The Ultimate Guide to Ordering the Best Size of Suit Online
Buying a suit online should be a rewarding and stress-free experience – providing the convenience of shopping 24/7 without the unpleasant experience of driving to stores, getting up-sold, and going through rounds of fittings. However, the #1 concern that people have when purchasing suits online is finding the size that best matches them. And in fact, around more than half of returns/exchanges are related to sizing issues.
When shopping with xSuit, you do always have a friendly free returns and exchanges policy, but everyone surely would rather get it right the first time! Fortunately, xSuit always works to make their garments true to size and consistent, and provides a wide range of resources (from manual to automatic) that bring you the confidence that you’ll have a great fit as soon as it shows up at your door.
In general, there are 2 ways of selecting your suit size - either by physically measuring yourself or using a size fit guide. Brands will either give you their garment size - which is a disaster as you to figure out how it matches you. Or they’ll give you a body measurement range that would fit in that size.
When buying any brand, always make sure to check their exchange policy is seamless, and they offer return labels to make an exchange painless.
1) Manual Sizing
To start off, its helpful to get a good understanding of your overall size. For details of each type of product, you can view the xSuit sizing guide here. It gives the tables and data needed for extra support and reference. To find out these (as well as other clothing), it’s a good idea to know your chest, waist, and arm size for tops - and your waist, hips, and inseam for pants.
Sizing Your Jacket
There are 4 main points to pay attention to when sizing your jacket.
Shoulders, chest, waist and sleeve length. Let’s brief each of those.
- Shoulders: The edge of the jacket shoulder needs to fall past your shoulder muscle and straight down your arm. That is, for most people. In today’s world where people workout more, we often have rounder shoulders that how suits were designed to fit off-the-rack.
- Chest: The size you see on a jacket (34, 36, 38, etc) is equivalent to your chest’s circumference*. If you know your chest size, then it should be quite easy to choose your jacket size.
- Waist: Not to be confused with pant waist, this is the waist at approximately your belly button or the widest part of your jacket waistline where normally the button is closed. Optimally you want the jacket to be able to close without pinching and pulling the fabric at the waist.
- Sleeve Length: Normally you’d want to leave a break for your shirt (or watch if you’re not wearing a shirt). About 1-1.5” from the shirt edge to the jacket edge. At times jackets will be offered in different sleeve lengths to accommodate different body heights with similar chest measurements.
Now with all that being said, personal preference also has it’s play here. Let’s give some examples for you to understand:
Max is 6’0” tall, and has a somewhat athletic build. Meaning, his shoulders are wide and round, but he has a relatively slim waist (no belly). If we go by how his shoulders should fit, he’d be a size 42, but if we follow his waist, he’s actually a 40. Max prefers a slimmer waist appearance and doesn’t mind his shoulder protruding slightly, so a size 40 jacket makes sense.
Nat is 5’10”, and has average shoulders though a bit of a belly. His shoulders fit a size 40 jacket and waist closes comfortably on a size 42. He is not a fan of feeling tight when closing his jacket, and doesn’t mind the jacket shoulder being a tad wider than his own. So he’ll go with a size 42 for a more comfort fit.
Ray is also 5’10”, but has smaller built shoulders though a bit more belly than Nat. His shoulders fit a size 40 jacket but belly a size 42 jacket. He does not like to look like he’s swimming in his jacket, mostly does not close his jacket, and prefers to look like a well tailored Italian stallion. He feels best in his jacket size 40 that might be a bit tight on his belly when closed.
Lastly when buying a jacket, always refer to the brand’s fit. Often mentioned on the label or website buy page. You’ll see wording such as classic, tailored, slim and even super slim. Other brands might use fit words such as classic, contemporary, modern.
If you’re like Nat, normally wearing a size 40 classic fit, and buying a tailored or slim fit, you might want to size up to a 42.
