How many suits does a Summer Associate need? Forum

[kalvano]

You can re-wear the suits for about 2 weeks max, then you'll need to take them to a weekend dryclean spot. Best practice is to dry clean suits every 3-4 wears.

You should dry clean your suits as few times as humanly possible. This is terrible advice.

It kind of depends on location. When it's summer in Texas, every 3-4 wears is spot-on.

I cannot imagine suiting up in Dallas in July. What a nightmare. I suppose it's AC from the home to the car to the office without interruption, like the inverse of Minneapolis in January.

Most places are AC'ed to the max but even then, it's around 105-110 out. Your suit needs to be cleaned on a more regular basis.

[reasonable_man]

If a casual firm - 1 to 2.

If a biz formal - 3 to 4 and a nice blazer (assuming they have a Friday dress down day or for a more casual firm event). Make sure you have sufficient dress shirts and ties to make your clothing selection look larger than it is.

[Anonymous User]

You can re-wear the suits for about 2 weeks max, then you'll need to take them to a weekend dryclean spot. Best practice is to dry clean suits every 3-4 wears.

You should dry clean your suits as few times as humanly possible. This is terrible advice.

It kind of depends on location. When it's summer in Texas, every 3-4 wears is spot-on.

I'm in Houston and wore two suits for a whole summer and never dry cleaned them. They still look fine, unwrinkled and don't stink.

I generally just brush my suits and put them in the bathroom after a hot shower.

[masterbrowski]

You can re-wear the suits for about 2 weeks max, then you'll need to take them to a weekend dryclean spot. Best practice is to dry clean suits every 3-4 wears.

You should dry clean your suits as few times as humanly possible. This is terrible advice.

It kind of depends on location. When it's summer in Texas, every 3-4 wears is spot-on.

I'm in Houston and wore two suits for a whole summer and never dry cleaned them. They still look fine, unwrinkled and don't stink.

I generally just brush my suits and put them in the bathroom after a hot shower.

Just catching up on all this. Yes, my advice may be bad if you don't live in a hot climate/aren't a sweaty beast. But last I recalled, most summer programs take place in June and July, where much of the US is 95 degrees plus. You'd better be doing a little more than blowing steam at your suit if you're rewearing the same two pants for 10 weeks.

Don't clean the jacket on a weekly basis at all... just the pants.

[masterbrowski]

Also... unless you are a master with an iron, your shirt is always going to look better coming from the cleaners. I find they stay wrinkle free longer than when I iron them. It's like 2 bucks a shirt, what's the big deal?

[BVest]

Also... unless you are a master with an iron, your shirt is always going to look better coming from the cleaners. I find they stay wrinkle free longer than when I iron them. It's like 2 bucks a shirt, what's the big deal?

If you're diligent with pulling your BB non-iron shirts out of the dryer and putting 'em on hangers, you'll never miss the cleaners.

[wavygirl12]

Just catching up on all this. Yes, my advice may be bad if you don't live in a hot climate/aren't a sweaty beast. But last I recalled, most summer programs take place in June and July, where much of the US is 95 degrees plus. You'd better be doing a little more than blowing steam at your suit if you're rewearing the same two pants for 10 weeks.

Don't clean the jacket on a weekly basis at all... just the pants.

Be careful with the bolded above - if you dry clean one part of your suit significantly more than the other part, they will eventually look different from each other (hard to describe... basically one will wear out more quickly than the other so the fabric on one part will look thinner/the color may become slightly more faded than the non-frequently-cleaned half). I do agree that you should dry clean as infrequently as you are able.

[Devlin]

Don't clean the jacket on a weekly basis at all... just the pants.

No offense, you should stop giving advice. That is terrible advice. If you must dry-clean your suit, make sure you do them both at the same time or they could start to differ. Also, on the same thought, you should not wear the pants/jacket separately often because that too can cause them to differ.

[masterbrowski]

I do this with mine and they look great. They definitely don't look different... at all. You all are acting like your suits are made out of porcelain. You can't wear your wool pants as a suit separate because they'll end up "differing" from the jacket? It would take some seriously extensive wear to make your pants look notably different from your suit jacket. You aren't playing soccer in them or something, are you?

My guess is that the majority of people saying that dry cleaning will destroy a suit don't really do it very often. I've been doing it since prep school and I've never had any clothes just wear out. From my personal experience, my drycleaned suits and slacks last for years, and usually get put on the shelf because my measurements change or I get tired of them. I've heard people argue in other circles that they think drycleaned wool looks "shiny," but I can't say this has ever happened to my suits either. I agree you need to be careful choosing your cleaner. There are bad ones out there who will mess your suit up. Thankfully I've found one I like, and my suits come out clean, but otherwise fully intact.

In the mean time, have fun walking around in the summer heat in your stinky ass suit. At least the density of the wool fibers in your suit will remain identical on a microscopic level... except they will be packed with dust, sweat, and dead skin. Then you can blast that wool with hot steam, to make extra sure that dirt is sealed in the fabric.

[911 crisis actor]

Everybody relax and just buy some slacks

[NJPitcher]

True that they should be dry-cleaned infrequently as possible, but suits get nasty after after a few wears. I can't go more than 3-4 days without dry cleaning (and I don't sweat that much). The jacket tends to be fine, since it's worn over a dress shirt anyways, but the pants get nasty after 3-4 wears, since you actually sweat in those... I feel like it's the same as trying to wear a pair of jeans more than 3-4 times without washing them. They just get nasty because the oils and sweat from your body get on them (even if you are in air conditioning and not sweating much).

