Where the eye lands.

Stand a man in front of a mirror in a jacket that fits and the first thing you notice is not the jacket. It is him. That is the whole point of proportion.

The shoulder sets the frame

The shoulder line is the top edge of the picture. If it sits where the man's own shoulder ends, the jacket hangs from the right place and the chest, the lapel and the sleeve all fall into line below it. If it runs past, the man looks borrowed into the suit. If it stops short, the sleeve pulls and the collar lifts. Of the measurements that go into a jacket, this is the one that cannot be tidied later.

Length balances the body

A jacket that ends around the seat divides the body close to its middle, which is what makes legs look as long as they are. Shorter jackets lift the division and shorten the leg; longer ones do the opposite. Neither is wrong on its own. On a tall man a touch longer can work; on a shorter man, a touch shorter with a higher button point keeps the division where it flatters him. That is a choice made in the mirror, not a rule.

Lapel, tie and collar in the same breath

The lapel is a frame inside the frame. It reads best when its width is in step with the width of the shoulder and the width of the tie, so that nothing in the picture shouts. A wide shoulder with a slim lapel and a thin tie looks assembled from three different suits. Kept in step, the three lines lead the eye up to the collar, and from the collar to the face.

What this means for your box

When our team asks for your height, your jacket size, your sleeve and your shoe size before anything is chosen, this is what the numbers are for. You see the complete selection before anything is charged or shipped, and you approve it first.