Cheers to 2025
January 5, 2025
Every New Year holds promise, as though it is any different from the turn of
“First advice for anyone who wants to feel fantastic in a suit, is to make sure it fits well and that it is styled properly”
It is very unlikely that most young men in Nigeria can avoid wearing a suit. It is the official dress code to formal and even informal events, interviews, dinners, cocktail parties and a host of other glamorous events.
Suits come in different styles, patterns, colors and even fit, but they give a gentleman a distinguished look only if he wears it correctly.
A great suit therefore is an essential part of any man’s wardrobe. Suit etiquette is then just as important so that every man in suit can feel good and more confident about themselves.
First advice for anyone who wants to feel fantastic in a suit, is to make sure it fits well and that it is styled properly. Although sometimes this is not always easy to do especially considering the number of poor imitations of popular brands and shambolic local clothiers available in the market.
If you must wear a suit, it should be the right fit. Do not wear what I would derisively call a “coat” as this would be a sorry excuse for an oversized suit.
Wearing a well styled and good fitting suit is just one part of the things to pay attention to. Here is a brief summary of great suit etiquettes;
Always unbutton the suit jacket whenever you sit down
Sitting down with the jacket buttoned can ruin the shape of your suit. Be sure to unbutton the suit jacket to feel more comfortable and prevent a button popping during a dinner or business lunch. It’s a big part of suit etiquette and will also help you feel more relaxed and at ease – rather than buttoned in!
Always wear a jacket that fits
The jacket should be tailored and fit in a way that isn’t too loose or too tight at the chest. A little tip we follow is to place three fingers perpendicularly between your jacket and stomach. You should be able to slip your hand between your chest and your buttoned jacket, so that it feels snug, but with room to move.
In addition, always remove the stitching on the vents and the label on the left sleeve before wearing a new suit, but never remove the stitching of the jacket pockets and never use your pockets, they can easily be stretched out, warping the entire suit.
Your suit jacket should be just long enough to cover your pants’ zipper and butt. The top button of a two-button (or the middle button of a three-button) jacket should fall at or above your navel.
For a more fashion-forward look, the pant hem should hit right at the top of your shoe.
For the fashion buffs, please note that in general, thin lapels are more modern, whereas wide lapels are more old-school. Double vents in the back of the suit jackets are also more modern and fashionable.
Show off some cuff
Showing off your cuffs will help you determine the proper length of a suit sleeve. About half an inch of the shirt should show below your jacket cuff. If it does not, either your jacket is too big, or your shirt is too small.
You should be able to show you off your cufflinks when wearing men’s suits.
Please keep the top button of your shirt buttoned
Shirt buttons are made to be closed. Yes, all of them! If you cannot close the top button, you need to get a new men’s shirt. Keep the lines of the shirt collar matching and make sure that you have the right length of shirt cuffs. Also, if you find it uncomfortable having the top button of your shirt fastened, then you may need to look at getting a shirt with a bigger collar.
Matching your pocket square and tie is a no-no
Although it may seem like an easy way to coordinate your outfit, matching your pocket square and tie is a no-no. Instead, consider the rest of your outfit first and then choose a pocket square that echoes a color in your tie, shirt, or jacket. It should never match the fabric or the pattern of your tie.
Never wear a black suit with brown shoes. Never!
You may see the odd person wearing a black suit with brown shoes, but it is still a fashion no go. Black and brown should not be worn together, nor paired other way around. Never wear a brown suit with black shoes. It is a clash of colors that might seem like a good idea, but it isn’t.
Don’t button the bottom button
When wearing a suit or blazer, you should never button the bottom button. We always remember one simple suit etiquette rule when wearing a blazer: “sometimes, always, never”.
If you have a three-buttoned jacket, ‘sometimes’ button the top one, ‘always’ button the middle, and ‘never’ button the bottom. With a two-buttoned suit, ‘always’ button the top button and ‘never’ the second.
Fastening the bottom button can make the suit look stuffy and it won’t fit as well on your body.
Your belt?
Your belt should be relatively thin and also the same color as your shoes.
Your tie?
Your tie should always be darker than your dress shirt and your tie bar should never be wider than your tie. The width of your tie should match the width of your lapel.
Still on the tie, please note that your tie should just reach the waistband of your trousers or the top of your belt buckle.
But when you go without a tie, it’s best to keep your shirt collar on the smaller side.
Your socks?
Make sure that your socks are long enough that there’s no exposed leg when sitting down. Do not wear a “hose” for a socks!
I trust that you have re-learned some of the things you already know. See you next post!
Related Posts
The Constructive Generalist: How Akin Akingbogun is Engineering Africa’s Future and Writing Its Stories
May 8, 2026
In an era that increasingly demands hyper-specialization, Akin Akingbogun stands out as a refreshing anomaly. He is a man who refuses to be confined to a single box.
I Parked My Car Five Minutes Away: So the Kids Wouldn’t See It.
