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Part of Men's professional wear: what to check in the jacket, cloth, trouser and shirt
How to inspect men's professional wear twice a year: four wear points and what to fix, demote or replace
A twice yearly inspection of men's professional wear: the four places that wear first, storage damage, and what to fix, clean, demote or replace.
A wardrobe fails quietly. Nothing tears; things simply get slightly worse together, until one morning the whole set reads as tired and no single garment is at fault. The fix is a scheduled inspection of what you already own, twice a year, taking about an hour.
This is that inspection. It is not a shopping list. Most of what it turns up costs nothing to correct, and the point of doing it on a date is that none of these things is urgent on any particular morning.
What to take away
- Inspect what you own on a fixed date. Every failure below is cheap while it is small and expensive once it is finished.
- Four places wear first on almost every garmentthe collar, the underarm, the seat and the heel. Look there before anywhere else.
- Storage does more damage than wearing does, because a garment spends most of its life hanging.
The hour, in order
Work through the wardrobe garment by garment, in daylight, with everything off the rail and on a bed or table. Judging a garment while it hangs in a dim closet is how the whole set got tired in the first place.
Shirts
Run a thumb along the collar fold and the cuff edge. Fraying starts as a slight fuzz and becomes a visible white line within a few wears after that. A shirt whose collar has gone is finished as a shirt worn open and can still serve under a knit for a season, which is a demotion rather than a disposal.
Check the buttons by pulling each one gently sideways. Rethread any that move. Then hold the shirt to a window and look at the shoulders and the upper back for thinning, which shows as a change in how much light passes.
Trousers
The seat is the wear point. Look for shine, which is fibers flattened by friction and is not removable, and for thinning at the point where the seams meet. Check the hem from the inside for a broken thread, and the belt loops at their base.
Then check the waistband from the inside for the spare cloth at center back. If a trouser has run tight and there is allowance there, it is an alteration rather than a replacement.
Jackets and knits
The armhole lining is where a jacket fails first, from abrasion and from moisture. A split there is worth repairing on anything you intend to keep. Check the elbows on a knit by holding them to the light, and the cuffs by stretching and releasing: a cuff that stays open has lost its recovery and will not get it back.
Shoes
Stand the pair on a flat surface and check the heel tips from behind. A worn tip is a few minutes of work; a worn heel block is a real repair.
Check the sole edge for a stitch line: it tells you whether the shoe can be resoled at all. The guide to work shoes explains what that construction decides.
The four wear points, and what each one means
The four wear points
| Wear point | What you are looking for | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Collar and cuff | A fuzzed or whitened edge | Friction plus laundering; not repairable, but the garment can be demoted |
| Underarm and armhole | Discoloration, stiffening, a split lining | Moisture and product residue; act before the outer cloth is reached |
| Seat and elbow | Shine, thinning, a change in light through the cloth | Structural wear; the garment is on a clock from here |
| Heel and sole edge | Uneven wear, a lost tip, a thin sole | Cheap now, expensive in three months |
The storage audit, which is where most damage happens
Hangers first. A wire hanger under a jacket distorts the shoulder permanently, and a narrow hanger under a knit leaves two points that never come out. Wide hangers for tailored garments, folded shelves for knits.
Then light. A rail near a window fades one line across the shoulders of everything on it, and no cleaning brings the color back. Then air: plastic covers hold moisture against cloth and are for transport, not for storage. Then space, because garments pressed tightly together crease each other and never fully recover.
Finally, check for the damage you cannot see coming. Protein fibers are eaten, and the damage is done in storage rather than in wear, so anything going away for a season goes away clean. Soil is what attracts the problem, and a garment stored dirty is the one that gets holes.
What to do with the findings
Sort into four piles and act the same week, because a pile that waits becomes the wardrobe again.
- Fix nowbuttons, hems, heel tips, a split lining.
- Clean now, then storeanything going out of rotation for a season.
- Demotegarments that are finished for their old job and fine for a lesser one.
- Replacethe short list, which is now a specific list rather than a feeling.
Only the fourth pile costs money, and it is usually much shorter than expected. The order in which to spend it is the same one used throughout men's professional wear. The value question, what a tailor's work is worth against the price of a garment, sits in the guide to business casual for men.
The care label is the specification
Half the damage found in an audit like this was caused by cleaning, not by wearing. Over-laundering wears a collar faster than any amount of use, and repeated dry cleaning of a garment that did not need it stiffens the cloth.
Read the label before deciding a routine. Under the FTC care labeling rule, the label has to give a complete regular care procedure, and the fiber content tells you what you are actually washing. What the fiber statement must disclose is set out in the FTC guidance on textile and wool labeling.
Where a garment is worn for protection rather than for appearance, none of this applies and the employer's requirements govern instead, which is the distinction drawn in the guide to industry dress codes. And a garment that has to hold up in front of a camera has an extra criterion, described in the guide to headshots and presentation.
Common questions
How often should this be done?
Twice a year, at the points where the wardrobe changes over. Once a year is enough to catch the big failures and too late to catch the cheap ones.
Is a shiny seat really unfixable?
Yes, in the sense that the fibers have been flattened and cut. Steaming and brushing improve the look temporarily. Nothing restores it.
What about garments I have not worn in a year?
Ask why, specifically. If the answer is fit, decide on an alteration or let it go. If the answer is that it never suited the days you actually have, that is information about what not to buy next.
Should I replace anything found in the audit immediately?
No. Finish the audit first. The replacement list looks very different once you have seen the demotions, because a demoted garment often covers the gap the replacement was meant to fill.
