You’re probably a fairly smart looking guy, you probably adhere generally to the dress code at work and maybe you consider yourself a guy with fairly good fashion sense too. Well that’s all great, but there comes a time when ‘fairly smart’ won’t cut it; when you need to really push the boat out and look the best you can. Perhaps it’s your graduation ball, or wedding, or maybe you’ve been invited to a celebrity party, or are receiving an award… all eyes are going to be on you and you need to show them that you can brush up when it counts. Other guys will be secretly competing with you and if you want to look the smartest there’s a few tricks you can learn to make sure they come away feeling insignificant. You need to make sure that out of everyone there, you’re the most likely to be mistaken for Bond.

Obviously you’re going to need to be wearing a dinner jacket, so if you don’t have one that means either renting or buying a new one. The appeal of renting a tux is that you can get something high outside your price range, in fact the other day my friend hired the official Bond tux for just £90 when it’s generally a £10,000 suit to buy. Alternatively you could hire an Armani or something similar to really glam it up (let’s just forget that I said ‘glam’).

In fact though I’d say that my own suit, which I bought myself for even less than £90, looked better – and here’s why. Firstly, getting such a smart suit is really wasted on most people who won’t realise the style or make, while those who do appreciate it will probably also realise that you rented it and couldn’t afford it (unless you have an equally expensive watch, shoes, tie, belt, cufflinks etc to go with it). Secondly, if you rent you’re only going to get a close fit at best and it won’t be tailored to fit perfect. What actually looks better then is a suit that’s fitted, which anyone can appreciate as being flashy and looking good.

So you can’t afford to have a suit tailor made? Well fear not, as there are ways you can get around this problem. Having a bespoke suit made to fit from scratch will most likely cost you in excess of £200 (about $400) or £300 if you’re going for a nice make. But fear not – you don’t actually need to spend anywhere near this amount to get a great fitted suit and I’m going to tell you how you can get one that fits like a glove for less than £100.

First of all, find a suit you like the looks of for around £50-£70. That might sound quite a tough job spec but if you know where to look it’s actually not that hard. The first port of call are charity shops, where many generous high flying business men donate their old threads. If you look hard enough you might even find a designer make for around this price mark. If you find a jacket you like a lot then just get that and find trousers to match, if the tone is only mildly different then no one will notice. Also making life easier is that you can really go for any size at this point, so long as you go bigger and not smaller. If you find an extra large tux then chances are it will be cheaper as fewer people fit that size. Other good places to look are Marks and Spencer’s and similar department stores which have perfectly nice suits available for fairly low prices. Remember that you’re looking for a proper DJ/Tux here, not just a suit, as the former will really make much more of an impact. And please go for black, white might be fun for the odd occasion but really black is far smarter and much more versatile (and brown or blue just look old fashioned).

Once you’ve found the suit you like, now you want to get it taken in and if you take it to a dry cleaner’s most of these do it for much cheaper than specialist tailors. If you drop it off here they’ll measure you up and probably have it back to you by the next day. Ask them to take it in fairly tight as that’s currently the fashion, take a look at Daniel Craig on the cover of Quantum of Solace or Casino Royale, or pretty much anyone on the cover of Esquire for an idea of what’s trendy. You’ll also want the arms just slightly shorter than the sleeves of your shirt so that they overlap and expose the cufflinks and watch. You can expect this process to cost you roughly £20-£50 depending on how much you want done; meaning you’ve saved yourself at least £100 while looking just as smart as if you’d had it tailor made.

Alternatively the other way to get this effect at a cheaper price is to go abroad (somewhere Eastern like Thailand, Turkey, Egypt etc), where you’ll find hundreds of little stores just begging to make you a tailored suit. Even better, some will be knock-offs where no one can tell the difference meaning you can get what appears to be Armani for Marks and Spencer’s prices. Be prepared to haggle and you should be able to get yourself a pretty good deal. The best way to do this is to be prepared – genuinely – to walk away from the deal, you can always come back if they call your bluff (or go to one of the thousand other identical shops) but chances are if you start to leave they’ll call you back and lower the price. Don’t let them start telling you off for being unreasonable though… that’s a pet hate of mine.

If you really want to look good in your suit though you need to brush yourself up too, and no matter how fitted the suit is, if you have a massive gut or are incredibly thin it just won’t have the same effect. If you’ve got a big event coming up and you really want to look good for it that means going to the gym. In particular you’ll want to work your chest and lats to make sure you fill out the top of the suit so that it looks like it’s going to burst, and your arms so that they too can be seen through the sleeves. If you do have a bit of a gut or are muscularly challenged however and you really can’t change it, then try and get your suit fitted slightly more loosely and ask them to do what they can to hide your lack of bulging muscle.

The next part of the equation is the shirt. Again you should go for plain white (gimmicky just isn’t cool, it’s fine if you just want to be a bit fun but for a proper event it looks like you’re side-stepping the issue of whether you can dress smartly) but some frills or flaps can be nice to make it look a little less school-boyish. A proper dress shirt should have no buttons at the cuffs so that you have to use cufflinks, and should have the smaller collar for a bow tie – which is far smarter than a tie (again, a tie you wear to work or school but a bow tie is reserved for special occasions alone). Make sure you get a black bow tie, but one that needs to be properly tied, not one of these fake elasticated ones that attach like a belt. Not only are the proper ones smarter, but they give you the option to open them and hang them round your neck if you get hot and apparently girls love that (again look at both Daniel Craig Bond covers for proof). The cufflinks also provide an opportunity to add a bit of extra personalised style and you can either go with something smart (a black stone looks good such as onyx) or something more unique to you. For example you could have anchors if you like boats, or for me Superman logos. Just don’t stray from black and silver as your colour scheme or it’ll look garish and out of place.

Your shoes meanwhile need to look the part too, so get yourself some nice loafers or boots. Again go for black and make sure you keep them nicely polished and try not to scuff them. A large heel will also make you appear taller which is always a good look – we’re going for tall dark and handsome here! If you can avoid rubber soles then do, though a really nice pair of sneakers like these will be fairly expensive.

Make sure you get a good hair cut and for your facial hair you’re going to want to look as clean shaven as possible meaning a really good razor (perhaps mach 4 or one of those vibrational ones) to make sure it’s nicely close. Alternatively get it done at the hairdressers where they’ll use a blade to get the cleanest shave possible. Failing this try shaving against the grain – this generally isn’t advisable as it can cause in-growing hairs if you do it a lot. Doing it just every now and then though won’t cause too much damage and will achieve a much closer shave than doing it normally.

Mack LeMouse

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