How many suits do you need?
What if you tear your pants? What if you stain your jacket? What if the dry cleaner doesn’t have your shirts ready on time? If any of those scenarios would leave you scrambling to find an alternative, you don’t have enough clothes. Backup plans are easy, however, when you have a wardrobe with a variety of items that fit well, coordinate to create multiple outfits, and give you options for any occasion. Here’s what that kind of wardrobe looks like.
First off, too many people think having one all-purpose suit is enough. A navy suit is great, of course, but if something happens to it, then what? A second suit—maybe charcoal, mid grey, or brown—gives you a contingency plan as well as a style switch. And if you’re wearing suits on a regular basis, you really can’t have too many. For even more flexibility, pick suits that can also work as separates combined with other jackets and trousers. For those who aren’t wearing full suits often, keep a few sport coats on hand. Classic blue is a staple, but sport coats are an ideal way to express your own sense of style. Pick fabrics in your favorite colors, patterns, and textures to build a well-rounded wardrobe. Consider bright colors for daytime events, darker colors for evenings, cashmere in the winter, linen blends in the summer–the options are endless. As a general rule of thumb, aim to have enough suits and sport coats to wear each one a maximum of once per week. They'll last longer by avoiding overuse.
Trousers take a lot more abuse than jackets and as a result spend more time at the tailor shop or dry cleaner. Pants almost always wear out before the jacket does. That means if a jacket only has one trouser, the jacket’s out of commission too. When ordering a new suit that you expect to wear often, add a second pair of matching trousers to extend the suit’s lifespan. (Bonus tip: we like to design each pair with different features to maximize versatility.) In addition to suit trousers, keep a rotation of pants in neutral colors that can be worn alone or with sport coats. Don’t be afraid of redundancy here; if light grey trousers are your go-to choice, it makes sense to have more than one pair. That way you’ll still have something to wear if the other pair isn’t available.
No one ever opens their closet and regrets having so many shirts. Trying to get through a five day workweek with fewer than five shirts is madness (unless you love doing laundry). A dozen shirts for a two week rotation is more realistic, or if you prefer sending them out for cleaning, dropping off 15-20 shirts at a time makes that errand less frequent. Make sure you still have enough shirts in the closet to last until the ones at the cleaner’s are ready. Get multiples of your most-worn colors, which would typically be white, light blue, and cream. Fill out the rest with various stripes, checks, and fancy weaves.
The point of building a deeper wardrobe is not simply to have more clothes. The real goal is to be confidently prepared for anything that comes up, without stressful last-minute shopping, rush alterations or repairs, and begging your dry cleaner to perform miracles. An invitation on short notice becomes an easy “yes.” A drop of marinara sauce is no big deal and a ripped seam isn’t an embarrassing catastrophe. If you’re tired of worrying about what to wear, it’s time to talk to us.
