Business Attire Advice

[_Q_]

Do not cheap out on shoes. You can spend $2000 on a suit and $150 on a shirt, but if you're wearing a beat up pair of $80 Aldo shoes and a 10 year old mismatching belt, you'll look like trash.

My office is pretty casual, so I wear chinos and a polo or oxford shirt every day that cost me no more than $70 a piece, but I look sharp as hell when I pair that with my $400 Allen Edmonds and matching belt. And yes, Allen Edmonds shoes are so worth it.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I mean, I agree with your general statement there that shoes are the most important thing to buy well, but then you go on to brag about $400 Allen Edmonds as if those are some sort of fancy shoe. They're well made tanks but they're by no means great examples of shoemaking. AE's are pretty much the entry level for "good" shoes. It'd be like talking about the wonders of owning a luxury car after buying a Mercedes CLA 250.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I mean, I agree with your general statement there that shoes are the most important thing to buy well, but then you go on to brag about $400 Allen Edmonds as if those are some sort of fancy shoe. They're well made tanks but they're by no means great examples of shoemaking. AE's are pretty much the entry level for "good" shoes. It'd be like talking about the wonders of owning a luxury car after buying a Mercedes CLA 250.

LOL ok.

I'm not spending $1000 on shoes and the majority of us peasants won't do that either. Enjoy your "real" Benz and your luxury shoes. I got other things to spend my money on.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by _Q_

LOL ok.

I'm not spending $______on ______ and the majority of us peasants won't do that either. Enjoy your "real" Benz and your luxury ______. I got other things to spend my money on.

fyp.



This response is applicable to literally every piece of advice in this thread. You have people recommending inexpensive budget attire and others casually suggesting he go drop $10k on his wardrobe like it's no big thing.

Two things matter here. Fit and budget. Find something that fits you well and doesn't compromise your budget. The less you want to spend, the harder it will (most likely) be for you to satisfy the first condition. If some of the specific advice on where to shop is helpful because it is within your budget, go for it. If it isn't within your budget, ignore it because it is terrible generalized advice.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

fyp.



This response is applicable to literally every piece of advice in this thread. You have people recommending inexpensive budget attire and others casually suggesting he go drop $10k on his wardrobe like it's no big thing.

Two things matter here. Fit and budget. Find something that fits you well and doesn't compromise your budget. The less you want to spend, the harder it will (most likely) be for you to satisfy the first condition. If some of the specific advice on where to shop is helpful because it is within your budget, go for it. If it isn't within your budget, ignore it because it is terrible generalized advice.

I think #3 - what do your clients expect , is the most important in his field

If you need to stretch your budget to have the proper attire it will pay off multiple times in the long run

I work in IT so they are lucky if my shirt has a collar 😏

[DoubleF]

Wow, some of these entries are way off in terms of meeting OP's cost being a primary concern. I'd suggest a charcoal colored suit. Most are very black in color and only seem grey in direct sunlight. Navy/Blue/Silver/Light grey is nice but doesn't always fit the situation. As much as Google is a good resource, you may want to ask the work place what their expectation is. Maybe engage someone at the company ask what the expected dress requirement is to see if it's very professional, or casual? That way you avoid over or under dressing.

TL;DR - If cost is a concern and you're going to be around professionals who know their basics (overly cheap is not an option), I'd venture to guess $600-700 is a good budget all in for shirt, tie, shoes, belt, suit and possibly a spare pair of pants.

IMO a very good bang for buck with good style and look might be:
- Calvin Klein Suit ($250-350)
- Calvin Klein Shirts($30-70 and style wise look good with the suit)
- Tailoring pants, jacket and shirt ($100-150 bucks ish as long as the fit is correct)
- Steve Madden($50-90)/Calvin Klein shoes($50-90) in that range. I wouldn't go over that budget without consider higher end brands.
- Basic dress belt from Brooks Brothers ($55-65)
- Tie ($30).
- Tie clip ($5-10)

If you're lucky to save somewhere, I'd suggest putting it into the spare pants or shoes. Socks wise, I don't know what to suggest. Most dress socks shred easily. The only ones I haven't destroyed are dressy compression socks that I purchased to help soreness after athletic pursuits ($15-25).


