What’s a $4,000 Suit Worth?

Maximus Mark · Sep 5, 2012

Great article. Once you go bespoke, you can't go back.

I prefer to support a local bespoke tailor as well (Trend custom), though my suits are more in the $2K range as he has a staff of junior tailors and seamstresses for production.
Psychologically at the $4K+ mark you'd expect superlative amounts of handiwork and construction. This is where I have a hard time justifying the cost, since this is rarely the case.

jerrybrowne · Sep 5, 2012

MikeDT said:
Because he's too expensive and Ercole is taking all his business?
Customer, Make me a suit.
Tailor A, That will be $4000 please.
Customer, HOW MUCH!!!?..bye bye.
Customer, Make me a suit.
Tailor B, That will be $2000 please.
Customer, Sounds reasonable, when will it be ready?

Heh. I like the play-by-play. Nice.

David Reeves · Sep 5, 2012

unbelragazzo said:
The article says he basically hires a salesman to bring him customers. But obviously he has to pay this salesman. The problem in this case is not that he's doing everything himself, but that he's paying someone to do this part, which seems to be a high-margin aspect of the business, whereas the tailor is doing the low-margin part.

Have a go at selling some 4k suits on your own, without a brand behind you or a store, see how long it takes you in man hours just to sell one.

unbelragazzo · Sep 5, 2012

David Reeves said:
Have a go at selling some 4k suits on your own, without a brand behind you or a store, see how long it takes you in man hours just to sell one.

I'm just talking about the impression the article gives. I have no idea. But I could see how once you've got a built in customer base that you've worked hard to acquire, selling the suits could have reasonable marginal cost, whereas there aren't such cost savings in the making of the suit.

ChiliPalmer · Sep 5, 2012

His company is called Arcangelo Sartorial.

There is no website. He has a profile on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-frew/48/115/182) and is associated with some Custom Tailoring trade groups, but otherwise the man is out of sight, out of mind.

Yet he is as busy as he can be.

People who are in the market for bespoke suits and the like know where to find them. Goods such as these are bought, not sold.

That makes all the difference in the world.

jeff13007 · Sep 5, 2012

A Y said:
Any thoughts on a factory-produced, custom-tailored suit? Have the pattern by drawn and cut for your body, and fit by the cutter at the end, but do the tailoring using mass production techniques, perhaps using excess capacity or time in a factory. I know certain tailoring traditions depend on having tailors trained a certain way in order to construct a suit from their patterns correctly. But if a custom tailor knows a factory's production line, and can customize his pattern-making to that line while giving you a custom fitting, that would seem like a more scalable way to do things, and it may even be cheaper.
I remember a long time ago, some people had their EG custom lasts done on the standard EG production line. It won't have all the custom bells and whistles, but it seemed like the fit was very close to the custom shoe.

Im not sure if this is relevant but i thnk this is done to some extent with some SR firms in that two cutters from two different firms might be using the same tailor to put their respective suits together. I mean i can sort of see this working if lets say you have a factory that produces on the level of Brioni/Oxxford and you have cutters cutting patterns and just sending over the pieces to have them assembled at the factory. But then again to train that about of workers to that level is going to be pretty hard. If I'm not mistaken Brioni has their own school for that where students learn for 4 years before putting needle to cloth

chogall · Sep 6, 2012

jeff13007 said:
Im not sure if this is relevant but i thnk this is done to some extent with some SR firms in that two cutters from two different firms might be using the same tailor to put their respective suits together. I mean i can sort of see this working if lets say you have a factory that produces on the level of Brioni/Oxxford and you have cutters cutting patterns and just sending over the pieces to have them assembled at the factory. But then again to train that about of workers to that level is going to be pretty hard. If I'm not mistaken Brioni has their own school for that where students learn for 4 years before putting needle to cloth

I thought SR and North Hampton are both big circle jerk group with different firms use the same outworkers for some of the more standardized work...

add911_11 · Sep 6, 2012

chogall said:
I thought SR and North Hampton are both big circle jerk group with different firms use the same outworkers for some of the more standardized work...

