10 Style Tips for the New Year

1. Be sure 1/2 inch of your shirt cuff is visible when wearing a suit and your arms are hanging freely at your sides.

2. All your suits should have double vents (2 side vents) or a single vent in the middle. Reserve no-vent suits for waiters, weddings, and Miami Vice reunions.

3. Remember this: pant pleats are dead. All your pants should be flat front. If you must have a pleat, consider having inward-facing pleats. They tend to balloon less.

4. Try wearing brown shoes with grey suits. The darker the suit, the lighter the shade of brown. This rule applies to navy suits as well. In general, wear black shoes only with black suits.

5. Never button the bottom button on your single-breasted suits. Ever. By now you should only have 2-button or 3-button suits in your closet. Leave the bottom unbuttoned. If you are wearing a double-breasted suit, button all functioning buttons. For all suits - if you are standing, the suit should be buttoned. If sitting, unbuttoned. No exceptions.

6. The width of your jacket lapel should be similar to the width of your necktie. Remember, moderate to narrow ties are the current fashion.

7. Your pants should only have a single break at the shoe. No folds upon folds. The leaner the trouser cut, the less break you should have. But never more than a single break. Cuff or no-cuff? Either is acceptable.

8. Try a vest. They are versatile and hip. They add several new options to your wardrobe. And they are currently fashionable, even with jeans. Tip: always leave the bottom button of your vest undone.

9. Get a fitted dress shirt. Trust me - It's flattering. You'll know why men love them as soon as you get your own.

10. Buy a new suit in 2010. Expand your suit collection and push your personal style a little.

Style vs. Fashion >> What's the difference?

Let's make one thing clear: Fashion and Style are two different things. They are connected, for sure, but they are not interchangeable terms. Fashion is a preference initiated by a minority then arbitrarily adopted en masse regardless of its suitability to the wearer. Style, on the other hand, is the selective incorporation of sartorial traits to complement a person’s unique characteristics. Consequently, the first approach to dressing benefits a person by chance, the second by design. Fashion is what is out there for you to choose from; Style is what you choose.

FASHION
The idea of clothing as palette, rather than as uniform. Fashion is a set of ever-changing rules. Fashion seeks to do away with tradition, and with it all the special knowledge required to enter the most powerful circles. Fashion influences tradition more rapidly with women. Yet it is having a greater and greater impact on men's attire. Those runway shows you sometimes see feature trends that evenutally will filter down - however diluted - into the Fit-Rite department stores, though it may take 5 years.

STYLE
The set of rules you follow to strike the uneasy balance between timeless and trendy. Style is about being able to pull off a look that is at once classic and daring. It's not about being traditional or conventional. Sure, elements of style don't change (or shouldn't) while others are being challenged every season. Having style is a personal thing - unique to you alone. It's about being able to find the classic elements that attract you, and add to it your own flair with what is fashionable now. It's a tense fusion between the traditions of the past and the forward thinking of the present.

At Beckett & Robb our primary aim is to help you discover your own style. We're making men into gentlemen one suit at a time.

As Alexander Pope once said regarding trendiness, "Be not the first by whom the new are tried / Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."