We recently received a question about matching your pinstripe jacket with pants that did not originally come with the jacket in last week’s blog series. Now you may think, that because your suit black suit jacket doesn’t have pinstripes, finding a matching pair of pants should be trivial. Believe it or not, as simple as it may seem, it is not that easy to match your black suit jacket with black pants that did not originally come with your jacket.  The reason for this is that black comes in so many different shades. Most of these hues are not visible to the untrained eye unless there is sufficient light. In other words, if you are heading to a night event, you may be in luck. If you are going to wear this outfit to work during the day where natural sunlight is present, then you may have a problem on your hands – don’t worry though, we’re here to give you some advice

First and foremost, remember that your tailor, in some cases, can do wonders. Before throwing those pants out and looking for a replacement, pay a visit to your local tailor to see what can be done for you. If you are looking for a tailor in your neighborhood that we recommend, give us a shout and we may be able to help recommend one. If you misplaced your pants and cannot find them, you may also want to try wearing a different color all together. Depending on the shade of black your jacket is, you may want to try charcoal/grey pants. If this doesn’t work for you, for whatever reason, and you still end up shopping for a new pair of pants in the black, make sure to take your jacket with you and ask the salesperson to help you find a few matches. Then, if you’re feeling gutsy, stop a few ladies and ask them if you’ve found a match – it should be fun and, well, women have a good eye for catching these things.

It’s easy to define Flat Front pants as pants without pleats. But what are pleats anyway? A pleat is a fold created in fabric by doubling it up on itself and then holding it in place. You’ll see pleats in your pants mainly to facilitate the creasing process (see the image below):

You’ll generally find that American Suits will come with pleated pants and European Suits will come with Flat Front pants. If you’re wearing pleated pants, then you must also have a nicely planted crease. If you’re wearing flat front pants, the crease is optional. While it is true that 9 out of 10 times, you’ll see creases with suit pants (regardless of whether they are pleated or not), this does not have to be the case. Creases are synonymous with tradition while the absence of creases usually indicates a modern look. Not everyone can wear flat front pants well (i.e. you’ll need a slimmer figure to wear them well). If you’re wearing khakis or jeans, though, skip the crease.