The Crucial Role of the Suit Fitting - A Dialogue in Front of the Mirror

When you slip into a bespoke suit tailored precisely for you, standing in front of the mirror isn't just a part of the fitting process—it's a pivotal moment that defines the essence of custom tailoring.

This experience goes beyond mere aesthetics, serving as a critical step in ensuring the suit not only looks impeccable but feels extraordinarily comfortable and is functionally sound for daily wear.

What Happens During This Process?

The fitting process for a bespoke suit is meticulous and thoughtful. It begins the moment the tailor's measurements turn into a suit that you can try on. Here’s what typically happens during a fitting session:

- Initial Assessment: As you first put on the suit, the tailor looks for obvious signs of misfit, such as wrinkles, pulls, or loose areas. This is your first glimpse of how the suit shapes up against your body’s contours.

- Detailed Review: You and your tailor will examine how the suit hangs on your shoulders, the drape of the fabric down your chest, and the closure at your midsection. Movements such as walking, sitting, and stretching are encouraged to see how the suit responds dynamically to your actions.

- Pinpoint Adjustments: The tailor will use pins and markers to suggest alterations. They may adjust the seam at the back for a tighter or more relaxed fit, shorten or lengthen sleeves, and ensure the trousers fall correctly over your shoes.

- Discussion and Feedback: This is a two-way conversation. As the tailor suggests changes, you provide feedback based on what you see in the mirror and how you feel in the suit. Do the trousers feel too tight? Does the jacket restrict your movement? This dialogue helps refine the fit to your exact preferences.

Why is This Step So Important?

The importance of this fitting step cannot be understated:

- Visual Perfection: In front of the mirror, you see firsthand how the suit complements your body. The tailor ensures that the lines are clean and the fit enhances your best features, achieving a look that off-the-rack suits rarely provide.

- Personal Comfort: Comfort is paramount in bespoke suiting. During the fitting, adjustments are made to avoid any discomfort, ensuring that each part of the suit feels as good as it looks. This is crucial because discomfort can distract and detract from your confidence and performance, whether in a boardroom or at a social event.

- Functional Tailoring: A suit needs to be as functional as it is stylish. This means ensuring easy access to pockets, comfortable placement of buttons, and overall ease of movement. The fitting process addresses these practical considerations, tailoring the suit not just to your body, but to your lifestyle and needs.

- Emotional Connection: Finally, standing in front of the mirror in a suit crafted just for you fosters a deep emotional connection to the garment. This suit is not just fabric and thread—it's a reflection of your personal style and aspirations, tailor-made to boost your confidence and presence.

In summary, the fitting process is where technical expertise meets personal style, ensuring that every bespoke suit is not only a piece of clothing but a personal armor tailored for elegance, comfort, and individual expression.

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The Baste Fit: The most traditional fitting of a bespoke suit

When you really like the best of the best regarding your suits and dress style then fittings need to happen. The most traditional process of having a bespoke suit tailored involves several fittings.

The main fitting is the so-called Baste Fit. Also referred to as the Toile Fitting. This is when your suit/ jacket is loosely put together with white threads. See this as a prototype and early warning system. This so that the tailor knows even better what your personal preferences are regarding cut, fit, drape, and personal details.

After the fitting the tailor will proceed with adapting the garment to your wishes as discussed together so it is ready for the next fit.

Hopefully this gives you a better impression of how a tailor and a baste fit works.

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The difference between British, American and Italian suits

Every bespoke tailor has its own signature tailoring style, which has been developed by years and years of experience, knowledge, passion and artistic creativity. Over the years suit styles have also developed. Nowadays you see a lot of suits that mix the different features and styles. However, traditionally there are three suit styles. Those styles are British, American and Italian.

British suit style

History

The British suit style finds its origin at Savile Row. Savile Row’s place in the formal history of suiting was cemented in the mid-19th century, when the Prince of Wales ordered a tailless smoking jacket, a relatively informal jacket style, made out of the fabrics traditional for a tailcoat. the Prince’s new style, called a dinner jacket, began a trend that revolutionized British fashion, introducing casual styles into the strictly regulated canon of English dress wear. The vision of the Prince of Wales, together with the creative mind of a skilled tailor, sir Henry Poole, slowly changed what was considered formal wear amongst an extremely traditional high class. The dinner jacket, and, of course, the whole new suit style they created, had a set of unique characteristics that persisted through time, were passed from generation to generation arriving in our wardrobes under the label “British style”. This is one the greatest examples of timeless style.

Characteristics

The British suit is emphasized by structured shoulders, a stiff canvas and low gorge lines, giving the jacket a very sophisticated look. The fit is tailored to be close to the body, with close fitting sleeves ending with surgeon’s cuffs and a high armhole. The jacket can either be single-breasted or double breasted, with usually two vents and a ticket pocket. The pants have a high waist and up to 3 pleats (a fold created by doubling fabric on itself and securing it in place).

These type of suits are ideal for average built men.

American suit style

History

The rise to popularity of these suits came in 1920’s by Ivy Leaguers. At the turn of the 20th century, a distinctly American suit style emerged among the world’s fashions: the sack suit. Modeled after a French coat popularized during the 1840s, the sack suit was loosely-fitted, giving its wearer a soft silhouette. Manufacturers, like Brooks Brothers, were looking for low-cost garments to produce in large quantities, garments that lent themselves to industrialized production. Because the sack style was meant to look baggy, it was already a one-size-fits-all product: less variation was less expensive.

Characteristics

In its original form this suit is the least stylish. Its distinguished characteristics are single vent in the back, higher armhole, straight lines, flap pockets and natural (almost no padded) shoulders giving you softer silhouette. Also these suits were very baggy. Looser cut in these suits is very rewarding if you have to spend countless hours in them. The coat was single breasted with two or three buttons. The sleeves wear with a loose fit and feature three buttons only. Characteristics of the pants are that they were not pleated and they are cut full. 

These type of suits are ideal for big/wilder built men.

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