Have you ever noticed when you see a man who has dressed completely to impress, according to the latest fashion, wearing an 'Italian' suit, jacket with a striking fabric, an oversized pocket square, or shirt without a collar, that something is wrong?

Something you can't quite put your finger on and almost certainly has nothing to do with the colour, patterns or combinations in his outfit?

In 90% of cases, the missing ingredient has to do with the fit and cut of his clothes; lapels that feel a little too wide or a little too narrow, trousers that taper too much, or a shirt collar that swallows up the neck.

These minor imperfections are understandable, as it takes practice and mistakes to discover which shape and size suits you best. This is one of the most difficult lessons a man must learn on his path to sartorial enlightenment. When it comes to shirts, proportion is one of those things that is quite elusive and (frustratingly) is different for everyone. We all have different physiques and physical attributes, different features and different faces.

That said, when it comes to perfecting the most flattering fit for your shirts, there are a few simple points to pay attention to that will improve your shirt style.

It's pretty obvious when a shirt is too tight or too loose - this is easily solved by getting the right size. What is more difficult is choosing a shirt collar that flatters the face. This may sound strange, but just like wearing a hat, the shirt collar frames your face more directly than any other piece of clothing, especially when paired with a tie.

The holy trinity of collar, tie knot and lapel has a dramatic effect on how comfortable and natural you look in your clothes.

In our tailor's blog post about oversized shoulders in your jacket, we talked about which points are important for a good fit in your jacket.

As discussed in the previous article, the width of side seams does not have much to do with whether a jacket appears too large, this is purely a matter of taste.

One of the things that makes a suit look too big is a sleeve length that is too long. You often encounter this as a tailor and in this blog we will go into more depth.

How do you recognize sleeves that are too long?

As tailors, we often see that the sleeve length falls on the hand and sometimes even extends over the hand with ready-made jackets.
This ensures that the hand on the eye disappears.
The fit of the rest of the jacket does not match the sleeve length and this automatically makes the suit appear too large.

If you look at the example below you will see that the hand disappears on the left sleeve (see red arrow), which has not yet been pinned off. This gives the impression that the jacket does not seem to fit the rest in terms of fit.