The Rectangle in menswear, and the cuts that follow from it.

Most tailored menswear is cut for a chest larger than the waist: an off-the-rack suit assumes a chest 6 inches bigger than the waist, the industry's standard drop (Oliver Wicks).

On a rectangle that shaping finds no taper to sit on, so a jacket cut slim pulls at the button and one cut generously hangs from the chest like a tube.

A men's wardrobe also has few belts or ties above the trousers, so where women's clothes would mark a waist, menswear builds the taper from four other places. A pad or a firm sleeve head sets a shoulder corner a little past your own. A rib band or a waistband draws the garment in at a fixed height. A layer worn open frames a narrower strip down the middle. And a trouser leg that narrows below the knee supplies the change in width the torso does not.

The other answer is to build no taper at all and wear one long line on purpose: a clean vertical from collar to knee, in cloth good enough that the plainness looks chosen. Both work. What fails is the default, straight clothes on a straight frame with no decision anywhere. Each card below uses one of the four levers or the long line.

For a tailor, a rectangle is a question of suppression: darts in the front and shaped side seams draw a jacket in at a waist the body does not draw.

Buy the jacket that fits your chest and shoulders, then have the waist taken in. There is a limit. Taken in past your own middle, the front pulls into an X at the button, which Gentleman's Gazette names as the sign of a jacket too tight at the buttoning point.

Look for darts at the waist and structure at the shoulder; a constructed classic suit has both. A double-breasted suit goes further, with lapels that draw a wide V across the chest and a button stance that sets a waist at the height the jacket chooses. Whether that is yours is a question for your line. In the sample analysis, a trapezoid with a medium line, the double-breasted suit is a Skip: "The double-breasted front is one loud detail that pulls your balanced frame off center."

Trousers go straight or tapered, at your rise. Your page names one: a high rise sits at the natural waist, on or just above the navel, and a mid rise just below the navel. A longer torso or shorter legs take the high rise; the shape has no say in it.

Off the rack, suit trousers come 6 inches smaller at the waist than the jacket's chest size (Oliver Wicks). Your own drop is smaller, so the trousers sold with the jacket that fits you run tight, and separates or made to measure fit more easily than a suit sold as a set.

Leave on the rail the jacket with no darts and no structure, cut so straight that it hangs from shoulder to hem without a change in width. On a frame that tapers it is a fine jacket. On yours it leaves the taper to nobody. Whether your taper is better cut in with darts or built from layers depends on the edges of your frame.

The shape tells you the taper has to come from the clothes or be replaced by a long line. That much you can judge on the hanger. The line is a second reading: whether the edges of your frame read angular, even or rounded, taken from your bone structure, the line of your shoulders and your facial features. Three close measurements turn up under every line, so the shape cannot predict it, and every Wear, Depends and Skip on your page weighs both.

So two rectangles build the same missing taper by opposite means. A sharp line builds it from pieces that hold their own edges: the knee-length straight coat, the denim trucker with its stitched yoke and band. A soft line builds it from depth and drape: a cardigan worn open over a henley, or a long open draping cardigan. A medium line sits between them, with the bomber, the Harrington and the V-neck sweater.

The unconstructed blazer shows the split most clearly. On the shape alone it is a Skip above, because it gives up the shoulder corner. A soft line asks for exactly that soft shoulder, which is why it heads the soft column in the table below. Each reading is right about its own half, and your own proportions get the last word over both.

Your own proportions, from your answers, are applied after the shape and win wherever the two disagree.

Three of them change the most cards on a rectangle.

• A stronger seat or wider hips refuse anything that ends at the hip and any trouser with no room over the curve. That takes the bomber, the Harrington and the denim trucker off your list, and the chino too, because it is cut without extra room at the seat. The tapered trousers stay, cut with room at the thigh, and the taper then has to come from the shoulder and the open layers.
• Your shoulders decide the first card. Broad shoulders refuse a sharp padded shoulder, which removes the padded-shoulder blazer and every structured suit cut with the same shoulder. Narrow shoulders make the same blazer better.
• Your torso and legs set your one rise. A longer torso or shorter legs give you the high rise, and then the chino at mid rise and the tapered trousers turn Skip, as every trouser at another rise does.

A rounded midsection favors drape, which lifts the open cardigan; broader thighs and a plus-size frame have rules of their own. Each verdict on your page carries the reason behind it.