A few years ago I saw someone at a wedding twist around for the group photo and watch his blazer silently rip. There was no tearing sound that rose over whatever gaelic folk song was blasting through the DJ speakers, just a cleanly depressed line right down the back where the fabric had literally been silently screaming since church had started half an hour before. He’d deliberately bought it a size too small because someone had told him fitted was the modern way to wear a blazer and he must have taken ‘fitting’ to mean ‘can’t move your arms past your shoulders without dislocating them’. He spent the whole reception waving awkwardly at people with his elbows locked straight.
The ripping incident is extreme, but on the flip side of tight is the sad drift of someone making do with an oversized blazer because that’s all they could find that sort-of-sort-of-maybe looked good. The quiet slopping of fabric as they try to cross their arms without glancing down and checking where their elbows line up, the shoulder seams of their blazer landing somewhere mid-upper-arm, their interviewers not listening to a word they’re saying because the coat is distracting. That’s loose.
Tight or loose? Well, neither, and I know that’s what everyone says right before they ‘forget’ to explain themselves so let me actually tell you why. There are two completely different conversations going on here and everyone keeps treating them like the same question when they’re not.
The shoulder seam doesn’t get a say in this argument
No one ever talks about this when they start rattling on about ‘tailored versus relaxed fit’, but your shoulder seam needs to sit exactly where your actual shoulder ends. Not loose, not tight, just absolutely correct. There’s no arguing with shoulder fit, it either lands right or it doesn’t because that’s one measurement a tailor can’t adjust without disassembling the entire jacket. The sleeves can be let out a inch or tapered in half an inch with a needle and some thread if you catch them in time, same with the waist and even up top they can steal an inch or two from your chest before it starts looking obvious. But the shoulders aren’t adjustable. If they’re too tight you get a little crease line across your arms right when you raise them to do anything, reach for the door, high-five your friend across the table, grab a beer, and that tiny crease ruins how sharp you look more than enough waist suppression can fix. If they’re too loose then the whole jacket looks like it doesn’t belong on you, like you’ve claimed someone else’s blazer as your own because the shoulder seams flare out across your arms and pull the sleeve heads down with them. And your back’s going to look boxy and awkward regardless of how well everything else fits.
Took a customer a while back in the shop, wasn’t even buying a blazer, she was in for swimwear only but her boyfriend was over moaning about how his new suit jacket “didn’t fit right” but couldn’t put his finger on why. So she slips it on him for me right there in the middle of the shop and instant tip-off was when he raised his arm to point something out at me. diagonal crease slashing across his torso from collar to elbow. Jacket was too tight across the shoulders and he had no idea because he tried compensating by going a size up and that just moved the problem down his arm instead. Same crease-line, different culprit.
The shoulder seam is the one place on a jacket where ‘tight versus loose’ isn’t the conversation at all, it’s simply right or wrong. Get that shit figured out before you start worrying about anything else on a blazer.
Everything under the shoulder is a button test, not a feeling test.
Once you’ve sorted out the shoulders, everything else down plays into whether you want your blazer tight or loose, and this is the bit I feel like people are getting the wrong question for. It’s not about how it feels when you put it on or how ‘neutral’ you want to look standing up with a beer in hand, it’s a simple button test. Button it up while standing tall and try to sit down without the whole thing splitting open across your stomach like someone’s going to reach inside and tie your pants back up. If it stretches vertically when you sit down, X-shape coming off the button and into your lap, that’s too tight. Period. Buy a new one.
If there’s an entire fistful of fabric collecting in the middle when it’s done up you’re riding into loose-town and depending on how baggy it gets might actually be undoing any benefit of wearing a tailored jacket over, idk, a sweater.
The part people forget is the sitting test. I actually think this is more important than standing because the real question is, ‘Can I sit in this thing comfortably for hours?’ Not ‘Does it look good on photos taken when I’m standing up?’ Sit down in it, sit in your chair, at your desk, lean forward a little on those imaginary ankles and if the front of the jacket wants to curl up under your armpits or you feel the hollow of your back trying to peek through the seam up top, you need to go tighter regardless of how awesome it looks across your shoulders when you’re standing up straight like a badass.
Sleeve length counts for this too, you want to see a hint of shirt cuff when your arms are relaxed at your side. Nobody wants to see massive hulk wrists when you’re wearing a proper jacket but at the same time I don’t need to see your entire sleeve when your forearm is resting along your leg, inch or so is fine.
The truth is, if you asked me while you were stood in a changing room deciding which size to get, it’s gotta be tight in one place and loose everywhere else. The one place it should always be tight is at the shoulders and every other measurement is a yes or no test. Can you sit in it? Reach your arms full up without losing that shirt cuff? Button it with no mashed insides and you’re golden. If some salesmen tries to tell you ‘well you should totally get fitted!’ or ‘nah man, loose is where it’s at these days’ they’re not thinking about how you actually have to move inside a blazer they just wanna sell you something.
