Mistakes every man makes buying his first suit

There are some fundamental mistakes that most men will make when buying their first suit, and their second suit, and their third suit, fourth suit, and in fact many men will go their entire suit-wearing lives still making these mistakes. Now this video isn't to look down on anyone or judge anybody for making these errors. In fact, I personally made pretty much every mistake that I'm going to cover in this video. I purely want to make this video to help you save time if you are in the market for your first suit, your second suit. Avoid making these five mistakes and you'll be much happier with your purchase and look much, much better. Hello, my name is James and I am on a mission to create a generation of gentlemen. The first trap many men fall into when buying their first suit is shopping at a department store. I'm going to assume that for your first suit you're not looking to spend thousands of dollars, a budget of five hundred to a thousand at the most. If you go to a department store like Macy's, however, the suits that are on offer at that price range will be so inferior in quality compared to an equivalent priced suit at a place like Suit Supply, which is where the suit I'm wearing in today's video comes from. This cost me five hundred dollars and unless you're lucky enough to catch a huge discount at a store like Macy's, you will find it pretty much impossible to buy a suit of equivalent fabric quality at a department store. Instead, at department stores you're often paying for the name like Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Ted Baker, but the truth is these brands don't care about the quality of their fabric or construction and you'll end up paying way over the odds for an inferior quality garment. As well as Suit Supply, I highly recommend an online store called Spear & Mackay and if you want to get a made-to-measure suit, Enzo Custom offers fantastic value for money and a wonderful customer experience. This is a mistake I see men make all the time with their first suit and it's one I made for years myself. The mistake is owning a black suit as your first suit. So why shouldn't you have a black suit as your first suit? There are two reasons really. Number one, black is an incredibly formal color that's simply inappropriate for most daytime situations like a wedding or a business meeting. The only time you want to wear black in the day is at a funeral and hopefully you're not going to too many of those. And when you do, it's just as acceptable to wear a dark navy or charcoal gray suit. And the second reason you shouldn't wear a black suit is for the majority of men. It's simply not a flattering color for their skin tone, particularly if you are a Caucasian man. Chances are it will wash the color out of your face, make you look gray, pale and sickly. A color such as dark navy is much more flattering for the majority of men. And because you can wear that navy suit to the funeral if you have to attend one, there really is no need to wear a black suit. Later on in your sartorial journey, you may choose to add one to your wardrobe, perhaps for evening events. But I wouldn't recommend doing this until you are well past your seventh, eighth or ninth suit. And let's be honest, the majority of men will never need that many suits. Now I'm sure you've seen men making this style mistake at weddings, parties, horse races, all those types of events. What I'm talking about is wearing cheap satin accessories. And it's particularly offensive if the pocket square and the tie match exactly. Many men will spend hundreds of dollars on their suit and then completely throw away all of their style credibility when it comes to the accessories. The truth is you don't need a huge collection of accessories to look good. Focus on building up a small repertoire of ties made from natural fabrics like silk and wool and pocket squares in linen, silk and wool. High quality luxury accessories that will upgrade your outfit don't need to cost as much as you might think. And if you're in the market for new ties, shirts, cufflinks or pocket squares, I highly recommend today's video sponsor Ota. I decided to partner with Ota because they offer luxury style at an affordable price. And I know this because I was a paying customer of Ota before we ever spoke about working together. They offer ties and accessories in 100% linen, cotton and wool. In today's video I am wearing their sky blue knit tie with their non-iron blue and white striped dress shirt. And if you click the link down below you will see their wide selection of not only ties, shirts, pocket squares but also bow ties, even casual wear like polo shirts. And because you're a viewer of this channel you can get an exclusive 10% discount by using the code JAMESLAWLEY10 and clicking the link down below. Ota has over 15,000 reviews from happy customers across the world and I personally spoke with their co-founder so I know you are getting a good deal and you will be delighted with their products. So you've bought a high quality suit at an affordable price in a colour like navy or charcoal grey. You've got your accessories, your tie and pocket square. What could throw off your outfit? Well a big mistake many men make when buying a suit is not getting it tailored. Tailoring isn't as expensive as you might think and in fact it's much better to spend a little bit less on the suit and invest in tailoring making sure it fits you properly than to buy a very expensive suit that doesn't actually fit. For the vast majority of men nothing is going to fit properly off the rack. You have to go and get those small alterations such as changing the sleeve length, pulling in the waist, maybe letting out the seat or the crotch or perhaps shortening and hemming the trousers. Even if your suit needs a lot of tailoring it doesn't really fit at all and your tailor needs to do some magic. You're not going to spend more than $200 or $250 and it will completely transform the way the suit looks. And if you don't believe me you should watch this video where I took a $99 suit off eBay, spent around $250 on the tailoring and it completely transformed the way it looked. The reason why some men don't actually enjoy wearing a suit and they try and avoid wearing one as much as possible is because they don't feel comfortable in it. And I'm actually not talking about physical comfort in the same way that your sweatpants might be comfortable. I'm talking about mental comfort. Do you feel like yourself in a suit? Does it make you feel confident? And if the answer is no then I've got some advice that will help you. You need to practice wearing the suit as much as possible until it begins to feel like a pair of pyjamas. If you work in an office or in a job that doesn't require you to dress up or maybe you even work from home you have to find those opportunities to wear the suit. Perhaps you are taking your girlfriend out for dinner. Well not every man in that restaurant will be wearing a suit. In fact you might be the only one. But why don't you take that opportunity to surprise her by dressing up and wear that suit and enjoy the experience of looking your best. The more you do this the more it will begin to feel natural with you and you will start to enjoy wearing the suit and feel more comfortable and more confident in it every single time. You can't expect to wear a suit just once or twice a year for a wedding or a funeral and to feel like James Bond in that thing. It has to become second nature to you. So look for those opportunities whether it's at the restaurant, at church or perhaps for a particular work event or function. Enjoy wearing that suit because I personally believe that it's a rite of passage for every man. Gentlemen I would love to know from you in the comments what are some of the mistakes that you have made in the past when buying a suit. I've shared some of my errors with you and I think we can all learn from each other. To help those men out there who are perhaps new to buying a suit or they are new to learning about suiting, the correct way of doing things so they can enjoy this experience all the more. Remember to check out Ota Brothers accessories and dress shirts using the link below and I'll see you in the next video.