Let’s get a little disclosure out of the way right off the bat. I work for a company that does custom suits, shirts, etc. – not just as a sales guy, but high enough up the (relatively small) ladder that my input helps shape the direction of the company. Beckett & Robb is technically a competitor to Combatant Gentlemen, although our demographics and approaches are so different there is very little overlap.

The above said, I do not believe that B&R is the only option for a quality suit available. In fact, at a starting point of $695 for a two-piece suit, it can be a tough sale for men on a strict budget. This is where the value of a company like Combat Gent comes in.

I was first introduced to Combat Gent at StyleCon last year. I’d heard of them before, but was able to meet a representative from the company in LA. Great guy with a laid-back approach. We swapped information and a few months later I got a call from their director of marketing wanting to know if I was interested in checking them out.

I always love trying out new stuff, but I knew I wouldn’t wear one of their suits personally. I don’t have a situation in which I can because 95% of my time suited up is spent at or representing Beckett & Robb. However, I have a brother in law who was looking for some new gear for a round of job interviews and asked if they were interested in sending some stuff his way. Here’s Greg in what he used to wear.

He’s a bigger dude, so fit is pretty tough to nail. That said, this off-the-rack option was looking bad. The style was outdated (hard three-button stance, lower lapel gorge, extra-long jacket and pant rise) and the fit was actually too big in the wrong places (hem too long, massive shoulders, chest, thighs, and sleeves). Greg has owned this suit for years and it’s seen a lot of mileage.

Combat Gent sent over their Modern Fit Charcoal Birdseye, a couple of shirts, and even a couple of pairs of ties.

Before I show the after, I want to dive in a little bit to why the value of this suit is as good as it is. One of the primary reasons suiting is and can be so expensive is because of how many different people and steps are involved. An average example would look like this.

Clothing Mill –> Distributor–> Manufacturing Facility–> Distributor–> Brand–> Retailer–> Customer

Other than the customer at the very end, every single one of these groups needs to make money off of their product or service. So a $200 suit bought at most of the large chains actually costs about $20 to make. As can be imagined, the quality of the cloth and construction in a $20 suit leaves a lot to be desired. This is where wool blends, often 98% polyester 2% wool, come into the arena.

With most suiting this cheap, the fit requirements are that of the lowest common denominator. Low armholes will fit every man and look good on none. Same goes for bulky, baggy sleeves and large seats. Add all of this to extra wide, extra padded shoulders, and the end result is what Greg is wearing above.

What Combat Gent sent Greg is also a suit that costs $200. However, his suit is made of 100% Italian Super 140’s wool. And, while it’s not custom, his measurements were used extensively in order to get (almost) the best fit available.

Combat Gent is able to do this because they own every step of the production chain. They are a design-to-delivery brand who even owns the flocks of sheep from which the wool comes. So all of those other people above making money off of a suit, and the brand making the high markup in order to generate a livable profit? Combat Gent can skip all of that, make a comfortable profit on their products, and still offer them at prices that aren’t even seen in many department stores.

It’s a cool concept and one that is only possible with the advent of the Internet and online sales.

Before sending over the goods, they asked for about a dozen measurements from Greg. As I mentioned above, these suits are not custom, but those measurements are factored in. Here’s what the finished product looks like.

This is a huge improvement over what he was wearing before. The jacket length is perfect and, paired with the higher rise on the pants, evens out the proportions between his legs and his torso – making him look taller and slimmer. The shoulders end closer to where they should, the seat and thighs fit much closer to where Greg’s natural lines are, and the deeper V of the two-button stance helps make his shoulders appear broader.

There were a few things needed some work. First, and Combat Gent makes customers aware of this all throughout the site, the pants come unfinished at the hem at a standard 36″ length. This means the suit will automatically need to be tailored to get the hem completed. While some newbies in the industry may be frustrated by the fact that it’s not ready-to-go out of the box, this is both a standard practice and an advantage. Having done hundreds of fittings, I can say that one of the most difficult things to dial in without an actual garment on a client, is the length of the pants. Rather than taking their best guess, they allow the customer and his tailor to determined the proper length and get it right the first time. For us to get Greg’s altered, it was about $20, so add that to the total of the suit. Looking at the picture, I’d tell him to bring that hem up another inch or so (or wear his pants where he’s supposed to) to get the break just right.