For the suit guys, yes, but not so sure about the shoe guys.

SR may only survive with freelance workers, had they need to pay insurance and pension, they might as well learn Chinese and work in Mainland, at least there are many people who will buy their heritage.

One way to help, craftsmen should try to do something that attracts more 'young' customer, from private school kids to young professional, I knew a lot of them spend as money as SFer buying junk from D&G and Armani.

Elegantly Wasted · Sep 6, 2012

add911_11 said:
One way to help, craftsmen should try to do something that attracts more 'young' customer, from private school kids to young professional, I knew a lot of them spend as money as SFer buying junk from D&G and Armani.

Would those craftsmen provide a look/style similar to D&G and Armani? I bet such youngsters don't even want to hear the terms "conservative british" or "old neapolitan".

add911_11 · Sep 6, 2012

Elegantly Wasted said:
Would those craftsmen provide a look/style similar to D&G and Armani? I bet such youngsters don't even want to hear the terms "conservative british" or "old neapolitan".

Yes, it can be. Tailor can easily follow the GQ trend, with bespoke qualities.

In fact, the fit that most SFers love are very modern, not even slightly traditional.

MikeDT · Sep 6, 2012

jerrybrowne said:
Heh. I like the play-by-play. Nice.

I was writing couple of small role plays for students to act out this morning

............
Tailor A, That will be $4000 please.
Customer, HOW MUCH!!!?..bye bye.
Tailor A, But..but..but..hold on sir!.....
(Tailor A then tries to convince the thrifty customer why he should spend $4k on a suit and not $2k).

jeff13007 · Sep 6, 2012

chogall said:
I thought SR and North Hampton are both big circle jerk group with different firms use the same outworkers for some of the more standardized work...

Thats essentially what i said but you put it more errrr "eloquently" lol

in stitches · Sep 6, 2012

to answer the OPs question technically, btw, on B&S, about $269, with free shipping of course.

A Y · Sep 6, 2012

jeff13007 said:
Im not sure if this is relevant but i thnk this is done to some extent with some SR firms in that two cutters from two different firms might be using the same tailor to put their respective suits together. I mean i can sort of see this working if lets say you have a factory that produces on the level of Brioni/Oxxford and you have cutters cutting patterns and just sending over the pieces to have them assembled at the factory. But then again to train that about of workers to that level is going to be pretty hard. If I'm not mistaken Brioni has their own school for that where students learn for 4 years before putting needle to cloth

Yeah, the SR system of using outworkers (and the Italians do this as well) is still within the bespoke tradition of having lots of handwork. I was thinking more of a factory like Suit Supply or Indochino where machines do most of the work. I wonder how much latitude there is in their machines to accomodate a custom pattern.

NPR today had an infographic as a follow-up to the article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012...een-a-99-suit-and-a-5-000-suit-in-one-graphic

It's not entirely accurate, because the lines between high-end MTM, RTW, and custom is pretty blurry with respect to construction techniques and material.

jeff13007 · Sep 6, 2012

A Y said:
Yeah, the SR system of using outworkers (and the Italians do this as well) is still within the bespoke tradition of having lots of handwork. I was thinking more of a factory like Suit Supply or Indochino where machines do most of the work. I wonder how much latitude there is in their machines to accomodate a custom pattern.
NPR today had an infographic as a follow-up to the article:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012...een-a-99-suit-and-a-5-000-suit-in-one-graphic
It's not entirely accurate, because the lines between high-end MTM, RTW, and custom is pretty blurry with respect to construction techniques and material.

Ahh i see. Well theoretically if there are still people manning the machines I'm sure there could be some latitude. If I'm understanding your concept right what you would be essentially be looking at is having a cutter take measurements then sending it to a place like in this video. (the first 3 mins of the video shows mass cutting of fabrics so thats what you are replacing)

i don't really see why you couldn't do it, maybe they could suit supply or indochino could section of a part of their factory specifically for this type of work? Just like how zegna sections off parts of theirs for Tom Ford, Gucci, Dunhill etc?

What’s a $4,000 Suit Worth?

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