I was reminded recently in a ribbing manner of Jack Donaghy's line to Liz Lemon when dressed in a tuxedo for no apparent reason, "it's after 6, what am I a farmer?" It also made me a recall a similar statement I had answered years ago, when queried on my habit of donning a suit, or at least a waistcoat and tie. "I'm a man. How else would I walk out the front door in the morning?"
I've been in London now for a couple of years, and have had the chance to observe that, in the main, it is the best male dressed city that I have spent time in. By comparison Rome was embarassingly shabby despite Italian's elegant reputation.
Here, therefore, is a handful of axioms in some semblance of order from the ground up.
Shoes: As long as you find yourself in some line of work that is not a funeral home director or an underling in high finance where you're expected to sleep at your desk in your uniform navy drabs, there is no reason to not occasionally be wearing brown dress shoes. They punch up any suit, including navy ones, and especially grey ones. In fact, except for the theatre, the only time I tend to wear classic black lace ups is with a brown suit, to once again draw the eye to the whole ensemble.
The bolder one's persona/ latitude of one's employer's the lighter one can go with the brown shoes. Additionally tied into that is the lightness of the grey/blue suit, and finally the summer, clearly, is a more fitting time to go with lighter shades. Ultimately, when in doubt look for a chocolate brown.
A Matter of Fit:
So now that you've got your spiffy brogues, please for the love of god, hem your trousers properly. Potentially my biggest complaint of men who don't know how to dress is ill-fitting trousers. When standing, the base of the pant leg should just obsure the socks, touching the top of the shoe tongue and laces. It should not pool or otherwise bunch around your ankles. When seated with a leg crossed it is perfectly acceptable, indeed encouraged to show some of your sock, and thus why men's dress socks are sneakily the best way personalize a look even if stuck in an otherwise plain office attire
Socks: the classic dictum for colour is to go for a shade somewhere between your trousers and shoes. So for blue suit, black shoes, a dark grey is good. For blue to brown, I like a lighter blue or darker brown. That said, arbitrary colour and/or pattern is definitely in vogue. You can throw just about anything on, and I'd say as long as it doesn't look like either you're trying too hard, or just downright bizarre, go for it.
Belts: Another vexatious issue. For some reason many young men believe it as an indispensible item in a formal suit. It is completely not. Indeed, if you don't actually require a belt to hold up your pants, you probably shouldn't be wearing one. The greatest strengths of the visual look of a two piece suit are clean lines and symmetry, and this gets needlessly broken up with a shiny belt buckle. This even includes suit trousers with belt loops. They look totally fine empty, and again, contribute to the clean look of a suit on a reasonably in shape man.
That said, one scenario where I think a good belt can help the look is with a non matching jacket- trousers combination. Here, like the socks, the colour of a belt can transition between the two. Definitely for instance with jeans and a jacket. Finally, yes dictum says your belt and shoes should match in colour, and I would typically agree, though it's not an ironclad rule.
What to look for in a jacket: The biggest trend in the last decade, in no small part thanks to the late 50's-early 60's aesthetic of Mad Men has been the slimming of suits, eliminating the boxy three button jackets of the 90's. Unless you're shopping at Sears or a provincial Marks & Spencer, three button jackets, that is to say cut higher on the chest, are completely out of style.
A note on doing up buttons: only do up the top button of a two button jacket, or the middle one on a three button, followed in preferance by the top two. Do not do up the bottom button on a jacket, especially when sitting, otherwise you look like an idiot.
What else? Much like the trousers, men tend to buy suit jackets not only too large, but often, too long. When standing, you should be able to easily cup your fingers underneath the base of the jacket. If your fingers are just touching the bottom of it, it's too long. Similarly on the cuff, the sleeve should just barely reach to the wrist, and certainly not encompass it, thus allowing to show about a centimetre of shirt at the wrist.
On ties: Generally one's tie width should aim to match the width of the jacket lapel at it's widest point. Most average width ties and average lapelled jackets fit this fine without anyone putting any thought to it. Particularly fat ties can still look acceptable with an average jacket, but skinny ties look lost with a wide lapelled jacket and torpedo the whole look.
Same for knots. Mid sized four in hand (that is, regular) tie knots look fine with average collars. A skinny tie looks ridiculous with a spread collar. But unless you're a banker, or the recently employed David Moyes, you likely don't have too many spread collar shirts.
If you've stuck with me for this long, here comes the payoff. The one, unbreakable rule for a man to dress properly. Your tie must be darker than your shirt. Repeat that sentence.
Thus why a white shirt, a la the Mad Men era is in fact the most versatile look because it allows basically any combination for a tie and suit.
Bonus second unbreakable sartorial dictum: DO NOT wear a backpack/knapsack with a suit. A backpack with a suit makes you look like a high school student at a university open house day. I don't care if you cycle to work. Hipsters have Messenger bags for a reason. I don't care if you've come off a plane, carry a Fred Perryesque duffel bag.
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