Spezzato: Breaking Up Suits for Casual Menswear Looks

Menswear connoisseurs know the term spezzato in reference to the inimitable way Italian men split up a suit, wearing the trousers from one and the jacket from another with seemingly effortless style. But since executing it well can be challenging, here are some reflections on what spezzato means and some of its do’s and don’ts, so that you can split up your suits with style!

What Does Spezzato Mean?

The Italian term spezzato–not to be confused with the other Italian “s-words” in menswear, sprezzatura and scorpacciata–literally means “broken,” and the same word is used for a broken heart or a broken arm, suggesting the risk involved. Spezzato is an advanced sartorial technique that involves mixing the jacket (and perhaps a matching vest) from one suit with the pants of another.

Although there isn’t a formal distinction, there are really two approaches to doing this. One, which is more difficult to pull off, boldly flaunts the idea that you are mismatching two suits and makes this a strong style statement.

Fabio Attanasio wearing a spezzato look

Fabio Attanasio wearing a spezzato look

The other, which is more subtle and therefore easier to do, disguises the parts of two suits to make it look like you’re wearing a sport coat and odd trousers. Looking online, you’ll sometimes see outfits labeled #spezzato that are really just a sport coat and pants.

While we could say that anytime you do this you are creating a “broken” look, strictly speaking, you’d have to be using pieces from two different suits. So, a distinction should be made between the two.

Paulluxsartoria spezzato look

Paulluxsartoria wearing a brown Dalcuore suit jacket as a separate with beige pants

Both may be done to expand a small wardrobe, which is desirable for those who are just starting out in the world of tailoring. So, if you only have three suits–navy, gray and brown, for example–you could potentially make six combinations, such as navy with gray pants, gray with navy pants, brown with navy pants, and so on.

Either approach accomplishes this, with the difference being how obvious you want to make the spezzato effect.

Spezzato with jeans

Chris Lee experimenting with spezzato. Would he do it again? Maybe, maybe not, he says.

Lately, however, the meaning of spezzato has expanded to include a third concept: wearing the accouterments of a suit on top, including tie and optional waistcoat (two pieces of a three-piece), with something casual on the bottom—jeans, cargo pants, or (brace yourself!) shorts.

This expanded definition is not surprising since it’s an even more extreme form of intentional mismatching, so the label “broken” is especially apropos.

How to Pull Off Spezzato Successfully: 1. Avoid Formal Suiting Looks

More formal suit jackets–those that are structured, with padded shoulders, peak lapels, full canvassing, or flap pockets–don’t usually look good with another color of pants. They immediately shout “suit,” so splitting them just looks wrong unless you want to call attention to the use of spezzato, in which case it doesn’t matter.

Raphael Navy DB Suit Fort Belvedere Bow tie, pocket square and boutonniere

A formal, DB navy suit is best worn as a suit

In terms of materials, worsted wool can also be difficult for the same reason. You can combine the parts from two solids, but a patterned worsted, like a glen check, is tricky because once separated, the pieces will look orphaned.

Davide Baroncini in mid brown glencheck suit with blue overcoat & shoes

Davide Baroncini in mid brown glen check suit with blue overcoat & shoes

A chalk stripe is best worn as a full suit. A pinstripe suit is particularly difficult to split up, first because stripes are so well known as part of a power suit and rarely seen on odd jackets except for regatta blazers. Secondly, stripes, especially smaller ones, look best when they run head to toe without interruption.

 

Chalk stripe suit with navy tie and White Irish Linen Embroidered Contrast Framing Pocket square

Chalk stripe suit with navy tie and White Irish Linen Embroidered Contrast Framing Pocket square

The top half of windowpane or houndstooth suits, on the other hand, are great candidates for spezzato since there are many sport coats out there in these patterns, and they don’t emphasize vertical lines.

Houndstooth, Windowpane and Double breasted jacket with hats

Houndstooth and Windowpane jackets “broken” and paired with contrasting pants

The best suit jackets for dividing are therefore those that look like sport coats, bearing patch pockets and unstructured “natural” shoulders, appropriate patterns, and perhaps some texture.

2. Choose Compatible Fabrics

The next key to mixing and matching parts of two suits, besides making sure you have colors that coordinate, is choosing materials that work together.

Single Breasted Blazer with popover shirt, cotton pocket square, khakis and brown tassel loafers

The Hogtown Rake demonstrates how to match fabric weights with an SB blazer and khakis

Seasonality is an obvious consideration–you wouldn’t mix a summer wool-silk-linen jacket with moleskin pants. Instead, combine jackets and pants of roughly the same weight. The safest bet is the same sort of fabric, which you can sometimes find as “suit separates.”

For instance, if your jacket and trousers are both the classic worsted of a business suit, you can pair them up, but mixing worsted with flannel may be less successful, and linen pants with worsted even less so. In fact, worsted tends only to look good with worsted because of the expectations that this fabric will be part of a suit.

Spezzato Suit Jacket and Matching Vest with Contrasting Yellow Pants and Brown Oxfords

Raphael Employing Spezzato with a Suit Jacket and Matching Vest with Contrasting Yellow Pants and Brown Oxfords (Paisley Madder Tie from Fort Belvedere)

On the other hand, if you want to go for a sport coat and pants look, you can do more fabric mixing, since you would normally combine a linen sport coat with cotton pants, not another linen, to give just one example.

3. Choose Similar Fits

We tend to think of suit fits in terms of slim or classic fits. For a successful spezzato it’s essential that you not mix the two, for instance by wearing a fitted jacket with pants that have wider legs or a jacket that is full in the chest with narrow-leg trousers. The result would be a sense of imbalance, making you look either more slight or more top-heavy.

