Material Man - clothes

CLOTHES | When BUYING A SUIT, a few tips (such as disco is dead) will have you looking sharp in a great value.

WHEN LAWYER Jeffrey Meehan needs a new suit, you can bet it's because the ones in his closet have started to show that wool patina and maybe a little fraying at the cuffs. When he can wait no longer, he buys several at once and delays the ordeal for several more years. What he hates most is the way the salesperson always dotes over him. "I want to get in and get out. I hate all that `You look good in this' stuff." He cannot, off the top of his head, name the brand of any suit he owns. Meehan is fairly typical: Suit Shopping is generally not a favorite guy thing.

But it's an important thing. With suits, cheap in the short run is often expensive in the long run, as well-made suits with high-quality wool can last ten years, as opposed to just a few for the cut-rate variety. So to take the sting out of suit shopping, we've condensed the process into a few simple steps and recommended some suits chat meet all our criteria. Some aren't cheap--but they're all good values.

Before we begin, some good news: Improved technologies have made it possible to machine-make suits that fit almost as well as their handmade, more expensive, brand-name cousins. And over the past few years, some big-name designers have been expanding their lines to include more reasonably priced suits. Armani, for instance, has three lines. Giorgio Armani, Armani and Mani have suits in the $1,000, above-$500 and below-$500 ranges, respectively.

Finding a fit

OF COURSE, to make the first cut a suit has to look good on you, which sometimes means you have to abandon preconceived notions about what you ought to be wearing. Gilbert Urbano Jr., who sells suits at the Gucci store in Costa Mesa, Cal., says, "Do what best fits you." He says it may be helpful to bring someone you trust who also isn't afraid to hurt your feelings. "The person can give you an honest opinion of whether the suit looks good or not."

Meehan admits he is carrying a bit more weight than he did 20 years ago, and as a result favors double-breasted stilts. Most salespeople say that only tall, thin men should wear double-breasted, but Meehan says he and his wife both think he looks better in double-breasted because the extra material in the suit helps hide some of his own extra material.

One way of finding a fit you'll love is to start by trying on really fine suits. Even if you are not planning to spend more than $1,000, go to a store that carries very expensive brands to feel the fit of a great suit, then work your way down to your price range. The suit should fit snugly across the shoulders, flat and straight with almost a military edge, not sagging off the shoulders or so tight as to be lifting up the sleeves.

Without being so tight as to be constricting, tighter armholes and narrower shoulders make for a better fit. Try moving your arm across your chest while the jacket is buttoned. The suit should move with you, not pucker and bulge.

Snugness across the chest and around the waist are a matter of personal preference as well, although many salespeople still swear by the guideline Mom used: four fingers between the buttoned jacket and your solar plexus. Keep in mind that fit salesmen tend to recommend a tighter, more body-hugging fit and those with a little extra around the middle seem to like a more relaxed fir to allow room for future expansion.

Cuffs on the pants are not purely decorative dust collectors. That extra weight at the bottom makes pants hang straighter.

Material matters

IF CHECKING UNDER the hood (as if you know what all those hoses and wires do) is part of your car-buying ritual, you should feel comfortable checking the guts of a suit. A top-of-the-line suit has a thick, 100% wool liner under the collar to help it maintain its shape over time. This underliner is a good place to check the overall quality of the suit. If attention has been paid to small, careful stitching here (as opposed to large, widely spaced stitches), the overall quality is generally better. To give you an idea: There are 1,400 hand stitches in the jacket of a Hickey-Freeman suit--a fine brand. There are 1,350 hand stitches in just the collar of a suit made by Oxxford. Even on machine-made suits, the quality ones have close and neat collar stitching.

The best suits--generally $1,000 and up--are canvas-made instead of fused. This means that all of the seams are stitched rather than glued, and that the suit has a layer of horse-hair or goat-hair canvas between the outer wool and the inner lining. With a fused suit, the glue will open up over time, which is one reason why some older suits tend to sag. "Canvas makes it conform to the shape of your body," says Urbano. "It will fit like a new suit every time you put it on." Werner likens it to the way good leather shoes mold to your feet.

How can you tell whether a suit is canvas-made? First, especially on lighter fabrics, it is possible to see the stitching under the lapel. To the untrained eye those little puckers may look like flaws, but they are where the canvas lining has been sewn into the wool. And typically the fabric has been stitched together on the outside, rather than glued underneath and folded back on the lapels, cuffs and jacket bottom. A good way of judging a salesperson's expertise is to ask if a suit is fused or canvas-made: If he draws a blank, he may just have been promoted from housewares.

At some department stores and discount stores the salesmen may try to persuade you that the best suits have a little polyester in them. Remind them that disco is dead. (Microfiber is the politically correct term for the latest polyester, and some of the big-name labels, such as Donna Karan, are using it for certain trendy designs. But polyester is still a fad fabric.)

Adding polyester to a wool blend will make the suit less likely to wrinkle initially, but once the wrinkles are in, they will stay. Since polyester has a tendency to keep its shape, it will keep its shape, not your shape. Good wool breathes and tends to conform better, whether the wool is a thick weave for a warm tweed or tightly woven for a soft, light suit.

