Ready to wear, made to measure and bespoke – part 2

UCLA star Lew Alcindor is measured for a suit in 1967

In the last post in this series, we analysed the history of ready-to-wear (RTW) clothing, its variations between brands, lines and geography, and argued that making the best of it would make you better dressed than 70% of the population.

Made to measure (MTM) is simply an extension of this logic. It takes standard sizes and adjusts them in more ways than you would ever bother to do with an alterations tailor. It can drop the shoulders if yours droop; it can narrow the trousers if you prefer a tighter fit; it can even alter the width of the sleeves to cope with particularly bulging biceps.

The suit will likely be made by a machine in the same factory as RTW. The job will be done by a smaller, specialised machine that is able to do very short runs or individual jobs. The fit won’t be able to cope with one protruding hip, a slightly prominent shoulder blade or a slight stoop that throws the body forward and ever-so-slightly to the right. But it will fit very well. It will probably fit you better than 95% of the suits out there fit their owners. It isn’t quite bespoke, but it’s damn good.

The other advantage of made-to-measure, of course, is that it gives you a little taste of design. Many customers originally seek out bespoke for the superiority of fit. But their interest is maintained by the possibility of design, personal expression and inflicting their personality on the world through the medium of suiting.

With most MTM orders you will be able to pick the colour and type of the wool, the material of the buttons, the shape of the lapels and the colour of the lining. You will be able to specify the number of pockets, vents and pleats, not to mention cuffs, breasts and buttons. To those with a fascination for men’s clothing, this is sorely tempting.

Bespoke

The advice on both being measured for a MTM suit and selecting its design are the same as for bespoke, and almost as important. They should be studied carefully.

Bespoke, however, is different in one key way – the pattern is yours and yours alone. Once the tailor has taken all your measurements (around 12-15 normally, more than MTM), he will translate those onto a unique pattern. He will take a piece of brown paper and mark out a chest piece – one half of the front of your prospective suit – using your measurements, figuration and ‘rock of eye’.

Figuration is everything about the shape of a man that is not expressed in simple measuring, like the balance of your shoulder blades, hips or stoop, as mentioned earlier. A tailor’s so-called rock of eye is his ability to reproduce a mental picture of how the customer stood and presented himself, in order for this to further inform the pattern.

That paper pattern is what defines bespoke. It is more personal and precise than any other form of suit-fitting. It is used to cut sections of cloth that will be ‘basted’ together (sewn using loose, long stitches that can easily be pulled out) and hung on the customer at his first fitting.

At this basted fitting the tailor will chalk on many little changes and alterations, ‘rip it down’ (pull out the basting stitches) and re-cut the cloth to this new shape. The paper pattern will also be adjusted accordingly, by either taping on or cutting off slivers of paper.

These levels of attention to fit are what distinguish RTW, MTM and bespoke: mass production, individual production or painstaking paper.