Yea, what sort of animal would go more than 4 wears before washing jeans...

[BVest]

I feel like it's the same as trying to wear a pair of jeans more than 3-4 times without washing them. They just get nasty because the oils and sweat from your body get on them (even if you are in air conditioning and not sweating much).

Dude, they're jeans, not underwear.

[masterbrowski]

Which is why you wear them 3-4 times instead of once.

[XxSpyKEx]

Which is why you wear them 3-4 times instead of once.

+1

[Calvin Murphy]

3-4 MONTHS is TCR for jeans. They're JEANS.

[mephistopheles]

There was some study in this validating my position, but I wash my jeans like once a year.

[mu13ski]

3-4 MONTHS is TCR for jeans. They're JEANS.

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

Also... unless you are a master with an iron, your shirt is always going to look better coming from the cleaners. I find they stay wrinkle free longer than when I iron them. It's like 2 bucks a shirt, what's the big deal?

If you're diligent with pulling your BB non-iron shirts out of the dryer and putting 'em on hangers, you'll never miss the cleaners.

For realz man. Even if they need some ironing, it takes all of 5 minutes. Can be done while you to heat and eat them wild berry pop tarts you are crushing in the morning b4 work.

Lot's of high maintenance people ITT.

[XxSpyKEx]

3-4 MONTHS is TCR for jeans. They're JEANS.

Eww

[Katzd314]

So this is my first post. I am 0L but have been in world outside long enough to know a bit about suits. Everyone posting here has good information, even in the cases where that information seems to conflict (like frequency of cleaning)

Suits have a tendency to self clean, that is, if you leave a dirty (not soiled or stained, just well worn) suit hanging, it will air out over a couple of days or 2 weeks at most. In theory, if you only had to wear a suit every couple of weeks, it could go almost indefinitely without needing a cleaning. When you need to wear suits frequently, you build up a large enough wardrobe where you get your pants pressed, and suits spot cleaned when needed, but only take things to get fully cleaned once or twice a year. However, that does not help because going out and buying 10 nice suits for the summer would eat up a big chunk of the bling you hope to bring in.

Now, as other posters have said, pants get nastier faster than jackets. When you can just hang things up to air them out for a week between wears, this sorts itself out (mostly) but if you do not have that luxury, dry cleaning the pants significantly more often than your jacket will turn your suit into a blazer+slacks combo faster than you would would like.

So what to do when you need to wear a suit every day and do not want to destroy your precious wardrobe over one or two summers?
The first is to get 2 suits (navy and charcoal, you could get the navy as a Glen Check OR the charcoal as a pin stripe but not both) but buy an extra 1 or 2 pairs of pants for them. Getting a made to measure suit will make that easier, but I am pretty sure it is doable from a department store if you go to the suit separates section and dig around. Alternate your jackets daily allowing them to air out a little and also hang them in the bathroom when you shower (but not when you poop) to let the steam release the wrinkles and sap out some of the nasty that built up over the day earlier/previous day. Only do this to the suit you are not wearing that day as they will get slightly damp; they will dry if hung up, but give you an awful case of the swamps in your down under if you wear it immediately after its steam bath. Your suits should only need 1 or 2 cleanings over the 10 weeks if you do that.

The other option is a little more pricey which is to step up and buy 4 nice suits (In this case go with a plane navy and charcoal and then have some fun with the other two). Odds are you would have to make these purchases eventually so it is not exactly frivolous. Each week, rotate the one you wear twice (monday and friday) so each one is worn 5 times during a 4 week cycle. You should only have to get your suits washed once during the summer, but you should get your pants pressed once or twice as well.

Now a lot of people here are speaking highly of the BB wrinkle-free shirts and they are definitely an easy option, but I am not a fan. While wrinkle free shirts are technically cotton, the material gets treated with some solutions that transmogrify the fibers making them rigid. IMHO, the result is a material that does not feel anywhere near as nice on the skin as true cotton and also struggles to breathe well, which you do not want in the summer months. Instead, get regular 100% cotton shirts either custom made, or off the rack and then fitted if need be and pay the 10 dollars a week it will cost to get the cleaned and pressed.

Finally, just a few tips that I learned the hard way (except for #5).

1) Your socks are meant to match your suit, not your shoes. If you are wearing a navy suit and black shoes, wear navy socks. Unless you know what you are doing or get help from someone who knows what they are doing, there is no need to be adventurous in your sock choice. A pair of socks poorly matched to your suit will cost you a lot more fashion points than you would get from having awesome socks.

2) Not sure what shoe/belt combo to use with your suit? Use this handy guide:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-p ... uit-2013-7

3) Your shoes should not be lighter than your suit

4) Keep TWO clean shirts in your office. The first one is in case you get your shirt dirty, the second is in case you forget to resupply the next day.

5) Also keep an extra pair of clean underwear around in case you sit in something wet. While there is no (t too much) shame in drying your pants in the bathroom hand dryer, drying your unmentionables with your bits hanging out will not impress anyone in a way in which you want them impressed. I once walked in on someone in an office doing just that. He tried to make small talk to make things less awkward. It didn't work.

OK, I think that is all.

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

So this is my first post. I am 0L . . .

Off to a great start here