How do I care for my suit?

Brush it, air it, and press it. Don't dry-clean it often; the chemicals age the fabric. Rotate two suits rather than wearing one daily, hang it on a broad hanger, and bring it to me once a year for a proper press.

What if I gain or lose weight?

Bring it back. Your pattern is on file, and most suits have fabric in the seams to let out or take in. A body that changes doesn't have to mean a suit you retire. That's the advantage of having a tailor.

How long should a good suit last?

Cared for and rotated, a canvassed bespoke suit lasts ten to twenty years; I have clients wearing suits I cut fifteen years ago. The pattern stays, so replacing or adding is always easy.

Can I bring a suit back later for adjustments?

Yes: a re-press, a button, a letting-out. Good cloth is cut with room in reserve for that, and your measurements stay on file, so the suit ages with you, not against you. Ask what the work involves when you bring it in.

The closet · Dressed for Toronto

Keeping suits in a Toronto condo: small closets, dry winters, humid summers

Updated September 2026 · Sam’s Menswear editorial team

A navy jacket on a shaped wooden hanger on a simple wooden rail against a plain wall, with two empty wire-and-wood hangers beside it — One jacket, room on either side. The space around a suit is part of how it keeps its shape.

A suit can survive a bad day. What shortens its life is the other 364 nights, and in a Toronto condo those nights are spent in a closet that was designed for a floor plan, not for clothes. It is shallow, it is packed, it often shares a wall with the outside of the building, and the air in it swings from bone-dry in February to sticky in August.

None of this needs a bigger apartment. It needs about ten minutes of rearranging and three habits.

The brief

A composite, not one client’s order.

One-bedroom in Liberty Village or CityPlace, one proper closet, shared. Three suits hang between a winter parka and a gym bag, jammed tight enough that the jackets come out with a crease down the sleeve. Two off-season suits live in dry-cleaning plastic in the storage locker downstairs. He wants to know why his suits look tired when he has barely worn them.

The hanger does most of the work

A suit jacket is shaped at the shoulder, and it keeps that shape only if the hanger carries it there. A wire hanger or a thin plastic one puts the whole weight of the jacket on two narrow points, and over months the shoulders dimple and roll forward.

Shaped wooden hangers, with a broad, curved shoulder that fills the jacket’s shoulder to its edge. The width matters: too narrow and it dimples, too wide and it pushes out the sleeve head.
Trousers hung full length, from the hem in a clip hanger, or folded once over a felted bar. The weight of the leg pulls the creases out overnight.
Buttons done up, the top button of the jacket, so the fronts hang true and the lapels do not roll.

Space is part of storage

Wool needs air around it to shed the moisture of a day’s wear and to let the creases fall out. Packed tight, the jackets press each other’s sleeves and lapels flat, and the damp has nowhere to go.

Aim for about a finger’s width between hangers. If the closet cannot give that, the answer is fewer things in it, not thinner hangers: move the parka to a hook by the door, where it belongs anyway because it comes in wet, and put the off-season suits away properly (below).

If the closet is so shallow that a sliding door brushes the jacket shoulders as it passes, hang the suits where the depth is greatest, usually at the ends of the rail. A door dragging across the shoulders every morning will flatten them within a season.

The plastic bag has to go

The bag from the dry cleaner is for the drive home. Left on, it traps moisture against the cloth and can yellow light colours over time. For a suit you wear every week, no bag at all. For a suit put away for a season, a breathable cotton or canvas garment bag.

Dry in winter, damp in summer

Toronto condos run through a wide swing. A forced-air or baseboard-heated unit in February is very dry indoors; the same unit in a humid August, with the air conditioning off during the day, can be damp. Wool is at its best somewhere in the middle.

Summer damp is the bigger risk. Wool that stays damp smells musty and, left long enough, can mildew. Keep the closet door open a few inches on humid days, and do not put a jacket away the evening you wore it: let it hang in the room overnight first.
Watch an outside wall. A closet built against the building’s exterior wall can collect condensation in a cold snap, when the inside face of that wall gets cold. If the back of the closet ever feels cold or damp to the touch, keep the suits away from it.
Winter dryness is mostly harmless to wool itself, though static and a crisp, dry hand are signs the air is very dry. A humidifier helps you more than the suit.

Moths, and why cedar helps

Clothes moths are after the traces of skin, sweat and food left in worn wool, not clean wool, and they prefer dark, undisturbed places. The suit hung at the back of the closet and not worn since last spring is the one they find.

Store clean. Never put a suit away for the season without a brush, an airing and, if it needs one, a clean. Care by cloth covers what each fibre needs.
Cedar blocks or rings deter moths and absorb a little moisture. Sand them lightly every season to wake the scent up.
Disturb things. Take everything out of the closet a couple of times a season. Moths do not like being moved.

The storage locker

Many downtown buildings have a storage locker on a parking level. They are often cool and can be damp, with little air moving. That is fine for a bicycle and poor for wool. If the off-season suits must go down there, put them in breathable bags with cedar, hang them rather than box them, and bring them up to air before the season turns. Better still, keep them upstairs, hung at the end of the rail, and send the camping gear down instead.

What good storage buys you

A well-made suit is built to last a decade, and whether it does is mostly decided in the closet, not the dry cleaner’s. How to care for a suit covers the rest of the routine, and salt season the part that happens on the walk home.

If a suit has already been flattened at the shoulder or has lost its crease, it can usually be brought back with a proper press. Sam makes and fits custom suits for Toronto clients at the studio just north of Steeles; book a time and bring the one that looks tired, and you will hear honestly whether it is the closet or the suit.