sartorial

comparative more sartorial · superlative most sartorial

1. not comparableOf or relating to the tailoring of clothing.

   Suits are full of joy. They are the sartorial equivalent of a baby’s smile.

   2007, Carter Bays & Craig Thomas, How I Met Your Mother, CBS, Episode 2ALH14

   2 more examples

   His sartorial rebellions were slight: he wore jeans, for example, when giving tutorials.

   2001 December 21, Jay Parini, “By Their Clothes Ye Shall Know Them”, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, B24

   The occasion, back then, was his decision to wear a hoodie with a suit jacket while on the air, which proved such an unexpected sartorial choice for an anchorman that it went viral, creating its own mini-news cycle.

   2023 February 20, Vanessa Friedman, “Don Lemon, Nikki Haley and the Lessons of a Hoodie”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2023

   Synonyms: vestiary

2. Of or relating to the quality of dress.

   In his smart suit, Jacob was by far the most sartorial of our party.

   3 more examples

   The UPI report noted that demonstrators sported "neon hairdos and tight leather clothes" as they blocked streets and disrupted traffic in a "Stop the City" demonstration. Sartorial descriptions were the order of the day in the UPI dispatch, as it went on to describe a protesting teenager with "pink hair and 11 earrings" and "youths with rainbow hairdos."

   1984 April 14, Sue Hyde, “Queer Reports Dept.”, in Gay Community News, page 2

   He was just a college instructor at the time, long before he had written his book and long before his sartorial conversion. The pockets of his sports coat bulged from having had fists thrust into them too long.

   1997, Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; republished New York: Vintage Books, 1998, →ISBN, page 77

   As a fashion editor, I pay obsessive attention to my appearance. Even when I pretend to look insouciant, each look has been painfully considered. The right earrings, coordinating shoes, the careful symmetry of a well-balanced look — these are things that please me. The gym has crushed my sartorial ambitions.

   2017 November 16, Jo Ellison, “Help: the gym has turned us into slobs”, in Financial Times, archived from the original on 10 Mar 2025

3. anatomyOf or relating to the sartorius muscle.