If you're ok with a slightly more versatile, slightly casual (could be deal breaker) and COMFY set up:

- Lululemon ABC pants ($130; tailoring included)
- Suit jacket of your choice ($150-250 but make sure jacket stylistically matches pants)
- Shirt ($30-70; same as jacket)
- Basic dress belt from Brooks Brothers ($55-65)
- Tie ($30)
- Shoes ($50-200; to compensate for the pants)

These pants are literally comfortable enough and flexible enough to do Yoga in. Durability wise and the comfort alone are not comparable to many dress pants as it's easily far superior to wool and cotton options. Huge bonus being the ABC set up being very dad friendly. ABC pants would be easily clean and indestructible to daily dad stuff vs wool/cotton equivalents. You can chuck them in the wash to bring them up to par vs many other options being dry clean only. Now, you may have to boost the shoes to sell the ensemble and you may have to buy the pants, belt and shoes and go to Saks/Nordstrom/Bay and ask a stylist/wife/friend to help you select a good jacket to go with it, but I think it's a worthwhile option to consider. I still suggest a spare pair of pants. Accidents happen and it's always a good idea to have the option to rush to the closet to grab a clean pair of pants.


I have a specific athletic build so many business clothing looks weird on me. Shopping wise, try it all on before buying! You need the components to fit well together or it will be weird. I've seen people with great components to a suit, but patterns on the belt, tie or shoes don't match. Or the fit of the shirt is slightly off. If you must wear watches, make sure it matches. You can easily find an inexpensive DW watch on Amazon for <$100 that can finish off the ensemble.

Shopping, I personally like going to Saks on 5th at Cross Iron for a slightly nicer suit (Zegna cloth or Penguin are the ones I like monitoring personally) and just waiting for the right discount. I don't know if that option fits for you, but I am going to have to assume Henry Singer, Harry Rosen and Holt Renfrew out for you. I have a specific athletic build so many suits just look very odd on me, but awesome on a rack. Almost all the shirts I've tried on often look super baggy on me even with the slim size. I need trim sized dress shirts and Tristan men or Calvin Klein seem like the only ones that ever look good on me with no tailoring. It should be like this anyways before tailoring. Many tailors will refuse to tailor a baggy shirt because it takes a lot of time (expensive) and isn't even guaranteed to look good after tailoring.


Calvin Klein is IMO a surprisingly decent entry level suit. I had a black CK suit for years during uni. I interviewed in it, went clubbing in it and though it shows its age, it surprising looks less ratty than some of the suits I purchased a few years later. Some brands should not make suits. They're essentially modified sports coats that don't have a professional look at all IMO. I've been a fan of keeping tabs at Saks and nabbing some nice suits when they're on sale/clearance. One of my favourite suits is a Zegna cloth suit from Saks that I paid $450 for. I added $100 in tailoring and it looks super good due to the bespoke fit. I also purchased a Boss suit for $550 and again with about $100 in tailoring, it's been a fantastic option in rotation.

I'd say a well fitted suit is more important than the brand or style, but others may disagree. I'd also highly suggest you go to the Bay or Tip Top or somewhere similar and have an actual dude measure you and explain to you the basics of how to wear a suit and how a suit should fit. If you get a wrong sized suit, there's only so much a tailor can do for you and it looks very unprofessional regardless of brand.

The comments about belt and shoes is a good comment. Belt wise though, I grabbed the basic leather dress belts at Brooks Brothers for $55-65 bucks each and both have been great. Hands down, easily one of the best looking belt and value belt out there. I spent a lot of time looking for belts previously but nothing seems to beat these Brooks Brother dress belts for look and price. I'd suggest saving the time on belts and buying this belt.

