Thursday, March 3, 2011

This entry would be titled "Joe goes suit shopping" if I were still titling blog entries. My godfather has given me a few suits over the years but many of them don't fit me anymore. I've gained 25 pounds since he first started giving me suits; it's a trend I'm going to have to stop if I want my clothes to continue fitting. Anyway, I've been doing some online suit shopping, which seems like it'd be less time-consuming but I'm not entirely sure that it is. But it's easy to do because my measurements appear to be fairly standard, for a tall skinny guy.

I kinda like the speckled wool suit look, but those are hard to find right now. There's this one from J. Crew, this from Brooks Brothers, and this from Jaeger, but none of them are available in anything close to my size. I especially like how J. Crew pants sizes top out at a 30 inch inseam. (I'm sure they had longer pants before, but why not just include the full length and let people get them hemmed to fit?) I know they're more fall-style suits, so I'll check again in the fall if I'm still interested.

Instead I got this rust-colored suit. (My credit card rewards are exceptionally efficient for brooks brothers, so I got this suit on a heavy discount.) I like the material but I'm not totally sure about the color. It looks good on that white guy but I'm not sure about how it meshes with my complexion. Maybe I'll post a photo of it.

I also got a couple darker suits from Macys.com. Macys is supposed to have decent suits with a very hassle-free return policy, and the mall is on my way to work so returns are convenient. There's a pretty big sale going on now too (my order was 40% off), so I ordered a few things.

I got this Sharkskin suit, and it fits well but I don't really like the material so I'm going to return it. This other Tommy Hilfiger suit also fits well, and I like the subtle striping. The jacket had a white thread sticking out near a button that I tugged on and a 1/2 inch dangling white thread turned into a 2 inch dangling white thread. I could almost hear the jacket unraveling from the inside out. So I'm exchanging the jacket. Finally, I got this DKNY 3-piece suit. It's, eh, okay. Nothing really great about it, and compared to the Tommy Hilfiger suits, the underside of this suit's armpits are very low. You can kinda tell from that photo if you look closely. The jacket restricts your arm movement, which I don't enjoy. So I'm returning this one too.

I'm really going to be pushing the boundaries of Macy's return policy. If it turns out to be really hassle free I might order this three-piece suit after I investigate the complaints one reviewer had about the pants' pattern emphasizing the zipper seam. The Tommy Hilfiger trim fit really suits me. I've been thinking about ordering this cotton suit from J. Crew in case it's brutally hot at Courtney's wedding, but J Crew is definitely not inexpensive and no suit material is going to make 100+ degrees comfortable, so I'll wait on that.

(I'm running late on a case so Micros suggests that I just ignore it and "accidentally" send out the same response I sent before)
me: yeah they'd call me, i'd be like "ooh, mistake, sorry". then like a 50% chance they'd call my supervisor and tell him I'm incompetent.
micros: Nah, we wouldn't do that, as long as you agreed to withdraw it and reset the response date.
me: but i think if i was the attorney i'd complain. you're being too forgiving on someone who isn't doing his job. if someone just sends you the same action for totally wrong claims he's wasting everyone's time
micros: In my experience complaining about examiner incompetence doesn't get you anywhere.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

You are doing one thorough suit search! Macy's should be fine but I think going to the store might have been easier. ;)

A high maintenance linen suit would probably keep you coolest!

joe said...

Young, naive Sarah... You can't just waltz into a store and tell them you want a suit. That's like walking onto a car lot and telling them you need a car. Those salesmen will eat you alive! (Or I imagine they would anyway, I've never actually bought a car.)

I'm skeptical about linen. First, I've heard it wrinkles super easily and even the guy modeling j. crew's linen suit is modeling a wrinkled one. And also it sounds like how Nor. California hippies dress when they're supposed to dress up but they'd really prefer to thumb their nose at society and dress down instead. Linen suit and sandels, and dreads and a long unkept beard. And let's smoke up in the parking lot beforehand.

It would stay cooler at high temps though, I wonder if I could pull it off.