5 Ways to Find to Perfect Fitting Blazer

Go by the shoulders, not by the bust.

Unless you’re looking to button up your blazer as a stylistic choice, you should always measure the correct fit of the blazer by the shoulders, not if you can close it across the bust. If you go by the bust alone (and the ability to close it), you may end up with a jacket that’s so big through the shoulders that you look like you’re wearing your dad’s jacket (not a good look).

This guideline especially applies if you have a large chest.

Know when it’s too tight or too loose.

Finding the perfect blazer doesn’t mean you have to nitpick every part of it to make sure you’ve found the holy grail of outerwear. It does mean though that you need to be able to identify which blazers are too tight or too loose.

If you put on a blazer and you can feel it cutting into your arm pit on the inside of the blazer, it’s too tight. You may think “Eh, it’s not too bad,” but when you compromise your comfort in the store, the piece will sit in your closet collecting dust in the long run. Either size up or try a different style.

If it’s too big, you’re likely to not only see excess length across the shoulder girdle (see point 1!), but you’ll often find extra fabric vertically across the back that will cause the back to buckle out into a slight v-shape. Size down or try a different style.

The length needs to fit your body type.

I’m talking about both the body and the arms. While the arm length can be adjusted through rolling up or zhooshing, the length of the jacket would need tailoring to adjust. If you don’t want to tailor your new purchase, then finding the right length is key.

The jacket should hit below the waist. If you’re standing straight up and bend to one side, your waist is the part of your abdomen that creases to allow you to bend. It’s where your pants should often sit, thus it’s where your shirt gets tucked in. The jacket should sit below this, because when a shirt is tucked, you can balance the proportion of the tucked shirt with a slightly (or significantly) longer jacket.

There are three places below the waist that the blazer can hit: above the hip, at the hip, below the hip. Here’s where it comes down to your body type.

If the widest part of your body is your hips (i.e. a pear shape) or you've got a long torso with short legs, try a blazer that hits above your hips to follow the line the your body and balance the proportion of your features.

If you’re a rectangle, inverted triangle, or apple body type, try a blazer that hits at the hip or below.

If you’re an hourglass, the even width between your shoulder and hips will allow you to try all the lengths.

Sleeves can be tricky.

The correct sleeve length will hit you right at the wrist bone or slightly below, but blazers don’t always turn out this way because all bodies are different, adjusting the jacket to fit you is often key to loving your new piece.

First, you can always tailor the sleeve if it’s too long.

More often though, the problem is that it’s too short, so you can do two things: roll it up or zhoosh it up. It might seem counterintuitive to make sleeves shorter if they’re already short, but making them shorter will actually make the length look intentional. You meant to roll the sleeve, so to anyone other than you, it looks like the sleeves were originally the right length.

Rolling can also allow you to show off any accent fabric that the blazer has been lined with, adding another element of style to the look.

Zhooshing in this case is just pushing up the sleeve 80’s style, so it bunches around your elbow. This is the trendier way to style the jacket, so this is my preferred method of the moment, but play with both and see what feels right to you. If it feels right, chances are that it is right.

Give yourself a hug. Do a dance. Get your groove on.

The fitting room should be your happy place. It’s the place where you get to play dress up and feel all the joy of adding a new piece to your closet.

It’s time to dance.

The last step in finding the right jacket is making sure that you’re comfortable. This is so so so very important, because if you aren’t comfortable, you won’t wear it. Give yourself a hug to test the stretch of the jacket. Do a little disco move to test the durability. Add a few different tees or blouses underneath to see how it would work with styling.

This is the test run, and if it passes, she’s the right one for you.