What Suit Styles Are In for 2021?
Super Size Your Suit
Tailors are obsessed with finding the ideal proportion. Everything revolves around balance. Fashion, on the other hand, just loves to tamper with it. Then there’s the huge suit, which has a hint of Armani from the 1980s and references to David Byrne’s ‘Stop Making Sense’ aesthetic.
This is undoubtedly the most capital-F fashion of the moment, with jackets – especially double-breasted ones – spilling over at the shoulder, wrapped tent-like around the body rather than on it, and ending somewhere about mid-thigh in length. Getting this correctly, of course, needs some rather clever, if unorthodox, tailoring. So don’t believe you’ll be able to pull off this style by just sizing up.
Mix It Up
Your proclivity to dress like a woman is entirely your own business, of course, but there is one way we would strongly advise you to dress like a lady — and that is to grasp the concept of wearing separates. While many women have traditionally avoided wearing suits due to its connotation with masculinity, they have not avoided tailoring.
Their response? Mixing and matching entails pairing a tailored jacket with complimentary but unmatched tailored pants. Stick to basic menswear colors, keep the deeper hue for the jacket, and don’t forget the unusual accessories – but the outcome is smart without the stuffiness of standard suit styles, and a lot more fun than wearing a suit. Words to live by: buy a decent blazer.
Loosen Up, Man
Suit fashion moves at a glacial pace. After all, the suit’s traditional duty is not to evolve, but to serve as a working uniform and the epitome of wearable conservatism. Nonetheless, it appears that tighter-fitting suits – narrow in the shoulder, nipped in at the waist, trousers oh-so-butt-clenching and too short – have been with us for an eon. Most men looked terrible in them, as if they’d been through a hot wash and lost. But, at long last, the dam has burst.
Look for a bigger suit, with a looser, wider leg, across the chest, through the shoulder, and, most clearly, through the pant. Instead of thinking of estate agents, imagine the elegance of an Astaire or Cooper in the 1930s and 1940s.
Try and Make it Comfy
We live in a lazy, sloppy, comfort-seeking era, sartorially speaking. Just look at how many men these days dress in the shopping mall uniform of matching grey sweatshirts and sweatpants. It’s really depressing. Okay, so these are strange, locked-down times, and coziness can be comfortable, but there’s also this longer-term, overarching trend toward relaxation.
Much like ‘legitimate’ shoemakers are fighting to keep up with the relentless rise of the sneaker – and are being forced to adapt, essentially by creating expensive sneakers themselves – ‘proper’ suits are being reframed as, if you will, swanky track-suits.
Look for matching two-piece clothing that are softer, stretchier, techier, and more unstructured than any suit you’ve worn before. They could have elastic waistbands. They may or may not be stain- or wrinkle-resistant. They might even end up in the washing machine.
Live in Color
Most men are definitely apprehensive about wearing a pink suit outside of a Miami Vice theme park. And they’d be correct. Any man dressed in a pink suit will attract more attention than he bargained for. They would, however, be extremely trendy.
Consider pastels and jewel tones rather than the dark sobriety associated with most suit types – rich Crayola colors of light orange and violet, emerald green, and sapphire blue. The tones aren’t as vivid – they’re more washed out. And, as the trend dictates, some guys may even pair them with tonal variations of the same color for shirt and tie. Nonetheless, this is a hint that the suit is still looking for a home outside of the office.