May 5, 2026
There is a particular kind of silence that falls on a man when the phone stops ringing, the proposals go unanswered, and the diary that once groaned under the weight of appointments sits quietly — almost mockingly — open. If you have ever been there, you know it.
Wired for Me
May 5, 2026
Let me tell you something uncomfortable: the most generous person you know — the one who volunteers every weekend, donates quietly, never asks for anything in return — is probably getting something out of it. Not money. Maybe not even recognition. But something.
When the Burnt Toast Saves Your Life
May 1, 2026
Adaeze had been awake since 4 a.m.
Not because she was anxious — though she was — but because this trip felt different. After eighteen months of follow-ups, phone calls, and PowerPoint presentations polished to a mirror shine, the deal was finally ready to close. An investor meeting in Abuja. A partnership that would change the trajectory of her small but gutsy consulting firm. She had triple-checked her flight, her documents, her outfit. She had prayed. She was ready.
The Loudest Person in Every Room Is Often the Most Afraid
April 28, 2026
When he told his father, Dare’s first response was a sigh. Then: “I told you to practice more. I told you months ago. You don’t listen. You never listen.”
There was no “I’m sorry, son.” No pause to let the boy simply feel the loss of the thing he wanted. Just a swift, seamless pivot to what Temi had done wrong — and, by extension, how Temi’s failure was evidence of Temi’s failure to take his father’s wisdom seriously.
You Only Heard One Side. That’s the Problem
April 28, 2026
I want to tell you something that took me embarrassingly long to learn. Not because the idea is complicated — it is not. But because it cuts against something deeply wired in us, something we are rarely honest enough to admit.
Everything You Were Too Embarrassed to Google About Mid-Life Crisis
April 28, 2026
You are somewhere between forty and fifty-five. You looked in the mirror recently and had a thought you immediately dismissed. Maybe you googled something at 2am that you would never say out loud. Maybe you bought something expensive and impractical and told everyone it was an investment. Or maybe you just feel — quietly, persistently — like the life you built was supposed to feel better than this by now.
Chekhov’s Gun
April 28, 2026
Anton Chekhov was a Russian physician and playwright — a man trained in the discipline of diagnosis before he became one of the most precise storytellers in the history of world literature. That combination of sensibilities matters, because the principle he articulated in the late nineteenth century was not merely a rule of dramatic craft. It was an observation about the nature of significance itself. About what it means for something to be present. About the relationship between introduction and consequence.
Fear Is a Prison with Invisible Walls
April 28, 2026
There is a prison that has no concrete walls, no iron bars, no guards posted at the gate. Nobody built it for you. Nobody sentenced you to it. And yet, for many people, it is the place they spend the better part of their lives — circling its perimeter, brushing their fingers against its invisible boundaries, and quietly retreating each time they feel the edge of something that might require more of them than they believe they can give.
The Closed Fist
April 25, 2026
Picture a hand holding sand. The tighter the grip, the faster the grains escape between the fingers. Ease the grip — open the palm, allow the hand to become a vessel rather than a vice — and the sand stays. This is one of the oldest paradoxes of leadership, and one of the least learned: that control, pursued too aggressively, produces the very loss of control it was designed to prevent.
The Growth Trap
April 25, 2026
There is a version of ambition that builds. And there is a version of ambition that consumes. From a distance — and especially from inside it — they look almost identical. Both are energetic. Both are forward-moving. Both speak the language of vision and possibility. The difference only becomes visible later, usually at the point of fracture, when what was built begins to come apart under the weight of what was promised.
The Frontline Disconnect
April 25, 2026
There is a particular kind of organisational absurdity that most people who have ever worked in a company will recognise immediately. It is the policy that was clearly designed by someone who has never had to implement it. The restructuring that looked elegant on a slide deck and chaotic on the ground. The customer-facing process that was overhauled by a committee that has not spoken to a customer in years. The directive that arrives from above, fully formed and non-negotiable, that causes the people closest to the work to exchange a look — the kind of look that says, without words: they have no idea what we actually do here.
Burnout Is a Leadership Failure
April 23, 2026
We have built an entire mythology around exhaustion. In boardrooms and business culture — perhaps nowhere more so than in the high-pressure, always-on professional culture many of us inhabit — busyness has become a currency. To be tired is to be serious. To be overwhelmed is to be important. To be burning out, quietly, is somehow proof that you are fully committed.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Discover more from Akin Akingbogun
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
8 thoughts on “SUIT Etiquette – unspoken rules for wearing your suit”
That’s right ✅
The dos and don’t s , Thanks for the post .
It’s indeed amazing lesson for those planing to wear suit or admiring executive position in the nearest feature,
This will be keep in memory for occasional purposes.
The young dude is back again
we are ever so ready to grabs such a post
Thanks Akin,definitely been able to re-learn some things and learnt new stuffs too. Now I know not to take out the jacket pocket stitches and many more about pocket squares,sizes,color combinations etc.
Well done brother
Good one. Thanks
Thanks. Nice piece.
Thank you loads for always reading
Pingback: Top 10 Most read Blog Post of 2022 – Akin Akingbogun