It used to be that a 100 rating on wool meant a good suit; but now 120s, 130s and even 180s are possible (the higher, the better, but only to a point). Here's the skinny on wool numbers: Roughly translated this number (which is generally found on a removable tag on the suit) refers to the number of wool strands per square inch of material--so a 180 has twice as many strands as a 90. A 180 feels almost as fine as silk and will be just as delicate. The label will rarely mention the count if it is less than 100, because such a low number is nothing to brag about. Because they use superfine wool that doesn't stand up well to vigorous wear, avoid any suit above 120 or 130 unless you don't plan to wear it very often or keep it very long.

What to buy

IF YOU'D LIKE to splurge, a Gucci or a Zegna will make you feel like James Bond for $1,400 to $1,700. (Actually, he wears Brioni in Goldeneye, and they cost about double that.) If you would rather have a big-screen TV and a new suit, there are some better buys. And if you pick a classic look, like a good car it will not be dated if you are still seen in it ten years from now.

Hickey-Freeman's Oakbrook is one of the few canvas-made suits available for about $1,000. (You can also get it in a finer wool for about $1,200.) Hickey-Freeman also makes the Boardroom, which is so similar to the Oakbrook that only their mother could tell them apart. They are both standard business suits and have not changed their style in years, so barring Star Trek spandex being the only way to go in 2010, the style should last as long as the suit. Kaufmann's department stores recently carried the Boardroom for $995, but you can sometimes get it on sale for about $700.

Like Hickey-Freeman's Oakbrook, Hugo Boss's Einstein is available in different grades of fabric. For about $900 at Nordstrom, Brady's, Saks and Neiman Marcus, you could recently get it in a better grade of wool. Or you might still get the Einstein look in a lesser, but still excellent, 100s wool for $700 at the same stores. It has a simple, classic business look, with a hint of tapered European styling.

At this juncture, you have to ask yourself just how nice a suit you really need. Meehan says he can tell a $1,000 suit from a $500 suit but won't spend the higher price because, he admits, he is hard on clothes. "If I were wearing a Hickey-Freeman, I would not let anyone get within 50 feet of me in case they spilled something on it." Meehan says he knows he should hike up the pants when he sits down to avoid stretching the knees, remove his jacket whenever possible while seated, and take off the suit as soon as he gets home from work. He also admits he does none of these things. "I'll wear it to a ballgame after work," he says.

So whether you're leery of the price or just don't want the responsibility, consider the next tier of suits. Hart, Schaffner & Marx's Corporate model is an excellent choice. It was recently available at Nordstrom for $645; at Kaufmann's it is usually $595, but on sale it may be marked down to $400.

The great thing about the Corporate is that it has not changed its styling in nearly eight years, and will likely still look good for the next eight years. It has just enough panache not to be boring and is of sufficient quality to last as long as your waist size holds steady.

There are several Joseph Abboud models in this price range. They are machine-made, but they will hold up with some wearing and have more flair than other suits in this category, such as the Hartmarx. The patterns and colors in an Abboud suit tend to be richer and deeper than the typical blue or gray, and the cut can better fit a more athletic frame.

In the below-$500 range, the number of brands to choose from swells. These suits are rather similar, almost generic, and lack some of the class and better fit of the slightly more expensive brands. Among them, first check out Kenneth Cole, Chaps and Mani in the $395-to-$495 neighborhood.

But if you're willing to exercise some patience and do some shopping, you can get a Mustang for the same price as a Hyundai. Most department stores have sales around April, May or June, then again in November and December, and offer some good savings-sometimes 20% or more on even their most popular styles. --Reporter: SEAN O'NEILL

RELATED ARTICLE: GETTING A DEAL

If you want to spend less than $500 but don't want to wait for a sale, some of the larger men's clothing chains-such as Men's Wearhouse, which has more than 400 stores across the U.S.-are worth a look. Men's Wearhouse, like many of the other large chains that want to compete with the department stores on price, brag about their brand names, but far lesser-known names outnumber the better brands on their racks. That is not necessarily a bad thing. You could be paying more for a very similar suit just for the designer label, and as Meehan attests, not many men care about that. A Pierre Cardin or Chaps by Ralph Lauren suit was recently $300 at the Men's Wearhouse ($100 to $200 less than at most department stores).

A Hugo Boss was $695 at the Men's Wearhouse, and the salesmen said the same suit would retail anywhere else for about $1,200. What they did not mention is that the same suit would usually have been at Hugo Boss or better department stores 18 to 36 months ago. If you are one of those people who like to car shop for a year 2000 car after the 2001s are on the lot, you can save half or more off department-store retail. You are not getting free tailoring, but you are saving far more than what the alterations will cost. A two-button gray with flap pockets by Hartmarx, sold under their Society Brand label, was just $400.

A good way to keep your cost under $500 and come away with a better suit is to shop the outlets. Many of the department stores have their own outlet stores, such as Nordstrom's Rack and Saks's Off Fifth Avenue. The outlets may not offer the selection of the parent stores, but the price savings are significant. A Joseph Abboud, which Saks had for $575, was available at Off Fifth for $200. A Donna Karan, which retails for $1,395, was going for $500, and a $1,025 Hickey-Freeman was selling for $500.

Nordstrom's Rack has many suits with similar gaps between the original retail tag and the bargain price. A Hickey-Freeman was recently marked down from $965 to $200 and a Hart, Schaffner & Marx was reduced from $695 to $395. Again, some are last year's models and others were purchased directly for the Rack without ever being on sale at Nordstrom. The selection is not going to be what you would find at Saks, or even a Saks sale, but there are some great deals if you are patient and persistent enough to find them.

COPYRIGHT 2000 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.
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