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Tailored Thoughts On: Invisible Accessories to Make You Look Great

Need to get ahead of your suited-and-booted buddies? Matthew Gonzales offers up his top tips to looking your best and keeping your sartorial edge all day long

words by Matthew GONZALEZ

Whether you work in an industry that requires a suit, or if you just prefer it to something like streetwear, you know that wearing a well-cut suit can make a lasting impression on the people you meet. The problem is, bespoke suits are not necessarily affordable for everyone, but there are things you can do to enhance your suit, regardless of whether it came from the high street or it was handmade on Savile Row. These tips will guarantee you will always look your best. 

One of the basic things you can do to instantly sharpen up your suit is invest in a pair of braces or suspenders. If you don’t know the difference, braces button into your trousers, whereas suspenders clip on to them. Using either will ensure your trousers don’t slip down off your waist throughout the day, meaning you won’t be constantly pulling them up, nor will they ever look long and baggy. Also as a consequence, you can have a little extra room in the waist meaning you won’t ever feel uncomfortable after a big lunch or a few after-work pints, which is always a plus. A good pair of braces will cost you anywhere from £40 to £75, but suspenders will only set you back around £10 to £15 so trying them out won’t cost you a fortune. 

 Being a tailor, I often focus in on how a suit is cut, but your shirt is just as important to looking your best and there are a few accessories for shirts that are well worth investing in. One of the most affordable bits you can buy is a pair of collar stays. Any decent quality shirt will have a small channel sewn into the underside of the collar. Most will come with a plastic set already inserted, but they will get lost or distorted the first time you forget to take them out when laundering. Without them, your collar will collapse in on itself. It might not be the worst thing in the world, but a shirt with stays just looks so much nicer than one without. A basic brass pair will only cost a few quid from any shirt maker, but if you want something special you can find ones made out of mother of pearl or even sterling silver.

Sleeve length can often be a problem when it comes to wearing a suit. There is something very sloppy looking when you see too much of your shirt hanging down from the cuff of your jacket. If this is the case for you, first make sure your jacket sleeves aren’t too short, then go out and buy a pair of sleeve armbands. They essentially do the same job as braces but for your shirt. They can come in a variety of materials, but if you want to be as discreet as possible about it, go for a simple metal pair. You will be able to find them at most menswear departments and should run you between £5 and £30. 

The last bit of kit you should try out is a bit unusual but by far a personal favourite. If you have ever in your life had to tuck a shirt into your trousers you will know, that as soon as you move it is coming undone. That is where a pair of ‘shirt stays’ come into play. If you haven’t heard of them before it is probably because they are not mainstream as they really ought to be. The only way to describe them is to imagine an elastic trident that connects from your socks to the front side and back of your shirt on each leg. They will keep your shirt perfectly tucked in to your trousers throughout the day, but they do take some getting used to. A perpetually tucked in shirt may sound insignificant, but wearing a suit as we already said is about making an impression. A disheveled-looking shirt can undercut the effort you put into the rest of your look. Shirt stays are pretty hard to find these days, but you can find them online from a company called Sharp and Dapper and will set you back about £25. If you can get used to wearing them you will notice at the end of your work day that while all your other colleagues look a bit run down you will look as sharp as you did first thing that morning. 

Everything that we discussed in this article has been designed specifically to make you look your absolute best when wearing a suit. Some of them will seem like no-brainers while others might seem a bit strange. All I can do is tell you that I use each of these things every day and can’t recommend them enough. So do some more research, experiment, and see what you think. MG