Pants Break

The “break” of your pants refers to the amount that extra fabric sits atop your shoes. Longer pants have more break, while shorter pants have little to no break.

There’s a whole spectrum on which you can figure out which pant-break you prefer. If you’re like The Modest Man, you have a few different pairs of jeans in varying sizes with varying breaks.

The spectrum looks like this:

Shorter guys should steer away from full break jeans but often don’t. This is because most jeans come with a 30+ inch inseam (if not 32 or even 34).

This it problematic because full break tends to make us look even shorter. So you need to cuff your jeans or get them hemmed to a shorter length.

A slight break is a great spot to aim for. No break jeans are currently in fashion, so opting for that length will give you a cool and trendy look that’s perfect for shorter guys.

Bottom line: you can’t go wrong with slight break or no break, but stay away from full break and stacking.

Should you cuff your jeans?

Cuffing is a casual move, so it’s not really appropriate for super formal settings (like a business casual lunch meeting, for example).

But if you like the look, go for it!

A lot of times you’ll hear the advice that cuffing your jeans makes short guys look shorter, but we disagree. Plenty of shorter guys do it all the time and look fantastic.

The key is to make sure the cuff isn’t too big. Go with 1-2 inches, not 3-4 inches.

Common Jeans Fit Problems for Short Men

So many nation-wide clothing brands ignore us guys under 5’8”. If they didn’t, Brock never would’ve started this site in the first place.