The Most Authentic Custom Suits Money Can Buy
Authenticity is a very slippery term in this day and age. Often the things we think are authentically made / produced just aren’t.
I was cued to think about this idea of authenticity in the custom suit industry by listening to a recent NY Times podcast called “The Beauty of 78.5 million Followers,” which essentially documents how much PR exists in the world of cosmetics, and how it essentially serves to cover up the often ugly truths about how products are really made. In essence, what it shows is that the so called ‘creators’ of beauty lines most of the time have little-to-no input in the actual creation of the product they’re purporting to have created. They are just a face, a brand.
It got me thinking about my own industry of custom suits. Without naming any names, there’s a lot of inauthenticity posing as authenticity in my industry too. I see it all the time — custom suit companies posing as true authentic tailors and designers (a la Savile Row) who are purportedly there to fit and design the garment for you (the client) every step of the way. It’s misleading: What the customer usually thinks they’re getting is an expert designer to walk them through the process of building a custom suit, when sadly that’s not often the case. What they’re often really getting is a salesperson who knows little about design, fit, or garment construction.
That’s not to say all the custom suit companies in NYC are like this, they aren’t. There are some really good and passionate people in the local industry.
Rather than throw too much shade on other businesses, though, I thought I’d just take you through what we consider to be our authentic fit and design process for making custom suits. I want to do this because I believe clients deserve transparency, and because I want to show that our process is a very hands-on one from start to finish. Here at Watson Ellis, we’re not just a facade. Instead we direct every stage of our suit making process, and we do so from a place of passion.
Instead of providing generalizations, the best way I can think to show you what we do is to give a step-by-step walk through of a typical suit-making process.
The Consultation
A female client we’ll call Christine came to us recently looking for a white wedding tuxedo. Our first consultation was to discuss the look and design of her suit, and to look at fabric swatches. When it comes to tuxedo fabrics, we offer thousands of options from the best mills around the world — Loro Piana, Dormeuil, Holland & Sherry, Piacenza, etc.. However, these collections tend to focus more on dark tuxedo colors — blacks, midnights blues, navies etc., and do not offer many weights and weaves in whites, ivories or creams.
Instead of looking to the fabric books we have on hand in Christine’s case, then, the best option was to source locally. We’re lucky that in NYC we have many fabric stores which carry an array of designer textiles and fabrics. Sourcing, in Christine’s case, involved physically going up to the garment district and scouring these stores for ‘white’ swatch options that matched Christine’s specifications.
The Design
Having collected several swatches I thought Christine would like, we then scheduled a second meeting to review these fabric swatch options. One of them was exactly what Christine was after, so we decided to proceed. Having locked the fabric in, we then finalized the design and trim options — which involves everything from choosing buttonhole types to choosing lapel widths. Christine wanted a specific metal button type that we didn’t carry. In order to get it for her, I called my button contact in the garment district and had him courier down samples. One of them was perfect.
The Fitting
Christine had a difficult posture to fit — stooping upper back, swayed lower back. Christine needed a forward shoulder adjustment, and her head sat a little more forward on her body than usual. Fitting for body-types like this requires a lot of experience and expertise. It won’t do to just put someone like Christine in a template block and call it a day, which is sadly what so often happens. In that case, the client inevitably ends up leaving feeling unsatisfied and a bit dejected. Instead, the best course of action for someone with these posture features is to make a muslin because the fit requires more difficult adjustments than just tweaks to the length and width. Adjustments instead have more to do with rebalancing and rotating the pattern block.
For those of you who don’t know, a muslin is a partially made garment used for fitting purposes. It’s built to your measurements and made from cheap fabric. It’s like a first draft. In fashion school you design something as a flat pattern and then cut it out in a lightweight (inexpensive) cotton fabric and make it into a muslin, to see how the two-dimensional pattern translates into a three-dimensional soft garment.
The Second Fitting
Christine’s second fitting was in the muslin. She came back into the studio and tried on the muslin suit with the shoes and blouse she intended to wear underneath. This first draft was then assessed to see if the adjustments we made initially needed to be tweaked or not. This also gives us the opportunity to fine-tune any fit elements while the client is wearing the actual accompanying shoes and undergarments. Photos are taken of the client in the muslin so they can be balanced against raw measurements in the manufacturing phase.
With the muslin tweaked, the final pattern and photos are then sent to our small family-owned factory in Hong Kong. Side note about our factory: All garments are handmade by one tailor from start to finish, based on our measurements and design specifications. This is not a factory line. We work one-to-one, and are in constant collaboration with our tailors.
Another side note: depending on how well the muslin fitting goes, I may choose to either make a second muslin or go straight into production. In Christine’s case, I was happy with the first muslin fitting and decided to go straight to production. Typically, once the fit is signed off on, the final production process takes about four weeks.
The Third Fitting
When the final white tuxedo arrived, the next step was to schedule a third and final fitting appointment with Christine. With her wedding still a few months away, Christine wanted to wait until closer to the wedding date in order to ensure that (if necessary) we could make final adjustments after potential weight fluctuations. In Christine’s case, we did not have to make any final adjustments in the third fitting. The suit fit perfectly and Christine was able to take it home that day.
All told, this process from booking in for a consultation to final delivery typically takes 8 weeks. We at Watson Ellis are involved in a very hands-on way in the process from start to finish. My over ten years of experience has taught me how to fit to all kinds of bodies, as well as how to design in collaboration with all kinds of clients. Getting it right in every possible detail — from buttons, to drape, to seam construction — is something I’m passionate about. One thing I’ve found in running this business is that it’s quite literally impossible for me to let a client take a garment home unless it’s as perfect as it can possibly be.
All of that is to say that at Watson Ellis, clients can expect authenticity and a hands-on approach all the way.