This is a site for tailors
yet I am not a tailor. If
you are reading this, I suspect that you are not
either. You are a customer, as am I, or a
potential customer, as I once was.
If the latter, then this little
essay is for you. Why
custom? If you are here, you are interested. You
intuitively know that a suit made specifically
for you must be somehow superior. And you
are correct. But perhaps you do not know
how. This I can explain, under three broad
categories: fit, silhouette, and construction.
Fit
Fit is the single most important
consideration for any garment. Clothing that does not fit,
no matter how beautiful its color and pattern,
how expensive its cloth, or how expertly made it
may be, is useless. Who would willingly wear
something that does not fit? To do so is
to choose to look foolish. Take two men:
dress one in a $4,000 handmade Super 180s Italian
suit that does not fit, and another in a $200 machine-made
plain worsted that does. The man in the cheap
suit will look better – much better. Well-dressed
men have long known that money isn’t everything;
fit is everything.
Fit is especially important
with tailored clothing, which is designed to
artfully conceal your defects and shortcomings
and emphasize your assets. Moreover,
unlike (say) a sweater or a polo shirt, tailored
garments don’t stretch. They either
lay correctly on the body or they don’t. And
they need to fit correctly at a number of places. To
wit:
The neck: the collar of a jacket
should sit flush against the collar of your shirt
and hug your neck. There
should not be so much as a millimeter of space
between shirt collar and jacket collar. Just
beneath the collar, the jacket’s back should
lie smoothly. Ripples here are all too common,
and a sign of improper fit.
Proper shoulder fit is harder
to describe because stylistic considerations
come into play (about which more below), but
one may say, generally, that a jacket’s shoulders ought to be exactly
as wide as your actual shoulders, or perhaps a
fraction of an inch wider. Your shoulders
may crook forward or arch back; the jacket has
to account for that. A well-fitting armhole
should be as small as you can tolerate. This
takes some getting used to, but it is more comfortable
in the long run, as it allows you to move your
arms freely without lifting the jacket or disrupting
the way it lays on your body.
Chest fit varies (again, see
below), but all well-fitting jackets have some
fullness – or excess cloth – over
the shoulder blades in back. A perfectly
smooth back may look nice, but lose that fullness
over the blades and you won’t be able to
move your arms without feeling the coat pull tight
across your back, rather like a straight jacket. The
rest of the back, however, should be smooth as
a frozen pond, yet curved to conform to the shape
of your back, rather like a gentle “S” when
viewed from the side.
If the jackets is vented – whether center
or side – these should hang straight and
perpendicular to the ground. If any vents
gape open, the coat does not fit. Its length
should be determined by three factors: your height;
the relative lengths of your torso and legs; and
the cut of the coat. It is hard to give specific
rules in the absence of a specific man. But
one may say generally that a jacket that does not
cover your seat is too short, and one that appears
longer than halfway from the collar to the ground
is too long.
Most men wear their jacket
sleeves too long. Proper
sleeves end at the wrist, to show about ½” of
shirt cuff when you are standing. Some prefer
a little more, some a little less, but ½” is
the baseline.
Trousers seem easy to fit,
but in fact are the hardest of all. They seem easy because 99%
of ready-to-wear trousers are cut incorrectly,
to ride down at the hips. But this is a bad
look for all save the very young and very slim. Nonetheless,
they are cut this way because the ready-to-wear
industry knows that trousers cut to worn at the
waist will slip to the hips if they are not cut
perfectly. And since they cannot be cut perfectly
ready-to-wear, it is best to just cut them to the
hips in the first place. But proper trousers
are cut to be worn at the waist. These present
a more pleasing silhouette, lengthening the leg
line, covering the gut, and emphasizing the chest
and upper body. Good custom tailors know
how to cut waist-rise trousers that don’t
slip.
Rise, incidentally, the measurement
from the crotch to the top of the waistband. You want this
to be as short as it can be and remain comfortable. The
principle is the same as with armholes: a short
rise allows greater freedom of movement and disrupts
the lay of the trousers less.
