https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1770679059699343675
IMO, it’s more important to develop a sense of taste than to obsess over things like quality or even price. How much should you spend on a suit, assuming money is no object? It depends on what you want. https://t.co/VZMtM4B924
$75k for a suit is clearly idiotic, esp on something that doesn’t fit. I hate that so much custom tailoring now is done by salespeople, not tailors, working w/ generic, sometimes crappy factories abroad. They rely on gimmicks and marketing strategies
The two most important things about any outfit are the fit and the silhouette. Sometimes, I post images like pic 1, and someone will say, “That’s boring.” However, the same tailoring principles can be applied to any fabric or style. It’s about developing your eye for tailoring
If the fit and silhouette are not good, then no weird details or colorful fabric can save the look. Fit and silhouette are the foundation of what makes for a good outfit.
Some people can achieve a good fit and silhouette with a $300 suit. Others will have to spend a lot more because they don’t fit into ready-to-wear clothing. If they’re not knowledgeable in this area, they may also want to pay someone to help them.
In the past, this work was done by a tailor. Or sometimes a sales associate at a high-end store. Finding these people nowadays can be very difficult. Some of the work now is done by stylists, but the good ones are very expensive.
You are essentially paying these people to help you develop a sense of taste. But the important thing here is taste, not quality or price. There are endless examples of rich men shopping at Loro Piana or Kiton because they think it’s “the best” and then coming out looking bad.
So, if you have good taste and develop an eye for fit and silhouette, then you can sometimes achieve what you want for as little as $300. However, if you value things such as traditional craftsmanship, then you will pay more.
Here are two sport coats: one ready-to-wear and the other bespoke. The bespoke one is about three times the price. The main difference is that the bespoke one accounts for the wearer’s dropped right shoulder, although RTW can be corrected by a good alterations tailor.
This is done by taking a wedge out of the shoulder. Here is the correction on plain vs. checked fabric (the solution is different because you have to pattern-match). But honestly, this is a minor issue, and most people won’t notice it in daily life.
The main difference btw the RTW and bespoke jackets is that one features a lot more traditional hand craftsmanship. For instance, in a tailor’s workshop, the chest will be pad-stitched by hand. The YouTube channel bernadettebanner demonstrates this here:
A ready-to-wear garment will typically be pad stitched by machine. Here is the technique being done by Strobel KA-ED single-thread roll-padding machine. You can see it’s like feeding paper through a fax machine. https://t.co/epltccv2Vw
I can go through countless examples like this: seeing the difference between a tailor pick stitch the lapel by hand vs seeing someone on a factory line doing it by machine. Seeing the sleeve set by hand vs seeing it done by machine. Etc.
Does it make any difference to do these things by hand? The answer depends on the operations we’re talking about, the skill of the tailor, the weight of the fabric, etc. Also, many people differ in their opinions on this. It’s not an easy question to answer in a tweet.
The main issue is that buying something from a traditional bespoke tailor (a real bespoke tailor, not the made-to-measure factory operations who call themselves bespoke) connects you to a long and glorious tradition of hand craftsmanship.
A friend in the tailoring industry put it this way: if you were to hang a replica of the Mona Lisa in your home, would you rather have it printed out by machine or painted by hand? Assume the machine print is flawless, and money is no object.
However, some people may not care about handwork. They may find bespoke fittings to be a nuisance. They may prefer the convenience of ready-to-wear. This is where developing your own sense of taste and preferences comes in.
To me, asking how much someone should pay for a suit is like asking how much you should pay for coffee. What flavors do you like? What notes do you enjoy? Developing this sense allows you to figure out what you want out of a garment (and how much you can expect to pay)
But certainly, if you pay $75k for what looks to be an ill-fitting, machine-made garment just bc the fabric has gold pinstripes, you’ve been ripped off. There is no craftsmanship here, only gimmicks. A handmade bespoke Savile Row suit made with quality English cloth is like ~$6k
