but not the brown suit family. Aside from black, dark brown is a popular pick too. If lighter suits, wear a light brown shoes.

A pair of basic black shoes is a must-have item