What is a bespoke suit, and why is it worth it?

What is known to the general public as tailor made suits or custom made suits are known by those within the industry as bespoke suits. Even here in KL that is the case. It describes both a process and its resulting product. In its most general outline within a Malaysian context, a bespoke suit is one where the customer goes to a tailor and picks a cloth. He or she gets measured. He returns to the tailor to get fitted. After a period, the suit is ready for him to try on. Every step along the way, there are many variations of how things are done. This variability is also reflected in the asking prices for bespoke suits in Kuala Lumpur. It ranges from around RM1,200 and regularly goes to RM12,000, with a median of perhaps RM2,500.

So why don’t people just buy a ready-made suit?

The main reason is because suits are sculptures in cloth. Something that shirts cannot claim to be. This particular sculpture’s appearance is sensitive to the way it is supported on the wearer’s body. Hence it is necessary to sculpt it to the wearer’s body, so that its full potential can be realised.

If you fit into a ready-to-wear suit and think you look smashing in it, then there is little reason to go to a tailor. But many people do not think RTW suits fit them well. Hence they seek out a tailor. 

At the higher end of the price spectrum, like with anything, it’s not about sufficiency but about outright performance and passion.

When pitched properly on the wearer’s shoulder, the tailored suit gains powers beyond its constituents of cloth and canvas. It gains the power to fascinate, much like audiophile equipment, beautiful cars or mechanical watches. Like those, the tailored suit is about aesthetics, performance and ideals.

Aesthetics because arguably no other garment dresses up a person like a suit. Hollywood understands this, which explains the preponderance of suits worn by the characters. It elevates their appearance on screen.

Let’s go deeper into the aesthetics of the suit. Front and center is the cloth that you picked. It’s colour, reflectance and texture are the biggest determinants of the overall appearance.

But immediately behind the cloth is the construction of the suit. It starts with the shoulders. In silhouette, it has a clearly defined, straight line. This linearity gives it an intentional look. But when seen from a 3D perspective, the shoulder of a jacket is a more organic form. It’s actually a mild saddle shape, and curved towards the front.. All kinds of construction techniques are employed at this area to achieve this shape.

Hanging off the shoulders are the sleeves. There are many ways to form the interface between the sleeves and the bodice of the jacket. The way that has become common has a name: the roped sleevehead. It provides a definite termination of the shoulders in the form of a swelling, called roping. The roping also makes it possible to keep the upper sleeves smooth. A multi-part sickle shaped canvas and wadding composite provides structure for the roping—it’s a complex affair. In Naples in the 1930s, a prominent tailor in Naples, Vincenzo Attolini, shifted his style. Abandoning hundreds of years of convention, he made jackets without roping. That style of shoulder is called the shirtsleeve shoulder, spalla camicia. It now co-exists with and is an alternative to the roped sleevehead.

Let’s now turn our attention to the collar. No part of the jacket is more three-dimensional. The degree of shaping is brought to the limits of what the materials allow. The result is a collar that elegantly hugs your neck. A triumph considering it started out as flat pieces of cloth.

South of the shoulder is the chest. It is convex. Responsible for the convexity is primarily the front dart: by cutting out a pie-shaped slice of cloth and butting the edges together, it becomes conical.

The convexity of the chest transitions to the concavity of the waist. Only to flare out again at the hips. This subtle hourglass shape of the bodice is a time-tested way to create a comely silhouette.

The sleeves of a jacket must have been an object of fervour from inventive tailors over the centuries. The objective was: How to clothe the arms in the most optimal way aesthetically, functionally, and economically. The solution that won widespread adoption is astonishingly simple yet sublimely sophisticated.

Just like the two-part sleeve, the back of the jacket is also two-part. Having a seam running down the center back allows a degree of shaping—i.e. turning flat individual pieces of cloth into three dimensional composites—not possible with a single piece of cloth.