As you’ll notice in the picture, the length of the sleeves is too long as well. Because the buttons are non-functioning, this is another area that can be altered, but it would have been better had they come in a little shorter. Unlike custom companies who take a higher margin and advertise a near-perfect fit, Combat Gent does not offer reimbursement for tailoring services. This is another standard procedure for ready-to-wear suits, and another advantage to choosing to go custom if possible.

I was at Greg’s place the first time he tried it on, and it was fun to see the effect it had on him. As can be imagined, I get my fair share of grief from my in-laws about what I do for a living and what I am wearing when I come over. It’s all done in love and good fun, but it’s great for me to see men in my own life become a little more converted to the advantages of dressing better and more intentionally. He and his wife recently went on a cruise and he took the suit with him to wear for the formal dinner. When he got home he told me a couple of different times how cool it felt to have people throughout the dining hall eyeing him up and down and appreciating the cut of his suit. For a big guy like Greg, it’s a huge difference.

In the end, this is a product I’ll recommend, but only to those who can’t make the jump to go full custom. As those prices continue to rise though (most online companies are now starting above $400), Combat Gent becomes more and more appealing to men on a tight budget. The value of the cloth is unbeatable at this price point and, the fit is about as good as it gets for off-the-rack.

They do some great casual wear as well, so I might have to see how their chinos, OCBD’s, and other items wear and fit too. Either way, check them out.

For men who spend any time browsing style blogs and forums, this is almost a throw away statement. Every author and his dog has told his readers that a key to dialing in his style is establishing a relationship with the right tailor.

But what does that mean exactly? I know I’ve used a total of four different tailors in the last decade. While all of them were similarly competent in their skill levels, there’s a reason I’m currently using the one I am.

The ability to tailor should be a default, not a bonus. Unless the tailor a man uses has only been open for six months or has an eerily quiet shop, it’s safe to assume he knows what he’s doing. This is not a plus, it’s an expectation. I have yet to visit an incapable tailor, so don’t get too excited about the prospect that he’s capable.

With that out of the way, there are three key things to look for when establishing a relationship with a great tailor. His fairness, his taste, and his willingness to meet your expectations.

Fairness should be obvious. It doesn’t matter how well he does, if it’s $200 to bring the sleeves up on a jacket, he’s overcharging. Ideally, a man’s tailor should be willing to address each need of a garment, break it down by its effect and priority, and then give a corresponding price breakdown.

This morning I met with a man who had a jacket that was too long in the body, too wide and too long through the sleeves, too big in the chest, too large in the shoulders, too large in the waist, and too big through the back. All in all, it was huge on him. Unfortunately he needs it for a business trip in a week, so going the custom route isn’t going to work and he’s had the suit for a decade, so a return isn’t an option. I sent him to my tailor with the understanding that she would prioritize each item for him according to its effect. For example:

Shorten the jacket

Bring in the shoulders

Shorten the sleeves

Decrease sleeve circumference

Decrease circumference through waist

Decrease circumference through chest

Decrease circumference through seat

Bring in back.

Her order might not be the same as mine, but it will be similar. Secondly, she’ll tell him that shortening the jacket is impossible to do and bringing int he shoulders will most likely cost him as much as it did to purchase the jacket. If he wants to pay for that, he can and can now do so with the full knowledge of both its price and importance. From there, she’ll break it down and let him decide if he wants to pay for any or all of the alterable details.

Taste is another huge aspect. When it comes to clothing – and certainly to menswear – there are very few things that are objectively bad. Finding a tailor who sees clothing with a variable lens makes the communication process much simpler.

This doesn’t mean it’s necessary to find a tailor who dresses exactly as one wishes. However, it is key to find who is capable of understanding the desired goals and what steps are necessary in order to accomplish them.

