The world of custom clothes, Pt. 1

I’ve touched on this before and today we’ll get a little more in-depth into the idea of custom clothes. You don’t have to be a millionaire or even semi-rich to rock custom clothes. I’m neither and have all my dress shirts made for me. The popularity of custom clothing is growing. That’s good news for us as the number of companies doing this has increased giving the average person a choice at an affordable price.

Let’s talk a little about terminology before we get any further. You need to know what you’re getting and a lot companies are taking advantage of people that don’t know what they or aren’t paying for. There are more than 3 but we’ll focus on 3 levels of “custom” clothes.

Bespoke – This is the top of the line of all custom clothing options. The word comes from when a client would chose or bespeak for fabric the clothes were to be made out of. No other customers would have clothes made from the cloth until you were done with it. There are no standards they follow. It’s unique to how your body is made.

True bespoke clothing, which should always be questioned in America, is any garment made specifically for you by hand, with many fittings until the final garment is complete. The term is thrown around in the American fashion world these days and rarely have I seen it turn out to be true bespoke. Places like Duncan Quinn are great examples of places that do it right and you’re getting what you pay for.

Made-to-measure – This is more than likely what you’ll get when you get anything custom made. It’s essentially a garment that’s created from a standard pattern/size and then tweaked to fit you the best. It’s a great way and less expensive way to get clothes that fit you properly. They don’t create the garment until you order it and in most cases the fit is fantastic. Most of what I get is made-to-measure.

Ready-to-wear – It is what it sounds like. Anything that you buy at a store off the rack that has already been created to fit someone other than you is ready-to-wear. Most stores will then offer tailoring to make it fit right. This is hardly custom clothing and can end up costing you more.

If you walk into a store and they offer you a custom shirt, hand you a number of shirts to try on and say they’ll mess with it to fit your perfectly you aren’t getting anything custom.

A good place that offers this should take 30 minutes to an hour measuring you. Some shops will take over 30 measurements, some you wouldn’t ever think about. Like over the watch so when you button your sleeves it will go over the watch rather than getting stuck. You know what I’m talking about.

You should also have full custom options like what fabric you want, the type of buttons, collars, cuffs, single, double or no vent in the back, etc. Those things are what make the experience truly unique and great to do.

Part 2 of this post is coming up.