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Two Or Three Button Suit Jacket For A Tall Man - Men's Suit Style Tips For Taller Men
- Fashion Tips
Hi! I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style. Today, we're going to be talking
about should a tall man buy a two-button or should he buy a three-button single-breasted
jacket?
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Okay, this is the question that came in. "Here's a question I'm kind of curious about, Antonio,
and none of your articles has gone into it in detail. When it comes to single-breasted
jackets, I'm not sure what's the best cut for me. I'm tall. I'm 6'6" and around 215
lbs, thin for the most part, but a small beer gut that's easily hidden when I'm not wearing
a t-shirt. So how many jacket buttons should I be looking at? I'm currently getting a two-button
jacket right now, but I want to know if I should be looking at a three. Thank you."
Now, he asked me not to share his name, so we're not going to go into that, but quickly,
the answer is you could go with either. There are going to be some people that are going
to say, "No, he needs to go with the two," "No, he should go with the three." And when
you have a debate like that and there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer, it's kind of like
with the black suit, there isn't a right answer. It's a matter of opinion.
I've written some pretty objective articles trying to break it down as to what it is,
but the thing you want to remember is that you are tall and thin. And since you have
that, the only difference you're going to see in those jackets -- and I'm going with
a pure three and a pure two. I'm going to talk about a two-and-a-half a little bit later
-- but if you went with a pure two-button jacket like what I have on here, what you're
going to see is this V going right down here. It's going to be elongated on a two. And on
a pure three, it's going to be shortened like this.
Now, for a tall man, my feelings are that he should go with the two because whenever
he brings this up right here, this V is just not going to -- in my opinion, it's not going
to look proportional. But I almost have to see it on the man and I would say it even
goes down to does he normally wear a tie and a dress shirt, or is this going to be a sports
jacket? You said it was going to be a suit jacket, but is it going to be something that
he wears a tie with all the time? Sometimes some of us get suits and we don't really wear
ties with them all the time, so that would be some of the questions that would have to
go to this. But in general, I'm going to lean towards a two-button for a man that's 6'6",
215 lbs, and has a bit of a little belly there.
Another option though, and let's say he really wants to go with the three, he really likes
the look because there is an advantage with the three, and the three is -- now, in case
you don't know, with the two button, you never button the bottom. With a three-button, you
never button the bottom. You always button the center and you sometimes can button the
top.
Now, with a three, if you are working in law or you want a very much more kind of buttoned
up look, then perhaps you want to go with a three-button because when you button those
two top buttons, it's just going to give you a more formal look, and this goes back to
kind of like the double-breasted. It's a little bit higher as well, so the shorter the V,
oftentimes, the more formal the look. The lower the V, it's a little bit less formal.
So I can see if you're a consultant, if you're a lawyer, if you deal with people in New York
City or a place where people wear suits a lot, then consider a three. Again, we're talking
a very small, minute thing here.
This takes me to probably the biggest point I want you to understand, is that this question
in general, if he doesn’t have fit, fabric and style already nailed, then what we're
talking about here is a very small part. So if you can imagine, you nail the fit, you
nail the fabric, you nail the style. You've got 80% to 90% of it down and what we're talking
about here is a small 2% to 3% thing. Now, he doesn’t ever want to look at a one-button
single-breasted jacket. That's going to be for a man who's around 5'6", no taller than
5'8", or informal wear. Then he would wear a one-button tuxedo.
Four buttons, you see this sometimes with basketball players, and this is maybe something
you guys are wondering why I didn’t recommend a four or five-button suit. Honestly, they're
costumes. I don't like them. Sometimes people think when you put more buttons on it, it's
going to make it look more proportional; that's not the case. If he wants to worry about proportions,
he needs to be looking at the size of his lapels. He needs to be looking at the size
of his sleeves. He needs to, again, focus on fit.
I was talking about a two-and-a-half. What is a two-and-a-half? I'm not wearing a two-and-a-half
here, but a two-and-a-half is where you've got a three-button jacket that is actually
designed to be worn like a two, so the idea would be the buttons you see right here and
-- let me see if you can see my horn button right there in the video -- this button's
a little bit higher. It'd be up here and it would be folded over, so imagine this jacket.
I've got a button that's right here. I've actually got a hole right here, but the lapels
are folded over naturally.
I could button it, but it would look like this. It wouldn't look right. The lapels wouldn’t
lay correctly. So that is a two-and-a-half and I like to make those because it's a hybrid
between the two. Maybe it's for those of us that can't decide between a two and a three.
That's just what I like. You're not going to see them very often on off-the-rack clothing.
You may have to have it custom-made, although if you go to some finer establishments like
Brooks Brothers, you're going to find that they probably do carry some two-and-a-halves.
Okay, so there was my longer answer to your probably very simple question. I hope you
enjoyed it. Again, if you found this video useful, please like. Otherwise, I'll see you
in the next video. Take care. Bye-bye.