As to length, you have some
leeway depending on your preference. Most American men prefer
a generous “break” or excess length
over the shoe. ½” is the upper
limit; longer and your pants will look sloppy. The
British tend to make trousers with just a whisper
of break. Some Europeans prefer no break
at all, and even like to show sock.
Beyond this, most well-fitting
suits (with an important exception; see below)
lie cleanly and smoothly on the body. With the exception
of the fullness over the shoulder blades, there
should not be a ripple anywhere. Rippling
and puckering and pulling are signs that a suit
does not fit.
And beyond this, well-fitting
suits take into account any number of irregularities
you may have. If your posture is stooped, your jacket
is likely to bunch up at the neck and feel tight
in the back; if erect, to pull open in front. In
addition, very few men are perfectly symmetrical
in every respect. For instance, if one shoulder
is lower than the other, then the jacket will hang
lower on that side when unbuttoned. When
buttoned, the bottom edges will even out, but the
lapel on the lower side will bow outward in an
unsightly way.
These are but a few of the
infinite irregularities which afflict the majority
of men. If you
suffer from none of them, and if your
size is one of the even numbers commonly stocked
it the stores, and if some manufacturer
makes a suit that you know from experience fits
you well (for not all sizes of the same number
but from different makers fit the same way), then
you may be one of the lucky ones who can be adequately
fit by ready-to-wear clothing.
Adequately, but not perfectly,
because ready-to-wear clothing is measured in
much larger increments—typically
1-2” along most seams—that custom suits,
which are measured in increments of ¼” or
less. But the more important reason is the
pattern. A pattern is like a suit’s
blueprints. On well-made suits, the pattern
is a paper template that is laid down on top of
a length of cloth and traced with chalk. The
cloth is then cut by hand along those chalk lines
into several pieces that are stitched together
to form your suit. It is easy to see, therefore,
that the shape of these pieces – and thus
the shape of the pattern – will greatly effect
the shape and fit of your suit. On a custom
suit, that pattern will be drawn for you alone,
according to your individual measurements. Ready-to-wear
suits are made from stock patterns made to fit
the “average” man, whoever he may be. Moreover,
on mass-produced suits, the pattern may be a computer
image only. And the suits are rarely cut
one at a time; more commonly, several pieces of
cloth are stacked on top of one another – sometimes
for dozens of suits at once – and the cloth
is cut by a laser. The potential for error
and inconsistency rises accordingly.
Finally, there is the issue
of fittings. Ready-to-wear
suits are finished before you buy them. The
store’s in-house tailor can alter the suit
a little to make it fit better, but there are limits
to what alterations can accomplish. You can
forget about accommodating any of the really tricky
irregularities discussed above. Sleeve length,
jacket waist, trouser length and waist – that’s
about it. “Fittings” are essentially
alterations that are done as the suit is being
made – before it is finished. You
try on the unfinished suit; the tailor checks how
it fits on your body and makes necessary corrections. Quite
a lot more changes are possible mid-construction
than are possible after the garment is done. This
is important, because cloth is unpredictable. Even
if your pattern is perfect, and you’ve had
a dozen great-fitting suits made by the same tailor,
different cloths tailor and wear differently. Fittings
are necessary to check how a given cloth is coming
along as the suit is made. The number of
fittings, and the stages of the construction at
which they will take place, will vary from tailor
to tailor. But one thing is certain: with
custom tailoring you will get some fittings; with
ready-to-wear, you will get none.
Silhouette
Have you
ever heard tailors or salesmen or aficionados
use terms like “English look” or “Italian
cut” or “natural shoulder” or “flared
skirt” and the like and wondered, exactly,
what it all means? They are talking about
silhouette, about the general outline of a garment,
and also the particular qualities that constitute
it. “Silhouette” and “cut” are
often used interchangeably, because a garment’s
silhouette is achieved primarily through cutting. The
shape of those dozen or so pieces of wool that
are sewn together to make a suit determine, in
large part, the shape of the finished suit.
