I think this is good advice.
I really can’t emphasize enough the differences in the different “fits”.
Until you know a particular brand’s specific size and fit is fine for you it really is best to go to a brick and mortar that you can try them on at. “Regular” now is built for men with some … midsection girth. For the long torsoed OP shirts specifically labeled “tall” are a good bet. The target is men over 6ft but the OP sounds like they’d be that if their legs matched their torso!
I like Chaps shirts. Casual short-sleeved cotton shirts. Available through Walmart this time of year. Can just go to Walmart and try them on and see what fits.
Fully agree. I generally wear a medium in men’s shirts nut numerically sized. But I. The brands I commonly buy, I have to take care that I pick out a medium in the correct fit. Which for me now, after losing weight, is a trim fit. Regular medium in many brands is cut too large in the midsection for me. A relaxed or casual fit medium becomes tent-like. And there are some brands where I can’t wear any medium option they have. No substitute for trying things on, and in my thinking, I like having an expert on hand to tell me the things I can’t see or don’t notice.
Do you iron them? Or have them laundered?
On a recent trip to France, I was expecting to be impressed by the fashion worn around me. Instead, it very much looked like “anything goes.” I’d be very surprised if a visiting American techie wearing a knit polo vs a buttoned shirt would make much of any difference to their European counterparts.
I thought button-down was dressier?
And, it doesn’t have to be either/or, does it? All button-down shirts I’ve seen are also button-up.
Button-down is not casual, but it’s less formal than a dress shirt with a different collar style . It’s generally fine for work but not for - well, I was going to say for a wedding or funeral, but let me change that to a formal wedding or funeral.
They are , in terms of where the buttons are but generally “button-up” refers to one without buttons on the collar.
If I were in your shoes, I would simply go to a semi upscale menswear store or a menswear department in a semi upscale department store, and ask a salesperson to help you. Just the first time. Because you are starting from dead zero in knowledge.
Google is your friend here. Read an article about menswear terminology online. One simple “what is business casual?” search would give you a lot more information than you seem to have.
Another tip: take a woman friend or a gay friend with you; even if they don’t know from menswear, simply because they will probably be comfortable shopping for nice clothes of any sort. Straight men in America have a strong percentage of ignorant slobs with a fear of shopping for anything but tools and electronics. Looking presentable seems to be a major challenge for many.
My husband’s mother bought all his clothes until he left home, then he wore rags until he got married. His wife and children now buy all his clothes for him. I don’t think he has ever bought any item of apparel in his life. Except once I forced him to buy his own underwear. Admittedly most men can do better than this.
The opposite of button down shirt is a point collar shirt, I think. There are the three choices I’m offered when browsing shirt online, button down, spread and point. But spread looks weird without a tie.
In the days when I wore a suit and tie every day (until about 15 years ago) I would wear a button down shirt with a suit. When I went to London for a few weeks in 1999 I was told in no uncertain terms that this was totally inappropriate. Apparently it’s different on this side of the pond.
I have heard what @Dinsdale says as well, but I was basically thinking that the OP can’t go wrong by being more conservative with little stuff like that.
Either someone’s going to think “Hey this guy is put together”, or they’re just not going to notice. But if you vary the belt and shoes, there’s always that chance that someone not so fashion-aware (i.e. a middle aged/older man) is likely to notice and think that they don’t have their act together.
I mean I see plenty of younger men with suit pants that are too short by my reckoning, and sometimes who don’t wear socks with them. My middle aged white guy inclination is to think that looks f**ked up, and instantly judge. I have to remind myself that I’m not particularly fashionable, and that my idea of what proper business attire is ossified in about 2005. And not to toot my own horn, but that takes a fair amount of awareness, both self and of fashion trends, and a certain amount of humility to realize that I’m more or less behind the times. I know a lot of men my age and older are neither so aware nor so humble that they wouldn’t instantly and negatively judge a younger man who shows up to a job interview at the height of fashion, but not looking like they expect.
So when dressing for a job interview, you have to dress for your audience. If you’re a woman interviewing for a job at Vogue, I would suspect it would pay to be dressed to the nines, but if you’re a twenty something applying for a technology type job, you could probably get away with a lot less dress-up than if you’re applying for a job at a bank somewhere.
It’s a cultural thing; I was lucky enough to grow up in a family where a grandfather was a successful and rather dapper banker, and my father was also a suit & tie person for about half his career. So I grew up with the understanding of how to dress like that, and a little bit of experience. But many men my age had parents who never wore suits except for the odd funeral or wedding, and as a result, never taught or modeled that to their children. I’m finding it more than a little bit of an uphill fight to get my kids to bother for their “formal mondays” at their charter school, and I suspect if I wore that sort of thing every day, they’d see how it’s supposed to look and understand how awful they look by comparison.
Apparently collar type is dictated by your face shape.
The best collar styles for your face shape – Savile Row Company
Well even not considering the international context of the OP, just considering within the United States, it is a multicultural thing. Which both complicates but also by necessity requires some expectation of variance.
