The Big and Tall Man's Guide to Stylish Trousers
It’s not easy being a large in a medium world.
The clothes, even when made larger in proportion, seem designed for someone else. Sometimes you’re too tall for the clothes you bought, resulting in short sleeves or exposed ankles. And sometimes you’re on the wide side of your clothes, resulting in bunching waists and a completely unbalanced outfit. Anyone who’s been considered in the “big and tall” category knows that there’s one particular article of clothing that’s always been particularly vexing:
Trousers.
But fret no more: here at Berle, we make trousers with big and tall men in mind—and we want you to wear them with every bit of style and assurance as the mediums and the smalls.
The Rules of Fit Apply to You As Well
Remember when we told you about the numbers you need to know in order to buy a pair of pants that fit? Don’t consider yourself exempt simply because you buy your pants in a slightly different category. The principles of good fit hold up for small, large, and everything in between.
Many larger guys find that there are few pants that really fit them, so they have to err on the side of sizing up in order to feel comfortable. Others find, to their disappointment, that when they go to order a pair of pants from their favorite outlet, their size isn’t available.
The obvious solution is to find one good store that offers big and tall sizes and stick with it. We at Berle allow you to select from Big and Tall sizes as you customize your own pair of trousers to suit your needs; do this before browsing so you can be sure that an online outlet has the sizes you need. Doing it any other way will lead to disappointment and poor-fitting trousers.
Build an Outfit with Proportion in Mind
Not your proportion, exactly, but the proportions of the final result. A pair of trousers is not just a pair of trousers; it’s only seen in the context of your body and everything else that’s on it. That means you’re pairing trousers with belts, shoes, shirts, coats, and possibly more, depending on the weather.
You don’t want a pair of ill-fitting “skinny” trousers to match with an oversized shirt. And vice versa. You want to build an outfit that’s sensibly proportioned so that it “evens you out.”
Some men, wanting to take attention off of their size, make the following mistakes:
- Wearing ill-fitting clothes in the hopes that no one will notice the body underneath. This often backfires: for example, wearing shorter pants to look less tall will only emphasize how long your legs are. The principles of good fit apply to everyone
- Matching one “comfortable” item with an article of clothing they think is better fitted. Sometimes this only serves to place attention on the ill-fitting “comfortable” item, distracting from the proper-fitting one
We at Berle say that you should feel confident and attractive in what you wear: that’s part of the reason people wear clothes in the first place. Seek out a good fit with products from a store you trust. Then make sure that you put together outfits of the right proportion, and see if you don’t start loving every part of what you see in the mirror.