In my opinion his willingness to meet his clients’ expectations is the biggest differentiator between an ok tailor and a great one.  The last thing a man needs is a tailor who will argue with, talk down to, or belittle his expectations.

I remember going in to buy my first real suit more than 10 years ago and wanting something with a higher rise. This was 2003, long before slimmer suits had started to gather steam and I was wanting something that fit more like my jeans than what I’d been wearing to church each week for years. While I was out shopping, each sales person and in-house tailor told me it was impossible to find and/or alter a pair of suit pants to fit the way I wanted to and, if I wanted a rise that didn’t sink to my knees, then I needed to wear my suits up at my navel.

I look back now and don’t see an objective impossibility as much as an unwillingness to push themselves out of their comfort zones or their expectations of what good style is.

My current tailor doesn’t just tell me what I want to hear; she helps me see the ramifications, difficulties, or expenses in making changes. But, at the end of the day, if it’s possible and I’m willing to pay for it, she’ll do whatever I want to get the job done.

A tailor should be an advisor, not a competitor.

A man who spends any time tuned into social media has most likely come across his fair share of the professional victim class – the people who always have something to complain about.

At the top of this list of people would be the Tumblr and Twitter activists that make up third-wave (fourth by now?) feminism. To some extent, I can’t blame these people. When their entire identity is based upon their oppression, they have to consistently seek new ways in which they can claim they’re being oppressed. Otherwise they’d be forced to redefine themselves.

In one of the largest #firstworldproblems farces, a new way in which men everywhere are carrying out the sinister desires of the all-so-secret patriarchy is by spreading our legs too wide when we’re seated. It’s called #manspreading, and when it’s done in public, it’s obviously a way in which brutish men can keep womyn under our thumb. Manspreading is characterized by the spreading of a man’s legs to take up more than the allotted space of a single seat in a public setting. It most often happens on subways but can be seen anywhere.

Most normal people would simply ask the manspreader to give them some room and move on with their lives. However, that’s not enough for downtrodden of the modern West. This phenomenon needs to be eradicated. Ironically enough, if a 400-lb woman were taking up three seats on the subway and subjected to a complaint or an eyeroll, these same activists would fault the complainer as opposed to the woman. Body shaming and all that good stuff.

Well, as it turns out, there is scientific backing for the benefits to a man of sitting with his legs spread. It’s all based around how much heat his testicles can handle.

Normal scrotal temperature (the external surface of the scrotum) is approximately 34°C in a normally clothed man walking about or maintaining a loose stance, and it has been estimated that testicular temperature within the scrotum is between 0.1 and 0.6°C higher than this [32,35,36]. Clothing itself appears to contribute about 0.5–1.0°C [37], compared to being naked. Clothed and sitting down with thighs apart raises scrotal temperature to about 35 C, whereas sitting with thighs together quickly allows scrotal temperature to rise to above 36 C, i.e. to abdominal temperature within the testis [36]. Several studies have now shown that men with predominantly sedentary occupations [36], or who spend considerable time driving a vehicle [38,39], have higher average scrotal temperatures and consequently lower average sperm production or reduced fertility.

The higher the temperature in a man’s scrotum rises, the more it kills his fertility.

The possession of a scrotum to contain the male gonads is a characteristic feature of almost all mammals, and appears to have evolved to allow the testes and epididymis to be exposed to a temperature a few degrees below that of core body temperature. Analysis of cryptorchid patients, and those with varicocele suggest that mild scrotal warming can be detrimental to sperm production, partly by effects on the stem cell population, and partly by effects on later stages of spermatogenesis and sperm maturation. Recent studies on the effects of clothing and lifestyle emphasize that these can also lead to chronically elevated scrotal temperatures. In particular, the wearing of nappies by infants is a cause for concern in this regard. Together all of the evidence indirectly supports the view that lifestyle factors in addition to other genetic and environmental influences could be contributing to the secular trend in declining male reproductive parameters.

Other factors like being sedentary for too long, diapers on babies, too many estrogens in modern products, wearing briefs instead of boxers, and cell-phones in front pockets all contribute to frying a man’s huevos.

