You may be hearing more about ‘suit separates’ recently. For tricky to fit guys this is a good thing. Essentially, suit separates are simply the matching jacket and pant sold individually. Typically suits are available in 6″ drop or 7″ drops (referred to as ‘drop 6’ and ‘drop 7’). This means the pant waist measurement is 6″ or 7″ less than the jacket size. So a 42Reg suit with a drop 6 comes with a 36″ waist pant whereas a 42Reg drop 7 comes with a 35″ pant. Keep in mind that the waist size you fit in a suit pant can be a couple inches bigger that the size you typically wear in jeans, but that’s another post altogether.
So these suit separates allow a guy whose a 44 reg jacket and a 34″ pant to buy a pant that fits off the rack instead of doing major alterations on the 36″ trouser what would have come with the suit. It also allows the wearer the option to purchase a 2nd pair of pants thereby extending the life of the suit, as typically the pants will wear out before the jacket.
One crucial factor with suit separates is an exact match in fabrics dye lots between the jacket and pant. You shouldn’t see any noticeable difference in colour. With a high quality manufacturer this isn’t a problem.
And just like the name suggests, they’re separates! So separate them, have some fun and wear with other pieces from your closet. It may start out as a wedding suit or business suit, but morph into a few different looks depending on the occasion.
Currently we’re featuring suit separates from Germany’s DIGEL, Bruno Saint Hillaire (France), Tiger of Sweden, Stones (Germany) and Vito (Sweden).