What makes a good suit?
Hello. I'm trying to figure out what separates a good fit and good suit from a bad or mediocre one. I'm mostly thinking of the strikingly ugly suits of Casino, but also of how the more muted suits used as a counterpoint also look ugly and tasteless in how bland they are.
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could be a good thread following
not gonna lie #5 is probably the best looking of the 6 images here imo(although the other shots from Casino are quite bad)
The DeNiro suits/sport coat look okay but pairing them with matching shirt, tie, pocket square is bad IMO.
I would say none of these are good suits in 2025
for the in the main post im seeing
1. Too slim cut and also too small there's pulling around the button it looks fine but not great
2. Same deal it feels to slim
3. 👆
4. Imo the jacket is good the matching tie/pocked square/shirt setup is killing it for me.
5. Is good the jackets look good, the ties are good details but there's not too too much going on.
6. again the matching shirt/tie/pocket square thing is just not great.
To me a great suit comes down to how it fits and the intention behind that, if the whole things feel intentionaly put together it looks good. The first couple of looks im posting I think look great because they are oversized and drapy but its clear that was the point they lean into the oversized look so it doesnt just look like its too big. Then stuff like Ethan's suits are a more classic fit but its clear he knows the more classic menswear looks well and its doing his take on that style.
but also beans will probably come in with a better description in a bit :caught:
1,2,3 suffer from hashtag menswear tropes. worsted business suits sold to and by people who bought into the belief that any suit made you "dapper". the slim fit, high buttoning points, thin lapels, short shirt collars, and overall lack of structure make them feel pretty dated at this point.
I'm also not sure 4 and 6 are supposed to look good. neither suit really fits in the shoulders, if you told me he had a 3 inch overhang I would believe you. and the matching shirt/tie/square was never that blatant or polyester in real life.
“Good” vs “bad” is inherently going to involve considering trends, but I agree with oman that it’s mostly about intention. Big, drapey fit is in, but this fit from last week still crushes: https://discord.com/channels/1116793467654381685/1116800072093532191/1356400448986288250
I’ve been working this over in my head recently too because I thrift a lot of my tailoring, so i end up with pretty mainstream stuff that looks like (and was) someone’s old business attire. I try to mix it up by wearing casual shirts underneath or whatever, but the cuts are just really bland. I keep my eye out for big lapels, low gorges, interesting muted colors or anything else to make it not look like a boring business suit.
Given the movie and the era, that's intentional.
Scorsese himself openly pointed out that these people had bad taste.
Hold on lemme get to a full keyboard
As some others have mentioned whether something is "good" or "bad" depends on the context, audience, your goals etc. The easy one to knock-out is the very slim/skinny suits with elastane in the fabric so that folks who have to wear suits for their job or whatever and don't really want to think about clothes and going to the tailor have a place to shop at the mall and buy a week's worth of office outfits for not much money or fuss.
These suits serve a purpose, but not one that's particularly interesting or even that good inherently.
There are almost endless iterations of tailoring throughout history that are not part of this category though and plenty even that use similar themes: slimness, small lapels, etc. The specific combination in images 1-3 is just not that great.
Images 4 and 6 in the OP I think actually fit very well, but the specific combos with the matching shirt, tie, and pocket square is quite garish. But perhaps that's the point!
Once you're in the realm of "taste", for lack of a better term, things just start to get way more fuzzy and subjective. Classic 90s Armani tailoring is different than a style referencing zoot suits of the 1940s (of which there were sub-styles and references) even tho both use oversized silhouettes and proportions
Here are some other examples.
Garish was indeed the point.
i might be misreading but do you have an example of what is a "good" suit fit, whether from #waywt or #inspiration or elsewhere?
I actually don't know
I don't really know what appeals to my sense of aesthetics
I only know that it's not any of these
honestly that's a solid start
like everyone has said a 'good' suit looks different to different people; at least from the examples you've posted you seem to not like a lot of shoulder padding which, again, is a personal preference
Yeah.
Which is ironic given my previous thread.
i don't think so - animated media has a little more leeway in terms of character design because the illustrator/animator is also deciding how people are built and whatever context may come from the clothes
whereas in live action media you're constrained by the actors, by the clothes and by the real-life context we assign, short of stuff like dune or star wars where the costuming follows its own internal logic
I mean, the irony was that I decided to use big suits with shoulder padding as inspiration when I'm not actually into that look myself
you can be inspired by anything about a picture - silhouette, color, item, vibes. might be worth thinking through what drew you to those pictures to begin with
i will say as someone who does not have wide shoulders, i do sometimes like padded jackets if it fit makes sense in context (70s inspired fits are an example). again, it's a case where trying stuff on may be worthwhile
70s inspired fits are great.