Silhouette is often confused
with fit, but this is an error. All garments must fit the same
way in certain respects no matter their silhouette. Besides,
as Bruce Boyer – a man who knows tailoring
very, very well – once wrote, “the
concept of fit is somewhat nonsensical.” No
sensible man wants his clothes to conform exactly
to the shape of his body, which may or may not
be altogether impressive. The virtue of tailored
clothing is that it improves a man’s actual
shape. This is the purpose of silhouette.
In general, garments may sit
close to the body, projecting a slender shape;
or they may hang loosely, effecting a wider look. They may elongate
your form or shorten it. They may effect
severe angles or soft, gentle curves. And
they may be structured and built up, which gives
a military impression, or else very soft, which
makes them appear nonchalant and comfortable. Structure
and softness are determined largely by the type
of materials used: a structured jacket will have
more padding in the shoulders, and stiffer canvas
in the chest.
Those are the basics. There are well-nigh
infinite factors – small and large –that
combine to make an actual silhouette. It
would take too long discuss them all, but some
specificity is nonetheless in order. We may
divide the coat into five basic parts: shoulders,
gorge, chest, waist, and skirt.
Shoulders may be built up or “natural.” I
put natural in quotes because a truly natural,
unpadded shoulder – like a cardigan sweater – is
rare. Most “natural shoulder” suits
have some padding, but very thin, very soft, and
very little. Furthermore, shoulders may be
more or less sloped from the collar to the armhole,
or else built up and almost square. Sometimes
they are even concave; that is, they curve gently
downward from the collar, and then rise again at
the sleevehead. (Some tailors call this a “pitched” or “pagoda” shoulder.) Further
still, shoulders may be “roped”: that
is, the sleevehead may be raised up a tad from
the shoulder line. Another refinement is
to make sleevehead a more “oval” shape,
rather than conventionally round. Then there
is width: true natural shoulders tend to end exactly
with a man’s true shoulder-line. Shoulders
may also be “extended” past the deltoid
muscle by a half and inch or so.
The “gorge” is where the lapels meet
the collar of the coat. This may be high
(collarbone or so) or lower, in the upper ribs. The
width of the lapels is also a factor to consider,
though there is no direct relationship: a coat
with a high gorge may have wide or narrow lapels,
and vice versa.
The chest of a coat may be
full (swelled) or lean (shallow); and draped
or clean. On a jacket
with a lean chest, the outer edges of the jacket
are pretty close to your actual torso. A
swelled chest means there is extra cloth that stands
apart from your chest, making it look wider. Swell
is generally convex: billowing out in a gentle
curve from the waist (or bottom of the ribs) and
then back in under the armhole. “Swell” is
not to be confused with “drape”, which
is excess cloth in the chest that “breaks” or
ripples visibly across the hollow area below your
collarbone. A draped coat can have no swell
at all but fit very close to your torso at the
sides; similarly, a swelled coat may have no drape
at all but a chest that lies completely flat and
clean.
Three things to think about
with respect to the waist of a coat: ) Is there
one; 2) If so, where is it?; and 3) How dramatic
is it? Few completely
undarted, waistless jackets are made any more,
but they exist. Most coats have a waist of
some degree. Tailors can alter the look of
a coat by simply raising or lowering the latitude
at which the jacket’s waist is narrowest. Then
there is the question of degree. Most suits
today have reasonably subtle waist suppression,
but a few have a really pinched waist. Also,
the suppression may come a sharp point like this: › ‹,
or else taper over a longish span, like this: )
(.
The placement of the waist
also determines the placement of the buttons. This is known as
the “button stance.” The middle
button (or top button on a 2-button coat) – that
is, the button that you actually fasten – should
be positioned on the exact latitude of the coat’s
waist. Fashion houses do not always follow
this rule, but classic RTW manufacturers and custom
tailors virtually all do.
The skirt is the part of the
jacket that hangs below the waist. (In other words, relax guys. We’re
still taking about men’s clothes.) It
may be full or sit reasonably close to the hips. Some
even “cup”; that is, turn ever-so-slightly
inward at the bottom. Also, the coat front
edges that fall below the waist button may hang
straight, or be flared away from the button (called “open
quarters”). (This is true, however,
only of single-breasted jackets. Only one
edge of a double breasted skirt front is ever visible,
and it should hang relatively straight.)
