The waistcoat, and what makes a suit three-piece

Questions people ask

Should I wear a waistcoat at my wedding?

It raises the formality a step and it means you can take the jacket off at the reception and still look dressed, which is the practical argument in a hot country. It also gives the groom a way to stand apart from groomsmen in the same cloth, which is cleaner than putting him in a different one. It is a third garment rather than an upgrade, so it is priced and fitted as one, and the fittings are done with it on rather than added afterwards.

Is a three-piece too hot for Bangkok?

It is a real cost: a waistcoat is warmest exactly where you are already warmest. Two things reduce it, a lighter cloth and a back cut in lining rather than suit cloth, which is standard practice and roughly halves the weight of the garment. If the ceremony is outdoors and the reception indoors, the waistcoat earns its place: you wear all three inside and lose the jacket outside without looking undressed.

Can I add a waistcoat later?

Yes, with one condition worth knowing first: it has to be cut from the same bolt of cloth. Shade drifts between bolts, and a waistcoat sits right against the jacket where any difference is most visible. Mention the possibility when you order and the cloth is put by for it. Whether the cloth is still available a year later is not something anyone can promise in advance, which is the whole reason to say so at the order rather than after.

When is two pieces the better suit?

When the wedding is outdoors and stays outdoors, when the ceremony is short and the reception informal, and when the suit is meant to have a life afterwards, because a two-piece goes to work and a three-piece mostly does not. With a fixed budget, spend it on the cloth rather than on the third piece. A waistcoat is also the layer most often seen on its own, because the jacket comes off at the reception, so it is the piece least able to hide a poor fit.

Should the groomsmen wear waistcoats too?

Not necessarily: waistcoats on the groomsmen are a choice, not a rule. Putting the groom in a waistcoat while the groomsmen wear two-piece suits in the same cloth is the usual and cleanest way to distinguish him, and it costs less than dressing the whole party in three pieces. Whatever is decided, decide it before the cloth is chosen, because a party already cut as two-pieces cannot be turned into three-pieces without more of the same bolt.

What about a waistcoat with a tuxedo?

With a single-breasted dinner jacket the convention is that the waist is covered, by either a waistcoat or a cummerbund. In Bangkok a cummerbund is the cooler of the two by a clear margin. A double-breasted jacket is not worn open and needs neither. A cummerbund is worn with the pleats facing up, and it covers the waistband in the same way a waistcoat does but with one layer instead of a full front and back.

How many buttons should it have?

It is a matter of proportion rather than rule, and it is decided at the fitting with the jacket on, because what matters is where the waistcoat ends relative to the trouser waistband. The bottom button is traditionally left undone on a pointed-hem waistcoat. Bring the jacket to that fitting, or be fitted for both at once, because a waistcoat judged without the jacket over it is judged against the wrong thing.

Does a waistcoat add much to the price?

It is a third garment rather than an upgrade, and it is priced as one. A suit starts from 6,000 THB; ask at the order for the figure with and without a waistcoat, because seeing both against the same cloth is more useful than either number on its own.