The Meaning of Bespoke Suiting
Bespoke suiting is the pinnacle of personalised and custom-made tailoring. It involves creating a suit/garment from scratch to fit a specific individual’s body measurements, style preferences, and design choices. This contrasts to what we do at casual fitters which is called Made to Measure Suiting. Made to measure suiting at casual fitters involves our very experienced, bespoke trained tailors using a highly customisable pattern and adjusting it to your specific styles, tastes, body shape and fit preferences. At casual fitters we believe we create a Made to Measure suit that goes toe to toe with the best made to measure tailors in London at half to a third of the price but we are the first to admit we are not bespoke and will never be, this is in contrast to some of our competitors who brand as bespoke but are in reality are only…..over priced made to measure.
The process of creating a bespoke suit typically involves the following steps:
1. Consultation: The tailor meets with the client to discuss their style preferences, fabric choices, and other specific requirements. This is an essential step to understand the client’s preferences and needs.
2. Measurements: The tailor takes precise measurements of the client’s body to ensure a perfect fit. These measurements cover various aspects, including chest, shoulders, waist, sleeve length, and more.
3. Fabric Selection: The client can choose from a wide range of high-quality fabrics, including various types of wool, cotton, linen, silk, and blends, depending on the occasion and personal preferences.
4. Pattern Creation: Based on the client’s measurements, the tailor creates a unique paper pattern, which serves as the blueprint for cutting the fabric.
5. Fittings & Construction – through a process of multiple fittings the clients Bespoke Suit is put together and taken apart with adjustments being made based on client preference and tailors comments.
6. Finishing & Final Fitting – Once the suits final measurements and details have been determined the suit is sent to a ‘finisher’ who completes final touches like pick stitching, button holes and top stitching. Once this is complete the garment is delivered to the client.
Bespoke suiting offers unparalleled quality, fit, and attention to detail, making it a favorite choice among those who seek a truly exceptional and individualized garment. However, this level of craftsmanship and personalization also means that bespoke suits are typically more expensive and time-consuming to create compared to off-the-rack or made-to-measure alternatives. True bespoke suiting in London typically starts at £3500 for a 2 piece suit going up from there depending on the renown of the tailor and their marketing budget.
The made to measure process at casual fitters employs a large element of the above bespoke suiting process but has been refined, simplified and streamlined for the modern era.
Process:
- Commission Appointment – during one of our “commission appointments” we take you through measurements, style, fabric and details giving you as much or as little advice as you need to construct your tailor made suit
- First Fitting – This is the stage where you made to measure suit arrives in from our atelier in Romania and we try the custom made suit on for the first time and take notes on alterations that need to be made.
- Final Fitting – during the final fitting we double check everything with your MTM suit, following this your suit is ready to take home! A 4-6 week process start to finish.
When weighing up whether to go true Bespoke or Made to Measure it is important to consider price, the level of detail you wish to go into, how precise you want your fit to be as well as timing (how long you have).