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Was shopping with my Dad at a few suit stores that specialize in suits. Almost all of them maintained a collection of Single Breast but none of them had any Double.
Are DB Suits out of style? It's a shame if so, because they look a lot more polished IMHO than the boyish Single.
Yes, it's really 90s and before. Sort of horrible looking.
Reasons:
1. They make the body look big
2. Looks funny in a slim fit suit
3. Mask the presence of the tie unless you do a crazy ferragamo with weird $hit on it
4. Make a slim fit pants look weird
Most ties these days look perfect at 3.5", and double breasted suits just don't cut it.
They're actually coming back in to style... it's very high-fashion designer.... think Canali, Brioni, Zegna, all those trendy Euro brands that cost thousands at Saks and featured in GQ or Vogue. Even more so with the double-breasted blazer. I got a catalog from a posh megamall nearby that featured models decked out in clothes from Bloomingdales, Barney's and local boutiques and half of the guys were decked out in DB blazers instead of regular 2-piece suits. However, may be it's a NY, SF or London thing cause here in SoCal i can't recall the last time i've seen a guy in DB blazer or suit.
Nobody wears them except David Letterman.
David is a goof-ball nerd from the Midwest who likes the white-socks look too.
My guess is that he simply wears DB simply to be different. Remember in the early eighties, on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman, he would wear very sharp looking suits and jackets and running shoes every night just to stand out a little bit.
DB suits, historically since WWII have only appeared a few short times. Late forties/early fifties for a couple of years, at the very end of sixties for just a moment as part of "Mod" look of '68 but never caught on with traditional establishment types and fizzled out as WIDE Lapels on traditional suits became the Mod style of choice.
DB suits would again become popular as the eighties were ending and then would hang on for a good while in the nineties as the very out of shape-FATSO/Obese American corporate types found them to be just the thing for their 310 lb supersized superfat couch potato, 5600 calories per day, bodies.
Superbaggy double pleated trousers and circus tent sized loose cut DB suits seemed to make the supersized look less like the morbidly obese men that they were becoming.
Wuss is right that the DB has been touted for a few months by GQ and Esquire as being in style, but agree with the OP that they're still hard to find and few men seem to be jumping on that bandwagon. Still, if you're looking for a tailored DB suit at a reasonable price point, Suit Supply (Home | Suitsupply Online Store) has some pretty sharp-looking ones in the $500-$600 range.
Yes, they seem to have been out since the late 90's. I had a few quality ones in my closet, from the 90's, that I haven't worn since then and finally donated them all to Goodwill, in 2011, when we moved. (I kept them and thought they would come back in style.)
All of my suits and jackets are all single breasted models (2 and 3 button jackets) now.
The double breasted suit is actually making a comeback. Check out GQ or one of the many fashion blogs and you will see.
It ain't gonna actually happen because people aren't really buying them. Here in NYC at least.
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