Looking Good In Three Figures

Back in the day, there were many choice slurs to run a fellow down, but somehow nothing was more damningly dismissive than to sneer that he wore a cheap suit. Then, of course, there came a new generation for whom the very term “suit,” cheap or no, was an even worse insult: a middle-management man who couldn’t think outside the boxy garb of Big Business.
Calvin Klein wool suit, $300 at Macy’s; Victor Glemaud oxford cotton shirt with contrasting collar, $250 at Odin; black silk tie, $49.50 at Banana Republic; Porter cotton duck canvas backpack, $556 at Barneys.
But in the last decade, the suit, courtesy of designers like Miuccia Prada, Tom Ford and Thom Browne, has been transformed into an outfit with serious counter-cultural cred. Now, with the economy listless, even the cheap suit is brushing off its unsuave guise. And in the hands of youthful designers like Billy Reid and Sam Shipley and Jeff Halmos of Shipley Halmos, and stores like Uniqlo and Topman, the cheap suit has become a garment that is as unfussy as jeans or chinos yet still has your back in an interview, at dinner or on a date.
This change is being driven as much by the guys buying suits as by the guys making them: youthful, inexpensive suits are one of the strongest selling items on the sales floor right now. According to the NPD Group, which tracks retail sales, suit sales in 2009 were almost exactly even with those of 2008 (a drop of just 0.01 percent), while sales of sport coats and jackets slid more than 13 percent. (Remember, gentleman reader, flat is the new up.)
“Less expensive suits, primarily bought by younger consumers, are faring best,” said Marshal Cohen, NPD’s chief analyst. “Men’s suits are a classic example of how aspirational consumers who had reached beyond their means are now coming back to more affordable prices — still pricey but not as extreme as over $1,000. Suits over $1,000 are still not in recovery mode.”
This is certainly the case at Topman. “They’re selling very well, particularly in the New York store,” Gordon Richardson, the design director, said of Topman’s slim, smart (and thrifty) suits. “What is so attractive is that it’s not about the old power dressing. It’s about looking good, and looking cool in a suit.”
Moreover, stylish upgrades are giving the cheap — or shall we say cost-conscious? — suit new appeal. No longer is a suit always a safe, sober investment buy. There are suits in pastel cotton twill, in black sharkskin, and in synthetic blends so high-tech they can practically do your taxes. They can suggest men’s clubs (with a vest or a self-belt), country clubs (with a bright color or a jaunty plaid) or nightclubs (with satin shawl lapels or a single-button closure). All told, today’s suit manages to embody a polished yet casual approach to dressing that, some 40 years ago, the leisure suit reached for and missed — by a mile.
Some young designers have actually been caught off guard by the enthusiasm and demand for inexpensive suiting. Ten years ago, new brands made a version of blue jeans their signature piece — now that piece is the suit.
“Back when we were at Trovata, we never had a real suit,” said Mr. Shipley, who was a partner in Trovata before founding Shipley Halmos with Mr. Halmos. “With this brand, we found ourselves gravitating towards suits, since there’s so much you can do with fabric and cut and detail, and then they started selling really well. Now we’ve got guys coming back every season for a new one. That’s how our business has grown.”
Cost was a key part of the formula. “We try to keep everything under $1,000,” he said. “We’d rather take a smaller margin and get guys into good-looking suits.”
No small part of the suit’s new appeal lies in how it has been re-engineered to be greater than the sum of its parts. When a suit was intended for business dress alone, the jacket and pants were designed to be paired only with each other. You could try to wear that pinstripe jacket with jeans, but it didn’t really go.
“I remember, growing up, you were told to never bust up a suit,” said Mr. Reid, the designer of the Billy Reid collection. “Those times have definitely changed.” Now he makes his jackets a couple of inches shorter, narrowing the shoulder and raising the armhole, and slims the pants — some of the improvements that help make the two pieces work with other garments.
Josh Levin, an urban-planning consultant who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, owns two of Mr. Reid’s suits. “The suit coat itself is really versatile,” Mr. Levin said. “I can wear it with any number of pants. And when I wear it as a suit, I don’t feel stiff.”
On the contrary, it gives him a certain cosmopolitan ?lan and the freedom that he likes. “I spent my grad school years in Portland, Ore., and Denver, where dressing up in a suit is not well accepted,” he said. “Here, I’m checking out what other men are wearing, what looks good on them and how they’re able to pull it off. I used to feel so constrained about how I could dress, but here I don’t feel that way.”
Others, like the musician Justin Townes Earle, who has bought suits at Uniqlo and Billy Reid, have a soft spot for the shot of formality a suit gives a man. “I always wear a suit when I perform,” Mr. Earle said. “I like how it respects tradition.”
Best of all, costly suited fellows can’t snub you for having thrifty threads. Just like the old suits, the old gibes no longer fit.