Suit Separates: When You Can Break Up A Suit (And When You Can’t)

Many years ago, I attended a work function in San Antonio, Texas. My client had a sales convention there and I went as a representative of the marketing company I worked for at the time.

The stated dress code was “Smart Business”.

Now, for those of us in the menswear space… if someone floated that dress code to you, how would you interpret it? You’d probably wear a suit and tie, right?

Well, the hosts of this event defined that dress code as “Suit Jacket And Jeans”.

Yeah… I know.

There were a lot of oversized, wide-shouldered, mid-grey suit jackets paired with saggy, faded, flared jeans and square-toed, elastic-side shoes.

It was an unfortunate event, all around.

A common question I see on the internet is, “Can I break up a suit?”, or “Can I wear the jacket or trousers of a suit by themselves?”

I also often see questions like, “I bought this jacket on eBay and I think it might be an orphaned suit jacket. Can I still wear it?”

So, in this article I will lay down the rules for if/when/how you can successfully break up a suit and wear it as separates.

When you are young and starting out in the professional world, it might be tempting to take the one or two suits you own and split them up. After all, you might not have enough money to buy sport coats and odd trousers (“odd” meaning “not part of a suit”) so breaking up a suit and wearing the jacket and pants separately seems like a great way to stretch your investment.

But you need to pump the brakes on that impulse, because the rules for breaking up a suit are pretty rigid. Let me explain…

If you have a regular, worsted wool business suit, you should NOT break it up. In other words, you should only wear the pieces of that suit together as a complete unit.

Why?

Well, mainly because if you break it up and wear the jacket and pants as separates, people will be able to tell.

The jacket will have all the hallmarks of an orphaned suit jacket. It will be of smooth wool. It will be a plain pattern (if any pattern exists at all). It won’t have any “casualizing” features of a sport coat or blazer, like patch pockets, throat latches, contrasting buttons, action backs, or rough textures. Basically, it will 100% look like you’re wearing a suit jacket because you don’t own a sport coat or blazer.

 And what does that imply?

Well, the only people who split up a suit are the people who are either too poor to afford a sport coat or blazer, or the ones who don’t have enough experience in polite society to know any better.

Sound harsh? It is. But that’s the reality. And I want to be honest with you about how you will be viewed if you try to break up a suit and wear the individual pieces separately.

Also, if you make it a habit of breaking up your suits, then the individual pieces will wear out at different rates. That means that, over time, you’ll be stuck with a pristine jacket and shabby trousers, or vice versa. Basically, the suit will eventually stop looking like a cohesive whole.

Now, that all being said… the rule of “Don’t Break Up A Suit” usually only applies to more formal-leaning suits. By that, I mean suits that are smooth, worsted wool that you would use for business. There are a few, more casual-leaning suits that you absolutely CAN split up and wear the individual pieces separately.

Allow me to explain which suits belong in that category and why they, specifically, can be split up.

First, let’s take a tweed suit. A tweed suit can absolutely be split up, as in, the jacket and trousers can be worn separately. Why is that? Well, the jacket of a tweed suit is essentially just a tweed sport coat. The fabric is rough and textured. There are the aforementioned “casualizing” details on the jacket. Wearing a tweed jacket on its own is commonly done. Just because you have trousers made of the same fabric doesn’t mean you CAN’T wear the jacket on its own. Likewise, you can wear the trousers separately, as well. Tweed trousers go great with oxford shirts and chunky sweaters.

So, if you own a tweed suit, feel free to split it up and wear the pieces separately. I do this all the time with my tweed suit.

Second, let’s examine a seersucker suit. This is another example of a suit that can be split up. It is very common for someone to wear a seersucker jacket with non-matching pants, like khakis or lightweight wool trousers. Seersucker pants also look great without the jacket. A classic combination is wearing the seersucker pants with a navy blazer.

Corduroy suits can also be split up. As can many “summer” suits like linen suits and cotton, poplin suits.

My earlier point about the pieces wearing out at different rates if they are habitually worn as separates still holds, however, it’s less of a concern since you can still go right along wearing the jacket by itself if the pants wear out, for example.

Generally speaking, if a suit is on the more casual end of the spectrum, there’s more of a likelihood that it can be successfully split up, simply because the jacket is “casual” enough to pass as a sport coat.

Yeah, I know that seersucker suits CAN be worn in more formal settings, that’s why I said “generally speaking”.

Another caveat to that statement deals with tuxedos.

Now, given the fact that tuxedos are the most formal suit that most of us will ever wear, you might think that they absolutely CANNOT be split up.

But… there is actually some wiggle room when it comes to tuxedos. As weird as it sounds, tuxedos CAN be split up with more ease than regular business suits.

Let’s say you have a traditional, black or midnight blue, peak-lapel or shawl-collar tuxedo. If you wanted, you could wear the jacket of the tuxedo with tartan trousers, for example (provided the trousers are proper black-tie trousers, meaning they have a satin stripe down the side and don’t have cuffs).

You could also wear the pants of the tuxedo with a cream, tartan, or velvet dinner jacket.

There are actually quite a lot of options for wearing a tuxedo as separates.

Look at the whole issue this way… if you have a “regular suit”, as in a common business suit, don’t split it up. If you have a non-traditional suit (non-traditional by modern standards, I mean) like a tweed or seersucker suit then you have more leeway with splitting it up. If you have an inkling to split up a suit, make sure the jacket could pass as a sport coat.

Always err on the side of NOT splitting up a suit, as the suits most people will encounter will be regular, ‘ol business suits that should not be split up and worn as separates.

It’s a little inconvenient that suits usually can’t be split up because it means they aren’t as useful as they could be… they can ONLY be worn together as a full suit. I get it. But please resist the urge to wear your business suit as separates. People will notice. If you feel the need to split up your suit, then you need to figure out a way to purchase a blazer or sport coat (either new or thrifted) which will fill the “odd jacket” void that seems to exist in your wardrobe.

The good news is that you can wear the suit pretty much over and over again until you are able to lay your hands on a blazer. As men, people don’t really notice or care if we wear the same outfit multiple times (as long as you change up your shirt and tie), so don’t feel too self-conscious if you need to wear your only navy suit a couple times each week.

Once you get a proper blazer or sport coat, pick up a pair of khaki pants and a pair of mid-grey, wool trousers. One suit, one blazer, and two pairs of pants will have you covered in almost all business-formal or business-casual situations.

So, there you have it. If you find yourself wanting to split up your suits and wear them as separates, don’t. Simply focus that energy into rounding out your wardrobe with blazers, sport coats, and odd trousers.