FUN FACT: Why does the number need to jump 2” each size if you could fit in between 2 sizes? As garments are mass produced, and doubling in size production would be a nightmare for brands, so they go on average, knowing an in-betweener (i.e. size 39 chest) could choose a size 40 for comfort or 38 for fitted appearance.
Sizing your Pants
Pants are much simpler, and mainly fitting them has to do with your pants waist and length.
- Waist: Unlike the jacket, pant waist measurements are normally equal to your waist circumference, measured where you actually wear your pants. Now that might vary slightly as some men like their pants higher up above their waist bone, and others a tad lower. For our brand, and to make things easier, we matched your jean size for easy picking. If you wear jean size 32, you’re a size 32. Easy as that. If on the borderline with pants, it is usually better to go to the size up.
- Pant length: Normally, suit pants are shipped unhemmed with longer inseam/outseam. That is as most men's waists are standard, though their height vary greatly, and that way you can have them tailored at your local dry-cleaner (and that’s reimbursed if purchased from us). Additionally, men do have their pant break preferences. Some like them real short, others longer, depending on their style preference and shoes they paid with their pants.
2) Automatic Size Personalization Feature
Don’t feel like measuring, or think it's awkward to ask someone to put a tape measure around your body parts? You aren’t the only one. To make it even easier to find your size, we have built in a super handy ‘Find My Fit’ AI tool on the xSuit website.
We have used data points of tens of thousands of men to arrive at an AI driven size prediction. It uses a few data points to draw out an avatar of how your body looks compared to other similar entries. We additionally ask for age as it is a good indicator of fit preference.
Height and weight give us a beginning point, and based on those we’ll want to know if your top or bottom is heavy to understand how your weight is distributed based on your height. We’ll then have a pretty good idea of where you land, and if you toggle the size up or down you can choose a more “comfort” or “slimmer” fit.
Here’s how to use it:
Step 1 -> Click on the ‘Find My Fit’ links
Step 2 -> Enter your Height, Weight, and age (with a convenient option to switch between measurement systems), and select the images that most resemble your chest, stomach, and seat type.
Step 3 -> Bam! You now have a recommended size for that item and others on the site, that include the recommended best fit. Scroll to the left and right to see which ones would be on the more loose or snug size.
3) Other Sizing Considerations
The hardest thing when you get down to the end, is selecting between two sizes if you are on the dreaded borderline between them. You want to get the best fit possible, but don’t want the suit to be uncomfortably tight. Fortunately, the xSuit is made true to size and is super stretchy and adaptive to bodies, so it will be more forgiving than other suits or outfits. But using the above, you should be able to match the correct size. Meanwhile, here are a few final considerations:
Do you like a more athletic or looser fit?
As shown in the example for Max, Nat, and Ray above - sometimes it is just a matter of preference of which people prefer. In general, younger and slimmer people may prefer a tighter fit of their suit, while people a bit older or of bigger build prefer a more generous fit. So depending on the type of person you are (there is no right or wrong!), this could help you decide when on the borderline.
Do you anticipate weight changes in the coming years?
Buying a suit is an investment, and with a quality suit you would hope to keep it at least a few years. So it may be wise to consider possible weight fluctuations in the future in mind. In general, this could learn towards erring on the side of a little bit bigger. But on the other hand, there’s no better motivation for hitting the gym and keeping in shape than maintaining your awesome fit, so sizing a little bit lower could be an option.
In general, it is better just to size up or down by one compared with the sizing recommendation.
The Benefits of Sizing Correctly
Spending the small amount of time and effort to size correctly will make you feel more satisfied with your purchase, make less chance of regrets later, and limit the need for the hassle of returns or exchanges. Most importantly, it will make you most appreciate the perfect fit and confidence that your new suit brings! And if you still have questions or concerns, you can always utilize the xSuit.com chat function, or email contact@xsuit.eu for someone to get back to you and help with your questions.
Ready to put your knowledge to the test and get the perfect suit fit? Now is the perfect time to proudly try it out with the new super comfortable and machine washable xSuit 3.0.