Now, getting back to this business
of nationality. It
is true that some silhouettes are closely identified
with certain countries. But before I describe
the few truly identifiably silhouettes, I must
warn you that not all the tailors in a given country
cut suits the same way. There is, for instance,
no single “Italian cut.” There
are, at a minimum, several distinctly Italian cuts. The
same is true of English cuts. For there are
a zillion ways that one coat can be different from
another, so that truly the number of silhouettes
that are possible are infinite.
That said, these are the half-dozen or so enduring
classics:
The Sack: Soft, natural shoulder; straight hanging coat
with practically no waist; a rumpled chest, center
vent, and a full skirt with no flair. Typically 3-button with narrow
lapels. This is the quintessential “American” silhouette,
having been made by Brooks Brothers since the earliest
days of the 20th Century.
The “Updated American”: I put this in quotes because the phrase is Alan
Flusser’s. This
silhouette has a somewhat bland shoulder that is
a bit more padded than the sack but not stuffed. Its
chest less rumpled than the Sack, but not quite
clean. It has a real waist and a straight
skirt. Typically made two-button, with a
center vent. This silhouette was popularized
by President Kennedy and has arguable been the
most common American cut ever since.
The English Military:very elongating
overall; structured shoulder on the natural line,
typically with some rope; lots of structure in
the chest, which is very clean but with considerable
swell; high gorge and waist; lots of waist suppression
and a flared skirt. This cut is derived from
British Army uniforms. If there is a “quintessential
English cut,” this is it. The most
common silhouette made on Savile Row.
The English
Equestrian, or Hacking: very
similar to the above, except that the Hacking is
more angular and slightly softer, whereas the Military
is more rounded overall. The Hacking also
has a more dramatically flared skirt.
The Drape: This
was invented by the Dutch-born Savile Row tailor
Frederick Scholte, who perfected in the late
1920s, and died in the 1950s. The shoulder is natural, with no or
minimal padding, and a gentle downward slope. Often
the shoulder is extended by half an inch or so
to let it fall over the deltoid for a rounded look. Very
high armhole, and very full upper sleeve. Generous
drape in the chest and over the shoulder blades;
very soft chest. The skirt is usually quite
closely fitted. This is still the specialty
of a handful of English, Italian, and American
tailors. This silhouette really shines double-breasted.
The Neapolitan: This
is the Italian version of the Drape. The differences are:
it never has any padding; the shoulder is not extended;
and the larger upper sleeve is “pleated” into
the armhole, resulting in a slightly irregular,
shirred look along the seam. Also has dramatically
open quarters when single-breasted.
The Continental: Square,
stiff shoulder and stiff, clean chest. Very lean
throughout. The waist may be pinched on larger
sizes, but often these garments are so lean that
not much of a waist is possible. Waist suppression
also tends to be more gradual, effecting a “columnar” look. Close
skirt. This silhouette was born in Rome,
spread to Milan, and later crossed the Alps into
France. It is arguably the father of all
designer suits. Custom tailors still do it
much, much better, however.
Now you know the basics, and
the most important specifics. Some of the effects are purely
stylistic and therefore solely a matter of preference. Others
tend to flatter certain physiques and clash with
others. What follows is a brief discussion
of what I personally think works best with which
body types.
Shoulders: jackets look best
when the shoulders and the hips are approximately
the same width. Shoulders
that are slightly wider than the hips are not bad;
especially if that mirrors the physique of the
wearer. Broad shouldered men therefore do
not need any extension. But shoulders narrower
than the hips look bad indeed – like they
belong to a 99 pound weakling. Thus men with
extremely slight shoulders need some extension
to balance their hips. Men whose forearms
are bigger than their deltoids also need an extended
shoulder, otherwise the upper sleeve will “collapse” into
their upper arm under the sleevehead. And
wider shoulders also help balance overly large
heads. Muscular men do not need or benefit
from thick, square shoulderpads, which come off
as “gilding the lily.” Shorter
men benefit from a pad that raises the overall
line of the coat, giving them an illusion of a
little extra height. Some padding also helps
men with extremely sloping shoulders look a bit
more robust.
