Are You Committing These New-Suit Blunders? How to avoid looking like a menswear amateur

If you have made it this far into adulthood, you most likely know how to do your taxes, change a flat tire, and open a beer bottle ten different ways. Chances are, you also know how to dress yourself (you are reading GQ, after all). Only, knowing what to put on doesn't always guarantee you’re getting things right, particularly when it comes to new clothes. And nowhere is that more apparent than with worn-for-the-first-time tailoring. See, there's a surprisingly large percentage of men who fail to remove labels and threads from their fancy new suits before walking out the door. Which ones? Well, that's not what we're here to tell you. But know this: Failing to take the three minutes to remove said tags and threads will make you look like a menswear amateur, no matter how nice the suit on your back actually is. Here are the four most common offenders:

Straight From the Shoulder
The dotted line of stitching you'll find across your new suit's shoulders is a throwback to a time when tailors would fit a suit on the spot, and then remove the threads when making other alterations. Nowadays, the baste stitching doesn't serve any real purpose. The wide stitches are most commonly white but can come in a number of different colors—so be on the lookout just in case. Remove them slowly by cutting through the middle of a stitch and pulling the remaining thread away with your fingers. Rip them out and you risk damaging the surrounding fabric.

Vent It
Your new blazer, suit jacket, and even your new wool coat often come with two small threads in the shape of an X that secure the vent (the flap above your butt). Their purpose? They keep garments from getting wrinkled out of shape during shipping to a store and while sitting on the racks. And whether there's one X (for a single vent) or two (for a double), they should be the first thing that's snipped before you ever put the suit on. Leaving the threads attached isn't just a telltale sign that you don't know why they're there, it also prevents the coat from fitting and falling on your body the way it’s supposed to.

Unburden Your Cuff
The cuff of your suit jacket or topcoat is not, in fact, a tiny billboard advertising the designer who made it. It's not a chance for onlookers to clock just how much money you spent on your new threads. No. If anything, the label stitched onto your front cuff is there as an ID-ing method from the production factory floor, or to help shop clerks easily locate your size in storage—and nothing else. Take it off carefully with a small pair of scissors or a seam ripper, and do it ASAP.

Free the Pocket
This is a little more subjective, because no one but you will know if it's done. But the pockets on your blazer are sewn closed to maintain the tailored piece's shape. Nice and flat is what they're going for (the better to make you part with your money for it). It is up to you to decide if you want to unstitch them, but doing so will afford you extra storage when you need it. Just don't carry anything heavy (like your wallet) in there. A pack of gum, a theater ticket, a book of matches, or a few business cards are just fine.