Shoes, I dunno. I have shoes ranging from $45 Steve Maddens to $300 To Boot New Yorks to $600 Ferregamos and honestly, I don't think I've ever believed that shoes really caused a problem with my image. If anything, I am seemingly noticing comments on socks more than shoes in the last few years. If you're wearing scuffed over sized clown shoes, that's a problem. Steve Maddens are inexpensive and the durability will reflect that. Don't buy them full price. Try them on at the store and see if you can get them on Amazon for 25-40% off/warehouse open box. You can even acquire an extra pair that you rarely wear for the days you feel that you need to make a slightly better impression than normal. Calvin Klein is another brand to look at for shoes, however, I wouldn't spend more than $100 on either brand unless it's something that draws you in like a moth to flame. There's always discounts and sales and both sometimes even pop up in places like Winners (vs typical places like CK store, Bay, Nordstrom, Saks, Tip Top etc.)

Keeping it mid end though, I'd suggest keeping tabs on sales at Nordstrom/Nordstrom Rack and Saks/Saks on 5th for sales. Sometimes higher end shoes drop between 15-30% on a special sale and you might get lucky on brands like To Boot New York, Prada, etc.

Honestly though, I've been rocking Vans as a business casual and I've been loving it (I keep a spare pair of dress shoes at work in case I need to swap). It's comfy, cost didn't break the bank and it actually reasonably matches the style of my business attire.

[Otto-matic]

I'm still waiting on nice business shorts to become okay in the business casual environment.

[rotten42]

No matter where you buy your suit, just get it properly tailored. Nothing can make a good suit look bad that when it doesn't fit right.

[DuffMan]

I would say head on over to Alan Couture and pick yourself up a python jacket

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

- Basic dress belt from Brooks Brothers ($55-65)

I’m really curious what this belt looks like, and what makes it such great value for $55-65 (I don’t profess to be any sort of fashion/style expert so I’m legitimately curious).

[Northendzone]

I can’t speak to the brooks brothers belt; however, I have a dockers belt that I purchased from Moore’s. It is a black/brown reversible belt and it holds up my pants.

I had a bit of a chuckle at double-f’s comment on rocking vans for casual wear. I have a pair of air walks that I use for similar purposes.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

I’m really curious what this belt looks like, and what makes it such great value for $55-65 (I don’t profess to be any sort of fashion/style expert so I’m legitimately curious).

http://www.brooksbrothers.com/Silver...s=13&cgid=0233

This is the dress belt I have. I have one in black and one in brown. Based on what my tailor told me, dress belts are a little different than the typical belt as they're thinner and aren't supposed to bulge the belt loops. Almost all dress belts I ran into were easily over $100. Anything less than that price other than the Brooks Brothers ones looked closer to casual belt than dress belt, but still cost around $40-60. There was weirdly very little in between those two price points.

The two dress belts I nabbed from Brooks brothers are about 3 and 4 years old and other than the normal buckle impressions beside the most commonly used belt hole and the curving of the belt, wear and tear is minimal. Any belt that I wear that is not made of quality leather gets shredded and destroyed. I really like this belt because it's one of the cheapest dress belts out there, looks like a proper dress belt and is very durable.

https://www.businessinsider.com/belts-for-guys-2014-7

This link explains the belt types.

[V]

I don’t think I could afford working in the high powered world of finance or litigation. I make pretty good coin and I couldn’t imagine spending the money you people do on clothes.

[VladtheImpaler]

A lot of this depends on your body shape/size. Back when you were a top collegiate athlete. Now? If you have the trim shape to wear standard off-the rack, go to the Bay - they have the whole gamut of brands from Calvin Klein at the cheaper end to Strelson/Ted Baker at the higher. And they have fantastic sales almost constantly. I picked up 5 pairs of Lagerfeld pants for basically nothing (it was some sort of a sale on top of a sale, so 67% off in the end), including 2 of the very lawyerly pinstriped. However, if you have migrated to the middle-aged pear-shaped man club, I would follow the advice above about getting something nice tailored to fit you perfectly. Depending on how much you want to buy, it's almost worth it to look for a sale and fly to Vietnam or Shanghai to get outfitted.
As far as shirts/ties, definitely the Bay - you can stock up for $15/20 per item with Hillfiger/CK type of stuff, which is perfectly fine. Also, Costco, but you need to know your size.

