The Best Tan Suit Is a Little Scandalous

Another Great Wedding Season Option: Todd Snyder (Read more here)

The Best Fashion-Guy Tan Suit

If you can’t bear the thought of wearing just any ol’ tan suit, Tokyo-based Auralee has you covered. Its suit is single-breasted with three large buttons that run well up the front, creating a kind of miniature suit vignette near the neck. It’s an interesting suit, sure, but it’s not some sort of aggressive, anti-suit statement. Core features from suits of yesteryear remain: four-button surgeon’s cuffs, padded shoulders, welt pockets, a back vent, and a fully satin liner. And the trousers are perfect—on-trend yet timeless, structured yet flowy, tan without being too saturated, and pleated without being in your face about it.

Another Great Option for Fashion Guys: Kartik Research (Read more here)

The Best Pitti Trippin’ Tan Suit

Pitti Uomo, the menswear trade show held twice a year in Florence, Italy, is a fashion fever dream of the best variety. It’s where the world’s most foppish dudes indulge their wildest sartorial inclinations, surrounded by countless likeminded fellas who feel the same way. They gather in the piazza, swap expensive lighters, sip wine, and spend most of the day strutting their stuff for the circling street style photographers. (We kid, but only partly—the true Pitti Uomo experience is a bit sweatier, but none less voyeuristic.) All of which is to say, the Armoury’s suit would fit right in, thanks to its long, straight lapels, high buttons, and padded shoulders—a boon for your posture when your back is to the camera. Crucially, the vintage deadstock wool gabardine fabric holds its shape but is plenty breathable, a feature you’ll appreciate when the Italian sun is beating down on your face and Tommy Ton is approaching.

Plus Six More Tan Suits We Love

The Hong Kong-based master tailors at The Anthology specialize in new-school suiting crafted the old-school way. So it makes sense that their ultra-classic “peanut khaki” suit looks killer with the trapping of professor-core—rumpled oxford shirts, scuffed loafers—and the clothes his scruffiest TA wears to seminar. Its surprisingly soft feel makes it ideal for everyday wear (think: coffee and grading papers, or just flexing on the schlub in the cubicle over), whether you’re hoofing it cross-quad or running late to the morning train.

Sid Mashburn’s tan suit falls a little further along the color spectrum, thanks to a sunny hue of Italian poplin typically reserved for prep school uniforms. But Mashburn’s No. 3 silhouette—gently-structured shoulders, three-layer canvas liner—doesn’t have an uppity bone in its body. Instead, it’s just as approachable as the man behind it, and just as eager to help you dress up a pair of indigo jeans.

If the all-American sack suit conjures images of the burlap bags used to ship coffee beans, you’re not far off—at least aesthetically. The “sack” part of the term actually refers to the shape of the suit, not the fabric. To wit: Noah’s yarn-dyed linen iteration, cut skater-loose with an intentionally sack-ish look, but done up in a gorgeous mocha-brown herringbone that might just redeem the genre.

If you’ve spent any time lurking on menswear forums, you’re probably aware of the word sprezzatura, a Castiglione-coined term that refers to a certain “studied carelessness”, or an intentionally disheveled handsomeness. Never really understood what all the hoopla was about? Todd Snyder’s Italian-inspired Madison suit—elegant, relaxed, and with a pleasantly tweedy texture—will help you see the picture (assuming, of course, the picture is La Dolce Vita).

J.Crew sells its suits in three silhouettes: the Ludlow (slim), the Kenmare (relaxed), and the Crosby (classic). Every version has its merits, but the Crosby might make the most sense as an all-occasion suit, one you can rely on whether you’re attending a wedding, balling at brunch, or litigating your way out of last season’s fantasy football league-mandated punishment. Because of its cotton-linen blend, this pastel-ish iteration works best in the spring and summer (and outside of court)—but with the proper care, it’ll earn a spot in next year’s early-fall rotation, too.

Looking to take your tan suit up a notch? Go with Kartik Research’s version, which features faux pearl-embellished lapels and pockets on top of a linen body hand-loomed by weavers in Rajasthan, India. In fact, the whole suit is crafted there, a nod to brand founder Kartik Kumra’s Indian heritage. Taken in aggregate, it’s a near-custom, one-of-a-kind gem no one else in the group chat owns—and you don’t have to fly halfway around the world to nab it.