Whether as an accessory or simply as a necessary gear to carry the pants around their waist men wear belts to improve their outfit. However, a smart fashionable man can turn a plain high quality belt into an eye-catching piece of style implement.
This article brings you an up to date detailed catalogue to select a perfect belt for your personality, body type, profession and outfit.
What is a belt?
For many men a belt is merely a fastening strap that keeps their trousers or jeans from dropping; for some it’s a compulsion as they feel a void without wearing a belt.
However wearing a belt is not mandatory as wearing pants, sometimes one could choose not to, but wearing belt for a good reason can make a big difference.
A belt is an article of clothing that functions as a border line to separate upper and lower part of your body. It accentuates a man’s waistline and adds a touch of masculinity to him. Moreover a belt becomes a style statement when selected wisely and matched with the attire.
Why a belt?
For a gentleman a belt should not be a measure to save an embarrassing situation as mentioned above. Right belt width, length, colour, buckle type, tip type can indeed enhance a man’s appearance and help him outshine other contestants in a style game.
Picking a right belt for a right occasion should be a match else you could bungle up the whole outfit, e.g. a casual belt with a formal outfit or backwards.
Let us discover what a belt is and what are the components that go into it.
Strap
A strip of leather or other material that wraps through loops around the waist. Leather is the oldest and most common material for straps but these days canvas and other synthetic materials are also used to create fancy, light weight purposeful belts.
Belt Strap material
Leather belts
Cowhide is the main source of raw material used to make belts. It’s strong and durable. Calfskin is another soft material used to make leather goods such as wallets, belts and other like accessory items. Usually a formal belt is made of cowhide or calfskin.
Suede leather is also crafted into belts which can have formal or casual design if plain or braided respectively. Some other belt materials are canvas, woven cloth, nylon.
Canvas belts
Canvas is sturdy and durable fabric , these days canvas belts throng the market as they are robust, multipurpose, multi-coloured and require least maintenance. Pair a canvas belt with denims casual trousers. An array of buckles can be used with a canvas belt.
Cloth belts can be accessorized the same way as a canvas belt.
Webbing or nylon belts
A webbing belt includes canvas or nylon fabric. Webbing belts have caught up in the latest fashion as they look more chic and fetching. Almost all types of box buckles, D ring buckles can be attached to a webbing belt.
Canvas, cloth and webbing belts exclude holes and employ a quick fastening mechanism.
Braided belts or interlaced belts
Braided belts are interlaced thin strips of leather or nylon to form a belt strap with leather ends (both at buckle and tip). Braided belts have a functional advantage that allows a wearer to insert the prong anywhere on the mid imaginary line. Braided belts fall under casual category.
A braided belt is a completely casual accessory and looks best on denim. Wear a traditional leather belt with dress trousers and other formal trousers. However with fancy colour chinos like pink, red, green one can match a braided belt.
With some patterned trousers like checker a braided belt can be paired.
Parts of A belt
Tip
Other end of the belt strap, a tip may have four shapes namely pointed, tapered, curved and square. For the most part Tapered and Pointed tips are preferred in formal style. Casual belts include square belt tip and rounded tip is the least used tip.
Buckle
A rectangular or square round cornered metal frame generally with a jointed pin to fasten the belt. Buckles come in a range of shapes but commonly used buckle is a rectangular shaped buckle with a prong- a formal type of buckle.
Prong
A slightly thick hinged pin attached to a buckle, a belt wearer uses prong to pass it halfway through one of the holes on belt strap to fasten the belt.
Loop
A small strip of same material as belt attached close to the buckle. Once the belt is fastened the tip of the belt can be tucked into the loop to secure it. One should not have extra length of strap hanging awkwardly, especially in a formal belt. However, modern buckles have a shape so as to provide tucking of belt tip through itself.
Selection Of A belt
Length
Picking a correct length of a belt is important. Once fastened, you should only have extra few inches left to tuck your belt tip into the belt loop itself and the first loop of your pants, not beyond that. Some belts have no loop or two loops.
Tip – your belt tip should not reach fully to the second loop on your trouser.
How to work out a fit belt
If you are buying a belt for the first time there are some easy steps to mind and if you already wear a belt you still need to pay attention here.
- If you are aiming to buy a formal belt go for cowhide or calfskin leather. Generally a proper length of belt is your waist measurement where you wear the pants plus ≈4 inches of extra length to secure it under loops. If you own a belt carry it along to take best measurement at the store.
- Measure the length of belt from the inner side of buckle to the hole that makes a best fit for you.
- If your waist measures 30 inches then you should add 4 inches to add up to 34 inches of belt strap.
Deciding The Width
It is easy to determine a belt width for the right occasion. If you intend to pair it with dress pants then you will want to buy a formal leather belt 1.10- 1.4 inches wide. Anything wider than 1.4 inches will make the belt casual.
A slim and tall man should still choose a medium width so as not make him look slimmer or taller. A small man should avoid wide size as the width will draw attention to it and look disproportional.
Colour of Belt
Formal belt takes predominantly three colours – black, dark brown and light brown. For the most outfits a black belt will suffice but if you can afford, pick dark brown as a secondary colour. You can also buy a reversible strap belt that has black and brown sides, this way you own two belts in one. Buying a quality reversible belt is vital since it has two stripes glued together back to back, they might split and make the belt unusable.
Belt colour plays a key role in emphasizing a man’s height- upper half or lower half as well.
A belt colour matching with the pants will underline the waist, contrarily belt colour fusing with the shirt colour will extend the trunk part.
