If a suit doesn't fit properly, it won't look good - it doesn't matter how much you paid for it. That's why it's important to understand the proper fit of a suit. Follow these guidelines and you'll be able to find suits that fit without paying thousands of dollars for a bespoke garment.

To ensure a proper fit of a suit, the suit jacket should extend past your butt though not long enough to make the legs look shorter than the torso. A good rule of thumb for many people is to keep the length of the jacket around the knuckles when your arms are hanging at your side. If, however, you have particularly long or short arms, this is a less effective method for ensuring the proper fit of a suit.

The shoulders on your suit jacket should not be wider than your own if you want a well-fitting suit. The collar of the jacket should sit where the neck meets the upper back and stay snugly in place even when the wearer is moving. It should remain flat across the back and the collarbone.

You should not have to strain the suit jacket to button it but at the same time you should not be able to fit more than three inches between the button and the chest when the suit is buttoned. A proper fitting jacket will create a subtle "x" in the fabric with the button as the centre of the "x". If this shape is too pronounced, however, it may be a sign of a jacket that is too small.

The lapels of a proper-fitting suit should extend straight down the jacket and should not pull away from the suit at all. The back of the suit should not have horizontal creases on it. If either of these things are occurring, the jacket is too small.

The sleeves of a proper fitting suit jacket should extend to just past the wrist bone allowing for a quarter to half an inch of shirt cuff to show. The sleeve should not crease at the upper arm -- if this occurs, the sleeve is too tight or the shoulder must be extended further.

Far too many men wear ill-fitting pants with an otherwise nice suit and end up ruining the entire outfit. Pants should fall straight down with no wrinkles or creasing. If you have pleated pants, wear them around your natural waist (just below your belly button). I prefer flat-front pants which should be worn lower around your hips. They should fit snugly around your leg down to your shoe where they should cover the top of the back of your shoe and break slightly over the top of the front of your shoe. In other words, when you're standing still, sock should not be visible.

It's important to remember that these are general guidelines. I often break them, and so should you, to conform with personal style. For example, I usually wear my pants shorter than the guidelines dictate because I prefer them that way. While there are certain rules of menswear that should never be broken, if you understand why those rules exist then you can break them succesfully.