It stands to reason that the more a man can do to keep his temperature regulated, the better his fertility and testosterone production are going to be.

Clothing is another large factor but, I personally like my slim jeans. So #manspreading seems like a pretty easy way to keep the boys cool. The next time someone accuses me of systemic oppression of women by the way I’m seated, I’ll make sure to let them know I’m doing it for the children.

A controversial sport, bullfighting can trace its origins to ancient Mesopotamia – namely the Epic of Gilgamesh in which Endiku fought and conquered the Bull of Heaven using a bright tunic and a sword. The sport can be followed through Rome and medieval Europe, but it wasn’t until 1726 in Spain when it became popular to fight the bulls on foot.

The introduction of fights on foot allowed for men of lower stations to climb the social ranks via the celebrity of bullfighting. The fighters became the modern-day equivalent of rock stars. When asked why he chose to fight, one man said, “Hunger strikes more painfully.” With both status and violence being integral to the sport, it’s no wonder men throughout history have engaged in the art.

A more accurate name for the fighters is Torero. The term “Matador” is not technically used in Spanish, but is an abbreviation for the name of the lead fighter and the man with the charge of delivering the final blow. He is the “Matador de Toros” (killer of bulls), and is often addressed as Maestro. The other two fighters are respectively Banderilleros and Picadores.

The Picadores are on horseback and weaken the bull in order to “even the fight” for the other two classes of fighter. As their horses are charged, picadores lance the bull in the neck or the back, drawing its first blood, lowering its head, and weakening its body.

The role of the Banderillero is to place barbed lances in the top of the bulls’ shoulders. They wow the crowd by attempting to get as close to the bull as possible when placing the banderillas. These fighters can use the placement of the barbed flags to help correct a bull which may be pulling to one side or the other.

The costumes worn by the Toreros have historical reference, form, and function.

From a functional perspective, the tight pants and short-cropped jackets provide the perfect balance between movement and protection. Because the Toreros are judged as much (if not more) by their style and flair in performing their various duties as they are by their effectiveness, the ensemble needs to allow them the balance between a warrior and an artist.

The tight pants allow for a complete range of motion and the short jacket offers protection of the torso, without being long enough that the bulls’ horns would be able to catch on the fabric.

The gaudiness of the costume was not introduced until the mid 18th century when a fighter named Costillares began his rise as a Torero superstar. Growing up the son of a butcher, Costillares was by no means a member of the upper class. However, his skill and style in the ring (along with the money earned from fighting) allowed him to climb the ranks and become a member of his area’s elite. Because he was increasingly seen as a member of the upper class, Costillares decided to start dressing like one. While Costillares was the first to begin to adorn his bull-fighting costume with the intricacies and signs of the upper class, the idea didn’t take hold amongst toreros in general until 20 years after Costillares’ death when Spanish painter Francisco de Goya published a series of 33 paintings entitled La Tauromaquia.

Because Goya and Costillares were from different, rival cities he didn’t want to copy Costillares style exactly in his paintings. Instead he depicted his fighters with similar French styles.

The paintings showed minute changes that altered the entire appearance of the toreros. Rather than being ankle length, the trousers were cut at the calf. The jackets were lengthened from just below the ribs to hip length.

In the 1840’s fighter and style icon Paquiro made some changes of his own. He cropped his jackets back at the ribs and introduced the idea of the Galones de Platas (suit of lights). Drawing reference from Spanish and French nobility, Paquiro wanted a costume that would separate him as a Maestro from the banderilleros and picadores. He had his suits adorned with gold instead of the silver worn by the lower-esteemed fighters and also added the flashy details that would reflect both is personality and the sun in the arena.

Other details, such as pink socks, were added as ways to indicate wealth (brighter colors were more expensive than their drab counterparts in the 18th and 19th centuries) and to align with superstition. Yellow is considered to be an unlucky color while green and purple have an association with the insides of coffins.