Gorge height raises the overall
look of a coat; thus a higher gorge benefits
the short. The
same can be said of the latitude of the waist,
though this really is best set in relation to the
actual waist of the wearer. Lapel width is
best calibrated to the width of the man. A
decent rule of thumb is that the lapels of a coat
ought to extend about halfway across the chest,
give or take a little for stylistic purposes.
I believe that all men benefit
from a waist of some degree. Waist suppression emphasizes
the chest, imparting a robust impression, and lengthens
the leg line, adding a bit to the illusion of height. The “Sack
suits” popular in the 1950s and 60s don’t
flatter a great many men, though some stubbornly
adhere to them. For the most part, the degree
of waist suppression is a matter of taste. I
do think, however, that as a general matter only
the very short benefit from a dramatically pinched
waist. The very thin and the very stout,
on the other hand, benefit from moderate waist
suppression, but for different reasons: the stout
because no waist will make him look like an egg
and too much will make his jacket pull across the
middle, making him look like a stuffed sausage. Pinched
waists make thin guys look they are wearing women’s
clothes.
“Drape” is controversial. Some
consider it unsightly; others consider it the height
of style. Whatever one’s opinion, there
is no doubt that it adds some comfort, but also
detracts from the precisely tailored look of a
clean, smooth chest. It works best on the
tall and lean, and arguably helps bulk them up
a bit. The stout are better off with smooth-lying
garments; they don’t need any extra bulk. Ditto
the muscular.
The last two things that need
to be said about silhouette are these: First,
for a truly distinctive silhouette to look great
on an individual body, all the compromises with
fit have to be designed into the pattern from
the beginning. Supposing
you could find a silhouette you love ready-to-wear,
unless it fits you perfectly, it will have to be
altered. When it is, the silhouette will
change – maybe a little, maybe a lot, but
some. Which is to say, the only way to ensure
that you will get the silhouette you want and the
fit you need is to go to a custom tailor. Second,
the most distinctive and flattering silhouettes
are made only by custom tailors and are impossible
to get off-the-rack. Such suits can fit reasonably
well and look reasonably good, but they will always
look (and be) more “cookie cutter” than
a custom suit. And because the silhouette
is designed into the pattern of a custom suit,
and all of the necessary compromises with fit are
made early rather than late, the end result is
really unique: a silhouette that fits and flatters
you and only you. Your custom suit will look
like no other, and will truly live up to the billing “custom.”
Construction
This
is a little tricky, because every tailor makes
his clothes a little differently. But
the finest garments – and therefore nearly
all custom garments – are made wholly or
largely by hand. On any good jacket, the
collar, the shoulders, and the armholes must be
stitched by hand. Otherwise, the jacket will
be stiff and lifeless, which makes it uncomfortable,
because it will not move with its wearer, and unsightly,
because it will look like cardboard.
Also, all jackets – from the softest Drapes
to the stiffest Militaries – are strengthened
and given shape by pieces of canvas in the lapels
and chest. In the best jackets these are
sewn by hand with hundreds of minute stitches,
in good jackets this stitching is done by machines,
and in all others they are not sewn but glued or “fused.” Although
fusing technology has improved greatly since its
beginnings, fused jackets are still always stiffer
and less breathable, and they become more so with
wear. At worst, the glue can dry out, causing
the canvas to peel away and the cloth to bubble. Custom
jackets are never, ever fused.
Handwork is not in itself the
final measure of quality, but it is an indicator
of quality. And
while it is true that several top-end manufacturers
make ready-to-wear suits with loads of hand-stitching,
some of it of the very highest quality, it is also
true that they charge as much and often more as
a great custom tailor. And all that cash
does not buy you your own pattern, several fittings,
and a distinctive – and possibly unique – silhouette. Think
about that the next time you’re perusing
the rack at Saks or Neiman’s or Barney’s
or Bergdorf.
There you have it: the answer
to the question “Why
custom?” The only question remaining – and
this is one that only you can answer – is,
Why have you waited so long to try it?
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