[GirlySports]

Indochino has a weekend sale, ad on the front page of every paper today.

Belts and ties are so expensive here. Whenever I go to Asia I buy dozens of them for cheap.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I mean, I agree with your general statement there that shoes are the most important thing to buy well, but then you go on to brag about $400 Allen Edmonds as if those are some sort of fancy shoe. They're well made tanks but they're by no means great examples of shoemaking. AE's are pretty much the entry level for "good" shoes. It'd be like talking about the wonders of owning a luxury car after buying a Mercedes CLA 250.

Allen Edmonds are an excellent choice for business attire. I'm a lawyer who wears them. I get compliments on them all the time.

You do not want to wear a pair of $1000 shoes that look like they belong on an Italian runway to work. I see the young shady stockbrokers and salesmen in my building doing this all the time, and all it does is make them look like salesmen.

Allen Edmonds visibly look well made and have a classic style that is perfect for business attire. We're talking about dress shoes for work, not a social occasion.

Unless you want to go up into that $800+ price range, Allen Edmonds are one of the best choices. If you do any kind of walking beyond exiting your car from the parking lot, I'd recommend highly against wasting your money on the higher end shoes, as you'll quickly put wear on them making them look like not higher end shoes.

[calgarywinning]

Originally Posted by blankall

Allen Edmonds are an excellent choice for business attire. I'm a lawyer who wears them. I get compliments on them all the time.

You do not want to wear a pair of $1000 shoes that look like they belong on an Italian runway to work. I see the young shady stockbrokers and salesmen in my building doing this all the time, and all it does is make them look like salesmen.

Allen Edmonds visibly look well made and have a classic style that is perfect for business attire. We're talking about dress shoes for work, not a social occasion.

Unless you want to go up into that $800+ price range, Allen Edmonds are one of the best choices. If you do any kind of walking beyond exiting your car from the parking lot, I'd recommend highly against wasting your money on the higher end shoes, as you'll quickly put wear on them making them look like not higher end shoes.

Allen Edmonds are great shoes. However, keep your eye out as they are now being made offshore and no longer American made. Quality may change.

One of the great things about this shoe is any with the leather soles may be sent back and completely refurbished for a small fee extending the life from 3 years to 6 years (depending on wear). If you look after the upper part, it's darn hard to tell, after refurbishment that these are not new shoes. I think that is a huge upside. Also, comfort, lacing and quality are extremely high in this brand.

[81MC]

Allen Edmonds are still made in America. While it is true they are moving to offshore, that applies to their ‘handsewn’ boat shoes, ‘AE’ by Allen Edmonds, and the occasional offering in their main line (Vancouver boot for example), which are DR. Their Italian collection of bologna construction is ####, as is plenty of products made in Italy.
Most AE mainline is still manufactured in Port Washington, thank Christ.

[calgarywinning]

Originally Posted by 81MC

Allen Edmonds are still made in America. While it is true they are moving to offshore, that applies to their ‘handsewn’ boat shoes, ‘AE’ by Allen Edmonds, and the occasional offering in their main line (Vancouver boot for example), which are DR. Their Italian collection of bologna construction is ####, as is plenty of products made in Italy.
Most AE mainline is still manufactured in Port Washington, thank Christ.

You seem to know a little bit more about what they are specifically up to. I was told a week ago they expect more production to go offshore.

Also, for the budget, you can often find Allen Edmond shoes in thrift shops (a bit older of a style) but for the price that's great value. I bought my father in law a pair I found at a thrift shop for $30 and sent them in to be refurbed.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by V

I don’t think I could afford working in the high powered world of finance or litigation. I make pretty good coin and I couldn’t imagine spending the money you people do on clothes.

Lots of people - and probably some in this thread - overspend on clothes. I remember reading in The Millionaire Next Door, which profiles mindset and spending patterns of typical millionaires, how they generally had a low clothing budget. Underachievers of wealth (UAWs) spent like some of these posts with the lavish suggestions recommend.

That's not to say you shouldn't spent a lot on clothes to look really good. It is to say you shouldn't spend a lot on clothes if you want to become wealthy.