How To Wear A Pocket Square
A pocket square can easily be worn from day to night, and picking the perfect outfit combination is the key to creating a versatile look. Whilst most people would consider a pocket square as an accessory to accompany a formal outfit, we’ll take a look how to wear a pocket square casually as well as how to wear a pocket square for a more formal occasion.
Wearing A Pocket Square Casually
A lot people mainly associate pocket squares with suits or tailored jackets. However, a pocket square can be easily paired with a blazer and a pair of jeans for a casual look in the weekends. This is particularly the case in the summer months with lighter fabrics and warmer colours coming into play. This sort of look really gives you the opportunity to have a bit of fun and add a touch of flamboyance with your fold where you can have utlise a puff fold and have the pocket square showing a good 5 or 6 centimeters above your pocket. If your outfit has reasonably neutral or flat colours you can go for a square with flamboyant pattern that will give your outfit a real lift.
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Linen Jackets
For less formal occasions in the summer months, we think lighter materials for suits such as linen or cotton in a fresco weave are perfect for smart casual occasions. When dressing up a linen suit, compliment it with a cotton or linen pocket square, but don’t worry about the two fabrics matching, it means you can be more daring with colour and the weight of the two fabrics will most likely be different.
If a tie or bow tie is not a necessity at a more relaxed and informal occasion you could always consider matching the pocket square to your socks instead of your tie or bow tie. This will bring together an outfit, giving the impression of a well considered and thought out style choice.
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The Velvet Jacket
For those of you who are more daring with suit choices, the velvet dinner jacket is a great alternative to a traditional smoking jacket. Velvet jackets come in an array of refined colours from racing green to a deep claret, and they can all be classically styled with a white pocket square in a square fold, a silk patterned addition can add personality to an outfit whilst also achieving a formal look.
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How To Wear A Pocket Square For A Wedding
One of the most common questions we get asked is how to how to wear a pocket square at a wedding so we thought we would reveal a few secrets to achieving perfect wedding attire. Firstly, if it is your wedding, we believe a pocket square is essential to complete your look. If you have chosen to wear a morning suit, we think keeping the pocket square simple and white in a simple fold is the best option as it compliments the bride in white also. By keeping the pocket square white you can play around with the boutonniere, as they are a great way to add colour, texture and a touch personality.
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As for choosing a material for your pocket square, we like to contrast the material to our tie, so if you’re wearing a silk tie stick to a linen pocket square. Similarly if you are wearing a tuxedo to a wedding, a white pocket square in a straight fold will always give you a sharp, contrasting finish. However, to add a little more flair, you can always go for a one point or four point fold, but stick to classic white linen. To see more fold option read our guides on how to fold a pocket square.
Wearing A Square With A Tuxedo
For the most part, most people tend to be quite conservative when choosing a square and fold for their tuxedo. We would recommend that if you are going for the classic flat fold with a white pocket square that you go for cotton. The reason for this is that with cotton you can iron in a sharp crease to the pocket square and which gives it a very definitive edge. There are no hard and fast rules however and you can choose to wear a patterned square that offers a little more edge to your outfit. We would recommend however that if you are wearing a dark coloured tuxedo you choose a square that is also quite dark such as in the image below, and vice versa with a white or cream jacket. There are plenty of other opportunities to wear squares that really contrast with your jacket, so you're better choosing a similar shade and then adding flair with the fold.
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Silk Squares vs Linen, Cotten and Tweed
When wearing a silk pocket square it's important to get the sizing right. Due to the light nature and sheen on the fabric we would always recommend squares that are 40cm+ in size. This means that you have enough fabric to create a firm fold so that it holds it's position in the pocket. It's been our experience that silk pocket squares around 30cm in length tend to slip down in the pocket as you move around.
Tweed squares are at the opposite end of the spectrum, because the material is so thick we found that anything over 20cm in length was almost impossible to fold and fit in the pocket. Linen and cotton both offer more flexibility. Our preference is still to go for the larger sizes as it provides a firmer finish with slightly more material, but you can get awhile with smaller sizes.
BEST POCKET SQUARE FOLDS FOR A WEDDING
To help with your wardrobe choices this wedding season, we wanted to give you an insight into some of our favourite pocket square folds to use with your tailored jacket. The right fold can create a visually stunning look that will ensure you look sartorial and superb for any wedding event.
In the short video below, as part of our YouTube Pocket Square Fold Series, Alex explores four classic pocket square folds that are perfect to use for a wedding.