Most dress trousers are sold unhemmed, so that the wearer can have them adjusted professionally to the right length. You would have to be very lucky to buy a pair of off-the-rack trousers that are already perfectly fitted to your legs.
Perfect measurements play a crucial role in men’s wear as an ill fitted trouser can affect your image badly. To cast a proper first impression, it is important that your trousers’ length is right with a “break” in the correct place to suit you.
The “break” of your trousers refers to the way it folds horizontally at the ankle as a result of the trouser resting on the top of your shoe. It’s clearly produced by the length of the trousers but is also affected by the shape of the ankle opening.
There are three basic ways for a man’s trousers to break. The cleanest look is no break at all; the trouser leg grazes but does not rest on the shoe. This is the cleanest look, most appropriate for a crisp presentation and also good for the shorter man – the horizontal line at the ankles can draw the eye downwards and loose the wearer some visual height.
The trouser intended to have no break is cut with a slightly angled ankle opening that slopes down towards the rear of the shoe. That is because the rear of the shoe is normally lower than the front part, and without the angled cut the trouser leg would be exposing quite a lot of sock at the back.
The danger with this style is that it’s easy to wear your trousers too high – just a little adjustment of pulling up the waist and you may find yourself with a half-mast look that simply shows off your socks.
The half-break or medium break is the traditional length for men’s suit trousers, a comfortable and safe choice in all settings. The trouser leg rests on the shoe with a single small horizontal fold, with the rear of the trouser leg covering the highest point of the shoe leather in the back.
A full break means that a horizontal fold that runs all the way around the leg, possibly with smaller secondary folds too. The fabric of the trouser leg is resting obviously on the top of the shoe and the sock is always completely hidden.
The full break can look untidy, but worn well with the right kind of suit in the right kind of environment it can be very stylish. Usually though it is best left for very tall men (whose legs make the extra folds seem smaller and more appropriate) or for looser trousers in a casual man’s suit look. A full break generally shouldn’t be worn unless the rest of your outfit is also rather casual.
Trousers with a cuff break look rather different than cuffless trousers, essentially because there’s a lot more material. So a full break with cuffed trousers will have too many horizontal elements piled up at the ankle. A better bet for cuffed trousers is a medium break that just brushes the top of the shoe without creating any large creases.