Suits: Harvey Specter and the power of a peak lapel

Suits is a legal drama in which nobody spends much time in court and everybody spends a great deal of time being dressed. Its central figure, Gabriel Macht’s Harvey Specter, is the best closer in New York, and the show makes that visible through one detail more than any other: the lapel.

The suits

The costume designer was Jolie Andreatta. Harvey is the one character in the show who favours a single designer, Tom Ford, and the costume team used Tom Ford suits and also made suits inspired by them, on their own patterns, to cut them slimmer or change the lapel.

• Single-breasted, slim, dark: charcoal, navy and grey, cut close.
• The peak lapel: wide, with the points sweeping up and out. On a single-breasted jacket this is a bolder choice than the usual notch.
• A redesigned lapel for a later season, with a big curve sweeping down to the button point, drawn specifically so a narrow, slim jacket would still make Harvey look broad across the chest.

Macht has said he liked what he called his power lapel because it is wide, and a wide lapel reads as strength.

Why it works

Proportion again. A slim jacket on its own can make a man look narrow. A wide lapel pushes the eye outward and restores the width. The costume team redrew the lapel precisely because they understood that trade-off.

Peak lapels point up. The peaks lead the eye to the shoulders and the face. It is the most assertive lapel there is, which is why it belongs on dinner jackets and double-breasted suits, and why it looks confident, bordering on combative, on a single-breasted business suit.

Dark and plain underneath. The drama is all in the lapel. The cloth, the shirt and the tie stay sober, which is why the look is sharp rather than flashy.

Is a peak lapel right for you?

• Yes if you have reasonably broad shoulders or a slim build you want to widen, and a job where visible confidence helps: litigation, sales, the front of a room.
• Think twice if you want to disappear into a boardroom, or if you already have very broad shoulders and a big chest; a wide peak can overdo it.
• Match the tie to the lapel. A wide lapel wants a tie of similar width; see the tie: width, knot and length.

The lawyer’s suit covers what real courtrooms reward, which is not always what television does.

Getting it made

Sam makes business suits with notch or peak lapels at the Vaughan studio, just north of Steeles, in three to four weeks; the lapel width is set to your frame at the first appointment. Sketch Harvey’s charcoal: draw the Specter suit. Financial District clients should also read custom suits for the Financial District.

Where the details come from: TV Insider’s interview with Jolie Andreatta and the Television Academy.