Cognacad
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2009
- Messages
- 520
- Reaction score
- 4
Hello everyone. As someone who is new to the field of menswear and formalwear, I find myself googling brands every 3 minutes to see where they stand with respect to quality, reputation, price, etc. Often however google doesn't work out and reviews are all over the place or even completely lacking. What I would like to do is start a working list of "Suit Brand Hierarchy". Basically, users of this forum would help create a somewhat hierarchal list of the worlds best suit brands. People here seem to be very knowledgeable, and I think could create a very helpful point of reference for those who are unfamiliar with a brand or suits in general. It will always be growing and being modified and may start some good discussion. Here is how it works: Once a day one user can EITHER: 1. Add a suit brand to a category OR 2. Move one suit brand UP "OR" DOWN one category (i.e. can't go from "Bad" to "Excellent" in one go) Maybe this won't work, if it doesn't then it will just slowly drop and disappear, but hopefully it can be helpful and hasn't been done here before. For starters I suggest putting in popular brands that people are familiar with so that hopefully we can cover 95% of the suit market while avoiding brands that only make 15 suits per day. The list should hold into account price/value. So a suit that is 500$ but that is almost as good (or as good) as suits that usually sell for 1500$ should probably be ranked higher than some of the suits that go for 1500$. If you want to add/modify the list then you copy paste the most current list (e.g. first modification would copy paste mine) and BOLD your change/addition.) Here is the first of many drafts: ____________________________________________________________ Excellent [*****] (i.e. Suits made this well are far and few between, if money is no object your closet would be full of these. If money is a factor then these suits could sell for much, much more. This category should be kept to only a few items) - - - - - Very Good [****] (i.e. Few suits match the quality of the ones in this category or prices could be raised significantly and would still be good value). - - - - - Good [***] (i.e. Quality is superior to most suits or the value of these suits is above average). - Canali - - - - Satisfactory [**] (i.e. The "Average" Brands. Quality is acceptable, and the price matches it). - - - - - Mediocre[*] (i.e. Suits that should usually be avoided. Quality leaves much to be desired or prices are usually higher than they should be for such a suit). - - - - - Bad [ ](i.e. Don't buy. Quality is overall bad, or quality is nowhere near the price asked for). - - - - - _______________________________________________________ The dashes are only there so it looks better, the categories are not limited to 5 items ITEMS WITHIN EACH CATEGORY ARE "EQUAL" (i.e. last of the "Good" list is just as good as the one at the top) Go nuts! Notes: If someone "messes up" i.e. adds too much stuff at once or something, ignore it and go to the previous one. Reason I am doing this just for suits is because some brands might make great suits but relatively mediocre shirts, so if someone has the initiative to make such a list for shoes, or shirts, that would be great. I just made this format up on the fly, if it is bad, then we can modify it very easily We shouldn't fight over the semantics of the words "Good" vs. "Very Good" but more try to create a functional hierarchy. Please don't be a list troll and put a brand clearly in the wrong category. Although in time it would fix it out, it is a waste of everyones efforts. If there is a very big difference between one Brand's "A" Label and "B" Label then two separate items should be created, but this should be done as infrequently as possible to keep the list succinct and should only include items that are very noticeably different from each other. I know people have tried to make their own lists in the past on blogs and such, but they are often very biased, incomplete and lack a "wiki" feel to it. Items should not usually be removed unless they are inappropriate and people agree to it. As an example there is like 6 different Zegna items even though there is just 6-x very different Zegna lines. To make posts shorter it might be a good idea to remove the quality describer e.g. (i.e. The "Average" Brands. Quality is acceptable, and the price matches it). when modifying the list, but we will see.
