The Triangle, and the cuts that follow from it.

Every men's garment hangs from the shoulder seams and falls from there.

On most frames that fall runs straight or tapers in toward the waist. On a triangle it has to clear a seat that is wider than the shoulders it hangs from, so the cloth meets the hip before it has finished falling.

Two rules follow for the top half. It can take width, and it wants it: a shoulder seam set out to the edge of the bone, a yoke, a spread collar, a heavier cloth or an open layer all add at your narrowest measurement. And whatever ends has to end clear of the seat. A ribbed band that gathers in at the hip, or the hem of a short jacket, draws a line across your widest point and pulls the cloth in onto it.

Below the belt the rule is room first, then direction. Trousers need room through the seat and thigh; with that in place the leg can fall straight or taper gently below the knee, because the narrowing starts after the widest point. What fails is a leg cut close from the hip down, which wraps the seat and turns the step out at the hip into the sharpest line of the outfit.

Your page applies the same logic to pattern: a stripe or a chevron goes on knits and tops, never on trousers. Read the cards below with those three in mind: width at the top, nothing ending on the hip, room before any taper.

A suit is the biggest single purchase on this page, so here it is in the order a tailor would take you through it.

Start at the shoulder. A constructed classic suit gives you a real shoulder line, and on a triangle that line does more than anything else tailoring can offer. A double-breasted jacket goes further, with peaked lapels pointing up toward the shoulder, but its fronts are wide, overlapping flaps, so a second layer of cloth sits over the stomach. Keep it for a triangle whose middle stays flat.

Then the length. The jacket should cover the seat, which is the traditional length anyway (Gentleman's Gazette on suit fit), and on a triangle it matters more, because a hem on the fullest part of the seat draws a horizontal across your widest point.

The trousers under it are pleated suit trousers or a straight cut with room, at a mid or a high rise and never a low one. Pleated trousers sit high, on or just above the navel, so they are yours when a longer torso or shorter legs set your rise high; at a mid rise, the straight cut with room does the same job.

Last, buy for what cannot be altered. Sleeves are the easiest part of a jacket to change and taking in the waist is routine, but reshaping a shoulder is major work, and a jacket can be taken in far more easily than let out (Gentleman's Gazette on what a tailor can and can't do).

So the size you buy has to fit your shoulder and close over your seat at once. Trousers are kinder: buy them for the seat and thigh, and a tailor can take the waist in at the center back seam, by about 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm).

Triangle is a measurement of where your width sits. Your line is a separate reading, of the edges: a shoulder that ends in a corner or one that curves away, a jaw and collarbone where the bone shows or sits under the surface. The analysis reads it as sharp, medium or soft from your bone structure, the line of your shoulders and your features in the photos, checked against your answers, and a hip wider than the shoulder turns up with all three.

Shape says where a cut should add width and where it should keep it; line says what the width is built from. Every Wear, Depends and Skip on your page answers to both.

So every triangle needs more at the shoulder, and the line chooses how it gets there. A sharp line takes it from structure: the padded-shoulder blazer, with the knee-length straight coat over it. A medium line gets it from cloth with body, a chore jacket over a heavy tee. A soft line gets it from an open collar and an easy shoulder, a camp collar shirt under an unstructured blazer, because a firm pad on a rounded frame reads as costume. The trousers underneath can be the same pair for all three.

The shape gets you a shortlist; your own proportions decide what survives it.

They come from your answer about torso and legs and from the optional question "Anything else about your body?", and three of them move this page the most.

Your rise. Your page sets one rise, high for a longer torso or shorter legs and mid otherwise, and every trouser at the other rise is a Skip. This list holds both: the straight trousers with room and the tapered pair are cut at a mid rise, the pleated trousers at a high one, so one side of it goes on every page. In the sample analysis, at a mid rise, the pleated trousers come back Skip: "The seat and the break both follow the wrong rise."

Your shoulders. Broad shoulders refuse a sharp padded shoulder, so the padded-shoulder blazer leaves even a triangle's page when the shoulder is already there. Narrow shoulders count in its favor, the one place where the standard advice for this shape is exactly right.

Your middle. A rounded midsection favors drape, which helps the camp collar shirt and the pleated trousers, and turns down any top cut skin-tight, because a close knit is carried by the body and pulls as you move.

A plus-size frame has a rule of its own, against skin-tight pieces and for drape or room over the curve. Wider thighs or a stronger seat change little here: this page already makes the calls they would.