Buying Custom Suits Online—This is a thing

Everything else
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I’m a short, fit guy. This means, among many other unfortunate things, that buying clothing often sucks. Nothing is made with us in mind—smaller sizes are usually just shortened versions of their larger counterparts instead of being properly scaled down. Formal clothing is far worse, because when it doesn’t fit properly it looks twice as bad. And it never fits properly off the shelf. Dress shirts wind up with gigantic puffy pirate arms, suit jackets make you look like you just broke into your dad’s closet, and dress pants similarly do not have the slim fit required for the proper look.

So you have a couple options. You can either buy it off the rack and then have a tailor go through and make the massive amount of adjustments, or you can get it custom made. But that’s expensive and requires interacting with humans, so nuts to that.

Enter The Internets.

It looks like there are a number of sites that offer custom made suits online, but I only have experience with one of them.

I found the process painless and completely intuitive. To set up your profile all you have to do is give them your height and weight, upload a front, back, and side picture (I think this step is actually optional, but I would recommend it so they can get a better look at your body type), and then you input your measurements. I was able to take every single one of them myself in just a few minutes, but having somebody else do it would be even better I’m sure.

That’s it. Pick your material and suit options and go to checkout.

Three weeks later DHL drops this thing off on my porch.

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Three piece, 100% wool, full canvas construction. $533 total.

If you need any alterations done, they’ll cover up to $125 for the first year. If it can’t be altered, they’ll remake it for you for free.

The shirt is from a company out of New York that designs clothing specifically for us short people. It was about $88 if I’m not mistaken. I ordered white, but they ran out so I accepted blue (it’s bluer than the picture). It fits about a hundred times better than the other dress shirt I have, so I’ll forgive it this once.

I didn’t include any names because it’s really not my intention to plug these companies (though if you’re interested feel free to ask and I’ll gladly oblige). I just want to give my fellow hobbits a heads up as to what’s available out there.

(I’m 5’6" and about 140 lb for the record.)

So there you go. Buying custom formal-ware online is awesome. In your face, meatspace.

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That suit looks great man!

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I feel that there’s a certain dichotomy between the brand new suit and the bathroom selfie.

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I had a custom made suit constructed during a trip to Phuket. Professional, quick and great quality. I would not hesitate ordering from them online (given they have my measurements).

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That reminds me of the Vietnam special on Top Gear where they stopped off at some random spot in Hoi An and had custom clothes made for themselves in about a day.

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Seriously.

Looks sharp.

Off the rack really ruined menswear in America. We got used to the idea that clothing didn’t fit - that it wasn’t flattering.

It’s wonderful to see quality creeping back into the conversation.

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Yeah it’s really not just about whether or not you’re short—if you go to any formal event and you know what to look for you’ll see that the majority of suits are ill-fitting in a number of areas. But, at least with me, growing up you never even thought about it. You mean pants aren’t supposed to crease four times at your shoe? Cuffs are supposed to show half an inch of sleeve? I was clueless about all of this until a few months ago when I began looking into buying one for myself. It’s just not something our culture has retained over the last few decades, I suppose. The business world may be different in that respect (I wouldn’t know), but for simple folk like me it’s just something we have to grudgingly slap on for funerals and weddings.

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Oh absolutely agreed.

It’s just not something our culture has retained over the last few decades, I suppose.

We used to teach children this when they were little, but that ended in the sixties.

The business world may be different in that respect (I wouldn’t know), but for simple folk like me it’s just something we have to grudgingly slap on for funerals and weddings.

Speaking only of America… I think it depends on the business, and what part of the country you’re in. Wall Street dresses very well, but Silicon Valley doesn’t.

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Off the rack really ruined menswear in America.

I had a ridiculously difficult time last time I was in the US trying to find a shirt with what Americans call French cuffs (and Brits just call cuffs). Went to about five different department and clothing stores without any luck. And this was a decent sized college town, not somewhere out in the sticks.

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If British people you know call French cuffs cuffs you’re spending too much time with the royal family!

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I remember a couple-few years ago, I strongly considered getting a custom-made pair of raw selvege denim jeans that’d fit me like a glove and be super cool and hip.

Then I remembered that I’m very fat, so one of two things would happen:

A) I’d lose/gain weight, and my perfectly tailored jeans would suddenly not fit at all.

B) I’d stay the same weight and still look terrible because fat people don’t magically become hot in well-fitting jeans

I elected to save the $100 or whatever and stuck to sale-rack Levi 501 STFs. And in the intervening period gained about 10lbs, so, hah! Score one for me :)

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Brooks Brothers carries some French Cuff shirts that are pretty decent, and you can order 'em online.

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I’m sure they do, but that’s not much use when you’ve got to go to a wedding the next day.

It was more the surprise than anything. Of course you can obtain them if you need them. But it would be very unusual for a large department store in the UK not to have any shirts with proper cuffs (and any men’s shirt shop, found in any vaguely upmarket urban shopping centre, would have almost nothing but).

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Ah. Yeah, a time crunch definitely limits your options. Sadly, you’re quite right. They’re not common in most stores here in the US, even pretty upmarket ones.

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I found a French cuffs shirt at a local Savers. And a $10 suit.
And then wore both while tubing in a river.

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I literally bought a new suit 2 days ago, I am very similar height/weight. I ended up going with something that looks pretty good though I never found anything perfect in the shoulder, your shoulder is much better than what I compromised with. I am curious what site you used.

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Oliver Wicks

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That picture is impressive, it really does look like that suit was made specifically for you. Besides the fit, it also just looks good, not cheap.

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It may be the legacy of off the rack cost cutting, which in turn shaped our sense of normal. Americans do prefer simple to the adorned, so that might be part of it as well.

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