Astor and Black Waistcoat Styling....

Not sure what you mean. If you mean leaving the bottom button undone on your vest/waistcoat then, yes. Vests and Jackets should never have the bottom button fasten, the exception for either being on double breasted versions. Otherwise, you're going to have to explain what you mean because I'm missing it. EDIT: Oh...do you mean where they're cut on the diagonal, rather than above it. Not sure if I've seen that before. It's probably done that way to keep people from being able to button the bottom button.

unless of course, you are skinny enough

An amendment then - "The bottom button is placed where it is impossible to fasten unless you pull the vest totally out of shape and look like a jackass."

AFAIK it's meant to look like that. And FWIW that is one of the very few RTW 3Ps I've seen with the waistband (or worse, belt) not showing at the hem of the vest. Kudos on that..

I used Astor and Black once for an order, and only ordered the highest end fabrics, etc. The suits came out beyond horrible, the craftsmanship was sub par at best, the only thing worse was their customer service.

I had to threaten with a law suit to get my deposit back on $8,000 of 100% crap from them.

In my opinion BEWARE!

I have had good success with Astor & Black. I did the extact opposite of the above, in that I took baby steps in the ordering process and did not go all in with their highest end fabric. I started with an order of shirts and then later ordered a suit. FWIW, I took the Astor & black suit and my Indochino suit to my tailor and he favored the Astor & Black for construction, fit, fabric and price to value. I just wish they had an online or direct purchase venue. My guess is that a very high percentage of the cost goes to the sales rep. I don't mind people making a good living, put when you know what you want and how you want it, why give alot away to get measured?

$8k

I've seen this many times before, it's pretty common.

That's pretty strange, none of my vests (5) have a button past that V. I guess I will keep buttoning all the way up then.