I imagine that an international business calling for “business casual” will have no one batting an eye at sports jacket with an open collar shirt, to a tie on a fairly casual shirt, to a dress shirt with nice pants. I wouldn’t do a polo shirt unless I already knew that was the office norm.
Kids don’t grow up seeing fathers going to work in jackets and ties with the sharp hat, because few work environments have that as appropriate costuming most of the time now. They don’t really have any cause to know it. The very top often (expensively) dresses down as a status statement.
But it paradoxically was simpler to have the proscribed uniform and rules. Instead there are various subcultural norms of what the tech support people versus the C suite versus whatever tend to wear as “business casual” within the same building let alone across oceans and corporations. (And likely the latter is the more important culture to be conscious of.)
I honestly can’t remember the last time I wore one of the sports jackets I still have buried in my closet. I used to wear a sports jacket whenever made hospital rounds when I started out. I wear the one suit I own for funerals and High Holidays. It’s probably over two decades old. I have a tux that is about four decades old. Worn maybe ten times?
Anyway with how the OP describes their build likely good success with “tall regular” in their neck size. Usually a good selection of those.
What is a lounge suit? How does it differ from an ordinary suit?
I know in the UK they call their living room the lounge. Do you wear a lounge suit to lounge in your lounge?
It’s another (old-fashioned) name for an ordinary business suit - they were seen as a relaxing, informal option for a certain class of “gentleman”
An “ordinary suit” is a lounge suit. It was originally referred to as such because a century or so ago it was worn as informal leisure wear. Today it would not be considered leisure wear, but it is still less formal than morning dress or white tie (full evening dress) .
A tuxedo jacket is part of semi-formal black tie. It is less formal than morning dress or white tie, but more formal than a lounge suit.
Here’s an article that’s sort of a top-level article on the subject.
Fashion commentator Derek “The Menswear” Guy has acknowledged more than once that the snappy suit-and-tie look he advocates used to be the equivalent of yoga pants.
I guess I’m at a point in my career/life that if someone wants to form an unfavorable opinion of me based on whether I’m wearing a polo or a buttoned shirt - fuck em. Of course, I am also at a point where I have amassed plenty of polo/short-long sleeved buttoned/dress shirts. So in the OP’s situation, I’d likely pack a couple of short-sleeved buttoned shirts and a couple of polos - heck, maybe even a blazer.
The buttoned shirts do look a tad dressier/nicer than a polo - but I don’t know how much that matters in the OP’s situation. No one is gonna think him overdressed if he wears a buttoned shirt and dockers/chinos. I am not in the tech world, but I wonder how much they would even notice/care about whatever he is wearing. Especially if it is in reasonably good repair, clean, and fits.
I suggested polos solely because I thought they would look “good enough” and would be easier to care for and more utilitarian in the future.
Re: belt and shoes - I go back to the time that it was considered a faux pas to wear brown shoes with a blue suit - so what do I know? And I agree that the short, tight, “little boy” suits look ridiculous. This morning I had a lawyer appear before me in such a suit with a grey man-bun. Kinda hard to take him seriously. Might have been easier if he hadn’t been so incompetent…
Yeah, I remember a long thread on the subject of dressing. The rebellious teenager approach versus the being socially appropriate approach. I remember arguing that people cannot help but use your clothing choice as part of their first impressions of you, and that fuck you I don’t care about being socially appropriate will be part of their first impression, based on your clothes. In every known culture, clothes are social signals. I believe my voice was drowned by the fuck you I don’t care contingent. At least I remember giving up getting my point across. A familiar feeling.
I’ve had limited versions of this discussion with a close relative. He’s extremely competent at what he does but absolutely refuses to align with any standards of appearance above and beyond the bare minimum of the employee handbook. And then wonders why as he approaches his mid-50s that he’s still stuck in individual contributor roles and is typically first to go in a cut. No doubt that same attitude pervades other aspects of his work life, but if they can’t put you in front of client execs, only so far up you can go.
Yeah - there is SOME validity to what you say. However, I was suggesting dressing in an extremely innocuous and unobjectionable manner - polo and Dockers. And, I’d add - non-athletic shoes. Also, all clothing (and myself) are in reasonably clean, fit well, and in good repair. IME, wearing such clothes essentially makes one INVISIBLE.
I might feel otherwise if someone wanted to show up much of anywhere other than the beach in - I dunno - ripped shorts, a tank top and flip flops.
I also readily acknowledge that for weddings, funerals, fine restaurants, …, I readily crack out the sportcoat/suit and tie.
Moreover, in my personal situation, I am always prepared to PERFOM at least minimally adequately in whatever situation I am in. If I’m dealing with someone who will consider my innocuous dress objectionable enough to outweigh my competent performance, then yeah - fuck em.
I guess I’ve had too much experience dealing with lawyers who certainly dress the part, but are complete fuckups. Give me a lawyer in chinos and a polo who has command of the facts and presents a clear legal theory any day!