A Tailor in India

do a search, there are several threads on this.

short answer - kachins in mumbai, vaish in delhi, and there's one in chennai.

In Mumbai, you can also check out Burlington for suits and Maharaja's for shirts.
Both are inside the Taj Mahal hotel (the famous one, next to the Gateway of India - just step inside and ask an employee).
Both are not cheap (for India), but offer good quality.
Shirts at Maharaja's are between 1200 and 1600 rupies, a suit at Burlingtons about 15000 rupies.

Kachin's has a very good reputation, but I havent tried them myself, since Burlingtons work faster ( and Maharajas can make shirts overnight), and the location is more convenient.

Raymond's stores can be found in all larger Indian cities. Indians consider them overpriced, but they offer decent quality (just be careful with the fabrics, their cheaper ones are a polyester blend...). Not the greatest, but if you don't have a specific recommendations, you can't go wrong with them.


There are lots of Indian tailors that are way cheaper, but unless you have lots of time and are familiar with the area, there's no way to find the best offer, so I'd go with someone well-known; it'll still be cheap by western standards.

I've used Vaish in Delhi. They make a fully canvassed coat and offer a selection of good English and Italian fabrics. They are the only tailor worth using in Delhi. You need at least a week or so, though, to be measured and later have a fitting. I think they prefer about two weeks and at least two fittings.

Glo,

I just moved from Mumbai and had quite a few things made at Kachins. I can confirm that they DO only do fused now and if you are looking for canvassed you will have a ridiculously hard time finding it in Mumbai (at least not at the price you would expect).

That being said, I love the suits that I got at Kachin's. The fit is perfect and they just look much better than the suit I had made in NYC from Mr. Ned's at quadruple the price (although Mr. Ned's was canvassed). If you are OK with fused, go ahead and take the plunge. For $200 US (including material) it is a damn good suit. If you want something better, I'd suggest bringing some material with you and just getting it made there - they'll do it for $100US. The quality seems to be fine - I wear a suit to work everyday (I work on the executive floor of a Multinational financial organization) and have had these now for about 6 months and there is no sign of anything going wrong. Each suit has had approx 10-15 wears.

My wife also had about 8 pencil skirts made there and while it took them a few tries to get those down, they ultimately were able to replicate some of her favorites and even improve on the fit. In addition to the suits, I had a few linen pants made and will tell you that they are an absolute joy to wear - I've practically taken to wearing these exclusively on my off days as they look and fit fabulously and are VERY comfortable.

One thing to note though, you need to be very firm with what you want - down to the tiniest detail. They'll do a good job, but you need to be very specific and very firm.

If you are thinking about visiting them, drop me a note and I'll give you more details. I built up a pretty good relationship with them so if you go, tell them I referred you and they'll hook you up.

Mind

I might be the only user here who had a bad experience with Kachins (wools that feel like polyester, stitching giving way in various places after a few months of mild wear, bad pilling, etc.), so I'll shut up.

Hey RJ,

To be fair, I read your opinion before I moved to Mumbai and it was driving factor in me bringing my own material to India (Dormeuil, H&S, and an unbranded wool/cashmere blend). I also found some good linen while I was over there for the pants. Based on this, I can't comment too much on the fabrics, pilling, etc. but the construction and fit I am all happy with.

FWIW, I also brought my own bemberg and horn buttons. I'm happy with what I got, based on bringing my own materials.

Somehow, I thought this thread would be about the poster "a tailor" taking a trip to India.

I thought it would be about a mystery in India, like the ones in Hong Kong.

Hey, it was just one data point. Other folks have weighed in.

Totally necro-threading here, but it looks like there are two different Kachins in Mumbai, both doing bespoke: www.kachins.com www.kachinsclothing.com Any specific experience with these two and how they might compare? The first one looks substantially higher-end (advertises Loro Piana fabric on the site, for example), while the other looks a little more basic. Maybe that explains the diverging opinions here.

Can anyone shed light on rdaws question? I'm in Mumbai right now researching tailors and while I keep seeing references to Kachin, there are two Kachins. One seems to have only one location and the other has at least two. Is everyone in this thread referring to the one "original" kachin's founded in 1973 (taken from their website)?