Not sure what it takes to find an appropriately fitting suit jacket, sport coat, pair of pants or dress shirt? Author Nancy Butcher and men’s style expert Alan Flusser offer these suggestions (among others) in Butcher’s book “How To Make Your Man Look Good (Without Making Him Feel Bad).”
Dress shirts:
* Don’t buy a shirt that fits him exactly. It will shrink.
* Close the top button of a new, unwashed dress shirt. You should be able to slide two fingers between your man’s neck and the collar.
* The sleeves must be long enough so that your man can bend his arms without pulling on the cuffs. But the cuffs have to be snug enough that they don’t fall over his hands.
* The shirt itself should be long enough that your man can raise his arms in the air without pulling it out of his pants.
Suit jackets and sport coats:
* To determine if the jacket is long enough, have your man put his arms down straight. The bottom of the jacket should line up with his thumb knuckle. Also, the back of the jacket should cover the curve of his behind.
* The sleeve should just hit your man’s wrist bone. Half an inch of his shirt cuff should stick out.
* Make sure that half an inch of your man’s shirt collar is visible above the jacket collar.
Pants:
* The bottom of your man’s pants should rest on the tops of his shoes, with a slight break in the fabric just above the cuff. (The break means that if you look at his pants from the side, they will go straight down, then cave in softly in the ankle area because of the pants hitting the shoes.)
* Pleats should lie flat. If they gape open, the pants are too tight.
* The creases should go down the middle of each kneecap and finish at the middle of each shoe.
