real bespoke suits, not pseudo-bespoke suits

Just in general, there’s so much junk out there masquerading as the real deal. New-age accountancy firms promising to streamline your books when really all they end up doing is muddying the waters while charging you a hefty fee for doing so. A reboot of your favorite TV series with new creators who promise a return to the originals’ depth and authenticity, and then the actual show seems like it’s been written by ChatGPT. Whatever industry or product it might be, there are so many shiny facades out there that, with a mere scratch of the surface, end up being disappointments; or worse, downright scams.

Of course this kind of swindle-culture exists in the custom suiting business. I’m not going to name names because doing so would be cheap and tacky, and naming and shaming is not the point of this post. What I can say is that I’ve seen so many clients over the past five years who have come to us at Watson Ellis after having had a terrible experience elsewhere. Sometimes these complaints are about bad customer service. But more often they boil down to three things: 1) problems with the fit — ill-fitting garments; 2) poor quality garments; 3) mismanaged expectations related to the words ‘custom’ and ‘bespoke’.

Problems with the fit

Fit problems usually come down to a lack of experience and expertise on the part of the fitter. Ie., it’s not typically a factory or manufacturing problem, it’s a problem with the measurements as they relate to a clients specific needs and wants. This issue tends to arise because the Fit Specialist is not in fact a specialist. They don’t know how garments are constructed or how they will interact with different peoples’ bodies. They haven’t developed these specific skillsets which take years of training to acquire. Regrettably, the fitters are often sales people with limited experience. It’s not their fault that fittings tend to go awry. It’s the fault of the companies that have thrown them into the deep end without adequate training. It’s the fault of companies that prioritize sales over all else, including quality and longterm relationships with clients.

Poor Quality Custom Suits

The problem of a poor-quality final product typically comes down to manufacturing / cutting / tailoring practices. It’s usually not a fabric issue (though it sometimes can be). Most ‘custom’ suit shops are sourcing from the same Italian, French or British mills. Fabric supply and integrity is, generally speaking, pretty solid in the New York market at least. More often, the issue is cheap, machine-centric manufacturing. Instead of being pieced together by master tailors like the classic Saville Row bespoke suit, these garments are all too often machine-stitched and finished in a glorified factory-line process without many (if any) parameters in place to ensure quality control.

Mismanaged expectations

Mismanaged expectations is the big one here. Companies are all too often promising ‘custom’ or ‘bespoke’ products when really that’s not what they’re delivering at all. Clients go in expecting something that’s bespoke, and they’re disappointed when the process doesn’t feel like a bespoke process should feel, and the end result is a garment they could just have easily purchased right off the rack — ie., not bespoke in the slightest. Companies do this because calling your product bespoke sounds good. More importantly, it enables you to charge high prices — prices that are often egregious when one considers the actual product being delivered. Alternatively, these companies slap the title bespoke on a cheap product and customers think they’re getting a great deal when in actual fact they’re often being sold a lie. Sad but true. What many of these companies are delivering are made-to-measure suits cut according to a template that has fairly limited flexibility, and then subsequently manufactured along similar lines as mass-produced ready-to-wear products.

A few tips for consumers

If you’re really in the market for something that’s bespoke or truly custom made, you might want to heed these tips:

1) check the credentials of the person doing the fitting and designing.

2) Ask about how the garments are made. Specifically, whether they are machine or hand-stitched, and whether they are overseen by a single master tailor or many different makers.

3) Lastly, inquire as to whether they really offer ‘bespoke’ in the strict sense of the word, or whether it’s actually just ‘made to measure’.

There are several great and true custom suit makers in NYC alone, don’t get me wrong. This is not meant as some sort of screed against the whole local market. But there are definitely some scams out there too. I think the main takeaway is that clients should always go into the process questioning a company’s bespoke bonafides, if indeed they’re in the market for something that’s bespoke.

In starting Watson Ellis five years ago, I was determined not to contribute to the ocean of sham businesses that promise the world only to rankly under-deliver on that promise. As I say, there’s already too many of them and, sadly, there seems to be more and more every day. I came into this business having already spent years in the custom suit industry as a designer and fitter. Before that I worked in other areas of the NYC fashion design industry. I’ve had a line of sewing patterns with the McCall’s pattern company going back to when I was eighteen. I know the intricacies of how my garments are put together. I know how to put them together myself, and how to fit them to all different types of human bodies. With Watson Ellis, I wanted to create a business that promised true custom and bespoke options, and delivered on those promises 100% of the time to best of our ability. Five years in, I think we are still living up to that mission statement.

When you come to Watson Ellis, you will only ever work with people who have years of training in fit and design. Your garments will be hand-stitched by a single master tailor using only the best quality fabrics. We will talk you through all of our pricing and process options so that you understand every step. There is no opacity here, only transparency. In other words, when we use the words custom or bespoke, we mean it.