Most men buy their clothes too small

Most guys buy their clothes too small.

It’s something I’ve noticed consistently over years spent working with guys to help them dial in their fits and refine their closets. A certain amount of my work often involves helping a guy realize that he is, simply, no longer a medium.

One of the most common shirt-tucking errors I see is what I call the mannequin look.

It’s not his fault, it’s not because he got fat, it’s just he grew as we all grow, and he didn’t update his sizing to reflect the fact that he is 31 now, not 21. Sometimes he has an inkling that this is the case, and it’s my job to help confirm his suspicions.

Stay loose

Some of it is also that we are in the long process of coming out of the decade-long slim-fit era. Guys are essentially having to retool their understanding of what proper fit means, and it means bigger than what they previously thought.

So do you have an inkling that you might be buying your clothes too small? If you have that suspicion, you already know the answer.

You are.

Embrace it. Looser shirts are better than tighter shirts anyway.

Why?

Wiggle room

Well, they are more comfortable, of course. They also look better. Lastly, they give you wiggle room for fluctuations in weight. Yes, the guy who lives in the gym hopes that his weight only fluctuates exactly how we want it to fluctuate. That would be good for all of us. However, down here on earth, things aren’t always the way we want. We can’t all live in the gym. We all have weight fluctuations.

It happens sometimes over months, sometimes over years. It’s just how it goes. If your clothes are so tight that they can’t accommodate just a few pounds of fluctuation, they are not sustainable. It’s no wonder why people have to buy new clothes all the time.

This is one of the reasons shirts were looser in the old days. People didn’t have unlimited money. Money was tight so shirts were not. A shirt needed to last as long as possible. That practicality became an aesthetic.

Comfort, flexibility, durability. That’s what you get with a looser shirt.

There is a method to the madness.

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The tuck stops here

And consider this: A looser shirt is also easier to tuck.

Is it hard to tuck in your shirt?

No, not really. It isn’t rocket science or any great and difficult task. But you can do it “wrong.” And the funny thing is it’s usually the result of trying too hard.

One of the most common shirt-tucking errors I see is what I call the mannequin look. You know what I am talking about, right? It’s where the shirt is pulled really tight against the abdomen and all stuffed down the back of the pants, often cinched with a clip in the back. That’s how they style mannequins.

It looks pretty cool on an inanimate object that stands under warm lights all day, but it looks a lot less cool on a living and breathing human male moving about his day.

Watch an old movie, make note of how the guys’ shirts are tucked in when they take their jackets off. Basically their shirts will be equally tucked all the way around their bodies. They won’t be pulled back so their shirt is flush against their abdomens. Their shirts will be equally loose around their trunks, and there will basically be an equal billowing on all sides.

The proper, classic way to tuck your shirt in is to tuck equally on all sides and then pull some of the shirt up and out so you have a nice little balanced billow all around your waist. It feels better, and it looks much stronger as well. The mannequin tries to hide the billow, but the mannequin isn’t a man. Man enjoys his billow, and he enjoys it nice and good.

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from material previously published on the Fitting Room Substack.