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Looking good in bespoke tailoring isn’t all about the suit itself. The accessories you choose to wear with it will have a huge impact on the overall success of your outfit.
The most important of these accessories is the shirt.
Shirts form the base of any good tailored outfit. Think of the shirt you choose as the foundation of your suit. A hasty or half-hearted foundation is never a solid start. Taking care over your shirt choice will give your outfit a much stronger foundation and help to ensure that you look your absolute best.
There are four key areas to cover when it comes to choosing the right shirt: fit, quality, style and care.
Why fit is important
The fit of your shirt is important for all the same reasons as the fit of your suit is. A poorly fitted shirt will be unflattering and uncomfortable. You may feel that it’s even more important to ensure a good shirt fit when you have invested in made to measure tailoring. After all, a poorly fitted shirt could bulge or pull in a way that affects the way your suit hangs.
Why quality is important
Poor quality shirts are difficult to hide. Shirts made from thin, lower quality fabrics will look very different from those made from more luxurious ones. This difference is likely to become much more obvious over time as high quality shirts age far better than their cheaper counterparts.
Why style is important
A tailored outfit is made or broken by how well everything goes together. A shirt that clashes with the suit it’s worn with will make the whole outfit look bad, no matter how good the shirt or the suit are in isolation. Coloured and patterned shirts can look excellent when cleverly paired with an appropriate suit… but if in doubt it’s very difficult to go wrong with a plain white shirt.
Why care is important
How well you care for your shirts will directly impact on how good you look when you wear them. Even the most beautiful handmade shirts will look shabby if they haven’t been laundered and ironed properly! Yes, we know this part of the style process isn’t anyone’s favourite… but time spent at this stage will be well worth it.
Want to take steps to look and feel better in your clothing? Start with our free email course: Improve Your Style in 5 Days.