3-piece suits (rules to live by)

Thursday 8 July  2021

As you might have guessed, a 3-piece suit comes in three pieces: the pants, the jacket and the vest (AKA the ‘waistcoat’). It’s the vest that sets the 3-piece apart from your average nine-to-five suit. It also makes the 3-piece dressier and way more formal. Your vest can match your jacket and suit fabric, or be more of a contrast statement. It’s totally up to you. The golden rules are: your vest should just cover the waistband of your pants, it should fit close to your body, and you should always leave the bottom button undone. (It’s just how things go. Don’t question it.)

As you might have guessed, a 3-piece suit comes in three pieces: the pants, the jacket and the waistcoat. It’s the waistcoat that sets the 3-piece apart from your average nine-to-five suit. It also makes the 3-piece dressier and way more formal. Your waistcoat can match your jacket and suit fabric, or be more of a contrast statement. It’s totally up to you. The golden rules are: your waistcoat should just cover the waistband of your pants, it should fit close to your body, and you should always leave the bottom button undone. (It’s just how things go. Don’t question it.)

Black equals posh. A black 3-piece suit equals three times the posh. Generally, you’ll wear this guy at awards nights, weddings and fancy charity dinners. It’s not technically ‘black tie’ (you need a tux jacket for that), but it’s a very, very close cousin. Don’t mess around with clashing waistcoats here: your suit should match perfectly.

You can have a lot of fun with a grey 3-piece suit. Do you go charcoal or light grey? Plain or windowpane check? Whatever you choose, we recommend keeping your accessories low-key. A crisp white shirt, silver cufflinks and tie clip, and some black loafers will seal the deal.

If this is your first time at the 3-piece rodeo, navy is probably the way to go. It’s the safest, most versatile colour, and it’ll look good at the office, the cocktail party, and your cousin’s wedding. This is definitely a place to experiment. Try a bold check or pinstripe design, and play around with burgundy ties, pink pocket squares and loud accessories.

Burgundy is known as the royal shade. Dark, rich, mysterious, and not something you see all the time. Definitely a good choice for peacocks. Neutral pinks, peaches and grey tones always match well with burgundy. Finish the spring look with a floral tie and some slick sunnies.

Brown 3-piece suits are definitely cranking the old-school vibes up a notch. But that doesn’t mean you have to look like your dad. Brown suits are very in right now. Just throw on a white Oxford shirt, navy blue tie, and polished brown Derby shoes (monk straps are also a good look).

UUnless you’re an evil genius plotting world domination from your secret volcano lair, you can probably skip the white 3-piece suit. The exception is summer or spring weddings, where a light cream 3-piece with a black tie can look pretty damn smart. Definitely a high-risk, high-reward option. Tread carefully.

Definitely! Weddings and 3-piece suits were made for eachother. Unless you’re worried about showing up the groom. Maybe run it by him first.

Not really. You probably wouldn’t wear a 3-piece suit to an average job interview, or running down to the shops, but anything else is fair game. Like we said, if you’re worried about looking stuffy, stick to simple fabrics, low-key accessories, and colours like grey and navy.

There should be a little play in your jacket, which means you can easily do it up over the vest. The vest should fit snug (but not tight) on your torso, with the bottom just covering the waistband of your pants. Other than that, the normal suit rules apply: the jacket shouldn’t balloon out from your shoulder blades, and your sleeves should sit comfortably at your wrist—not two inches either side.

A 4-piece suit is a 3-piece suit with a matching bow tie. This is definitely way up on the formal scale. You’ll usually only see it on grooms, groomsmen and posh butlers.

Okay, there are a few rules to follow here. First, the vest. You should keep this buttoned at all times, but always undo the bottom button. For the jacket, you should keep it buttoned when standing, and unbutton it at the table (this is more comfy, and it’ll stop the jacket getting creased). Again, if you’ve got two buttons on the jacket, just do up the top one. Always leave the bottom button undone. It’s weird, we know, but it helps the jacket sit better.