Brown and blue suit separates

Brown and blue worn as spezzato in a similar fit

4. Create Enough Contrast

Once again, use the principles of how you would pair a sport coat and odd trousers: if you do spezzato, you don’t want to mix two hues that are too similar. It shouldn’t look like you were trying to match but failed. Make it obvious that top and bottom are separated.

The shades of gray between jacket and trousers here aren't quite different enough to look successfully mismatched, despite the trousers' pattern.

The shades of gray between jacket and trousers here aren’t quite different enough to look successfully mismatched, despite the trousers’ pattern.

Usually, you would do this with coordinating colors, like the aforementioned brown and blue, but you can also do it with tones from the same color family like the full range of browns and tans or shades of gray.

An example of spezzato working with varying shades of brown (using a brown suit jacket and khaki chinos)

An example of spezzato working with varying shades of brown, using a brown suit jacket and khaki chinos (accessories, including knit tie, from Fort Belvedere)

Many men find wearing the darker tone on top to be easier (brown jacket with beige pants), but with something like charcoal and light gray you can go either way, and with navy and sky blue, more often than not you’d go with the navy for your pants. To increase contrast even further, use an appropriately patterned suit jacket with solid trousers.

5. Use a Unifying Color to Tie Pieces Together

One way to integrate the whole of your look while using parts of two suits is to choose one piece that has the color of the other. Usually, this would mean solid pants with a suit jacket containing a pattern in the same color as the pants, such as blue trousers with a gray jacket that contains a blue windowpane.

Windowpane jacket used to integrate a spezzato look

The blue grid pattern in this jacket connects the top of the outfit to the bottom

The inclusion of the pants color in the jacket visually binds the top and bottom halves. You can do it the opposite way too, but patterned pants are rarer.

6. Realize that Spezzato is Meant to be Casual

Your goal in using the spezzato technique is always making a suit more casual. As soon as you break up the uniformity of a suit, it is less formal, just as a sport coat and pants are less formal. If you do the very modern thing of casual pants with a suit jacket, this is even more obvious.

Pedro Mendes in summer blue jacket with pink flowery pocket square, white button down shirt, sky blue chinos and tan oxfords

Pedro Mendes in summer blue jacket with a pink flowery pocket square, a white OCBD shirt, sky blue chinos, and tan oxfords

Given the emphasis on dressing down, the rest of your outfit can go along with this idea by including monk straps or loafers instead of oxford shoes, a denim or OCBD shirt or other elements of sprezzatura.

Raphael wearing a denim shirt with a suit jacket and chinos

Raphael wearing a denim shirt with a suit jacket and chinos

On the other hand, if you are in a professional environment or going for a job interview, realize that dressing for the occasion means wearing a standard suit rather than experimenting with breaking it up. Remember, there is a place and time for everything.

Advanced Spezzato Techniques: 1. Using Three Pieces

Spezzato is already an advanced technique, but there are a couple of ways to break up a suit that push the envelope of classic style even further.

When the vest from a three-piece suit is involved, there are several options for mixing, both of which make it impossible to avoid the impression that you have divided a suit. The first method is to wear the vest and pants of a suit with the jacket from another suit. This is an interesting look that gives you a uniform appearance “up the middle.”

Corduroy vest and trousers paired with tassel loafers and a suede jacket

Advanced Spezzato: Corduroy vest and matching trousers paired with tassel loafers and a suede jacket

The second is to wear a jacket and vest from the same suit with different pants. The sense of division between top and bottom is strongly emphasized here, especially if you wear two different textures.

Lastly, you can take spezzato to what may be its furthest extreme by mixing and matching the pieces from three different suits: a jacket from one, a vest from another, and pants from a third.

Spezzato with three pieces

An outfit with jacket, pants, and vest from three different suits.

This gives you the most stylistic flexibility and can generate looks that are quite complex, but, similar to matching multiple patterns in an outfit, it has a high risk of failure, requiring a sophisticated eye for what looks good and a willingness to stand out boldly.

2. Not Recommended: Wearing Casual Pants with a Suit Jacket

A common practice when breaking up a suit is one that also breaks with classic style by wearing casual pants with a suit jacket, usually a pair of chinos or jeans. Many Gentleman’s Gazette readers will scorn the idea, but we’ve included it for the sake of complete coverage.

How not to do spezzato

How not to do spezzato: Ralph Lauren in evening wear, jeans and mountaineering boots at left; double-breasted structured suit jacket with shorts and slippers at right

At any shopping mall on the weekend, you’re likely to see at least one guy wearing a longer, structured suit jacket with blue denim badly. If you want to do this well, it’s crucial that you wear a jacket that looks like a casual sport coat to avoid the harsh contrast. Needless to say, things like sweatpants and shorts with suit jackets are fashion, not traditional menswear.

Conclusion: What Spezzato is All About

Spezzato is really about experimenting and having fun, as well as getting the most out of your wardrobe. It’s a game to see what sorts of combinations you can pull off with the limits being your personal taste and how much you want to be noticed.

Preston wearing a charcoal and royal blue spezzato look accented by Fort Belvedere accessories

Preston wearing a charcoal and royal blue spezzato look accented by Fort Belvedere accessories

For some, stretching the possibilities of a small tailored wardrobe is the motivation, and the goal is simply to transform suits into sport-coat-and-trouser looks. This approach breaks up a suit while still maintaining a balance in the sum of the parts, but others want to put the “broken” aspect front and center.

The next time you buy a suit, you may think about whether the halves can be worn as separates, so you will have multiple looks instead of only one. If you have only stuck to formal suits so far, the possibilities of spezzato may inspire you to try some more casual versions with less structure.

Have you ever tried a spezzato look, and if so, how do you think it worked out? Share with us in the comments below!


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