Toreros today are not required to wear a particularly gaudy costume, but it has become such an ingrained part of their culture, that to fail to do so would be anathema. The best comparison to how a torero chooses the overall appearance of his costume is that of choosing a tattoo. Many fighters will select symbols, colors, and styles that reflect their family history, heraldry, religious convictions, personal tastes, etc. While others will simply select a design available on display with their tailor.

Modern day galones de platas are made bespoke by a handful of master tailors and cost thousands of dollars – a steep investment when considering that most fighters have at least half a dozen suits. As technology has advanced, new materials like spandex and polyester have been used because of a greater range of motion or the ease with which the bulls’ blood can be removed from the costume.

As controversial as the sport and the costumes may be. One can’t deny that toreros have a unique blend of both ancient, violent masculinity, along with its more refined, genteel counterpart.

I’m not too thrilled about today’s post.

Don’t confuse that with not being thrilled about this bag. It’s awesome – which is the exact reason I’m sad to give it away. However, my loss can potentially be your gain.

As part of the review of this review, I agreed to do a giveaway of the bag. It’s been my daily companion for a couple of months now, but it’s just barely getting broken in.

When it comes to leather goods, Saddleback has the reputation they do for a reason. While many companies will cut corners in one or many places in the process, Saddleback’s whole purpose is to create ridiculously strong, long lasting, great looking bags. Are they expensive? Absolutely they are. And in a time where nearly every company tries to tout the longevity – both from an aesthetic and durability stand point – of their product, the idea of something being so good your kids will fight over it can sound trite.

But Saddleback have been doing it right for a long time. They’re serious when it comes to making quality products, but not too serious when it comes to fun ways they’ve discovered to test that durability, or to explain why their products are superior.

When the company first reached out to me, I was a bit skeptical about whether one of their bags would meet my desired look for a work briefcase. Most of their offerings skew as far Rugged as one can get, and with my daily use being a bit more Refined, a case based on a rough-riding saddlebag wasn’t going to pan out. Thankfully, they have a small-but-budding line of business bags that keep to the tradition of the company’s build standards, while trimming down the look and adding a more luxe feel.

They sent me their Medium Thin Briefcase. Like all of their other creations, it has no moving parts. No zippers or snaps that can easily break and create a weak point in the construction. The leather is thick, full-grain stuff that is stiff and heavy. I haven’t had the bag long enough for it to break in, but I’ve held some that have been through more abuse, and the man who wins this is going to have a great time giving this thing some character.

Internally it’s lined with pigskin, meaning it’s still durable, but also softer so as not to scratch laptops, phones, etc. There are two main compartments, with a couple of smaller pockets and a keyring peppered throughout. This thing is minimal. It’s not one that has specialized compartments for every gadget the urban man tends to carry, but I like the simplicity. I keep a laptop, sunglass case, extra pouch of ear phones, moleskin, some business cards, laptop cable, and an extra magazine for a handgun in their with enough room for everything to be comfortable.

Of all the finishes and colors, I felt the Chestnut was the most business appropriate and versatile, so that’s what you’re going to get. It also comes with a shoulder strap, but I’ve avoided using it as it ends up looking a bit too much like a purse to me.

Speaking of negatives, there are only a couple. The biggest being the fact that there are different metal finishes on the D rings and rivets. It’s small, but for an OCD, detail-oriented person, it’s enough to be annoying. The other is more of a trade off than a negative. This is not a light bag. While it’s durable enough to be thrown around, it’s not easy to do so. I acclimated to it quickly but men who are interested in an extremely lightweight bag will want to look elsewhere.

So, like I said at the beginning, I’m giving this thing away. There are a few things I need you to do to get in on the action, and each will give you more entries. First is to sign up for the newsletter. This is the biggest and is worth five entry points. Once that’s done, there are nine other entry points that can be earned based on a few different actions.

As a quick heads up, I’ll be shipping this for free to the winner if he is in the continental US. If not, the cost of shipping will fall to the winner – so you out-of-country guys should keep that in mind when entering.

Oh, and to make things better – Brock over at The Modest Man is running a giveaway for a Saddleback bag as well. We timed it together on purpose and are excited to double your options to get one of these incredible bags.

Saddleback Briefcase Giveaway