Recent Purchases - Page 485

I sent a PM, an eBay seller has a few, hopefully it's not the same person as I just sent a message to eBay seller, friend got them for $75, be willing to pay a markup but not to $300. Maybe C21?

Mind firing me a pm about the suits...

Surely goes without saying?

I like my Barba but I luuuurve my Finamore! If only I could find more in my size. Grrr.

i would think, but you never know peoples proclivities.

Anybody know how Barba/Borelli/Finamore compare to the likes of Hamilton/Cego/Luxire?

i dont know about hamilton or luxire, but i have heard that cego can pretty much do all the neapolitan touches. i saw pics of his shirts from gdl and they looked right up there. it also depends heavily on what fabric you chose.

This really isn't an apples-to-apples comparison in the least...

so says the, Cyber Eliitist.

You know my rep. BTW, congrats on the Hall Monitor cred.

Seriously though, we're talking about three RTW makers that distinguish themselves as luxury brands by hand-finishing, detailing and luxury fabrics. Then you have three brands that make bespoke/MTM shirts where the sky is the limit on what features, level of detail and grade of fabric you'd like to use. Can you have Carl make you a shirt that rivals Barba in terms of finishing, fabrics and detailing? Sure. But it's a bespoke shirt, it's supposed to be whatever you want it to be.

Then, within that spectrum, there's a whole other level of quality and consistency between the different makers. It's just not really a question that can be answered objectively...

Sure, but the comparisson of any two shirts will depend upon the fabric and that comparison should be entirely valid.

Are they both shirts? Is it possible to compare the construction, fabrics, and finishing on them? I started buying Hamilton over the last year and can certainly compare them to my other shirts which are not Hamilton. I don't see how this statement makes any sense, other than that in constructing bespoke/mtm shirts you have more options in details and there is a high likelihood that it will fit better. Beyond that, the rest of the details remain entirely comparable.

The bold part kinda answers your own question, does it not? Plus, you need to clarify what your measure of "better" is. Is it stitches per inch? Is it hand finishing? Is it quality control? Is it variety? "Better" for me comes down to fit, so all the bells and whistles of a fancy "finished by hand right before the dying breath of a Nun in Northern Italy" shirt don't really mean much to me. I'm much more worried about fabric and fit. However, you may be a details guy. To each his own. And that will invariably affect what someone's opinion of a brand is.

Custom shirts, while I really like them, are not magical things which suddenly stand a part from all others simply because they are customized. They are still shirts. I've seen several Hamilton shirts at this point, and there is a standard to which all of the shirts are constructed. Certainly you can do more, but trying to make that comparison is silly. You do have options, it's true, but none of this guarantees that the quality of product you get out of it will be better. They're still shirts, and you can still compare one shirt to another.

No, I think the rest of the statement after what you bolded makes what I'm asking pretty clear. Fit is pretty much the only thing about this process that stands to the side. The fact that for a custom shirt you choose which fabric you want the shirt to be made from rather than choosing from among shirts made from a fabric chosen by the brand is irrelevant to the quality of fabrics used by the different makers. For example, where I order Hamilton through also sells shirts by Kiton. Having seen these, I can say that the fabrics used by the Kiton shirts I saw certainly seemed nicer than the entry level fabrics available in the Hamilton books, however the Hamilton fabrics quickly rose to the same quality.

Alright, so let's break this down. Let's say, for arguments sake, you cast aside fit and the idea of bespoke/MTM detailing. Then let's say you have a Hamilton shirt and a Kiton shirt made from the exact same fabric, at the exact same price. Cool. Dead even.

So, from there, what is more important to you? Hamilton is made by machine, Kiton is made by hand. That's more or less the beginning and the end of it. Maybe you could argue quality control, but either maker would take back a defective shirt and replace it at that price point. And, really, you'd have a higher degree of feedback/input with Hamilton than you would with Kiton. I'd compare nice finishing details or stitches per inch, etc, but these are details you can request with bespoke, so they are already irrelevant. Is Kiton's "construction" better? Maybe, but Kiton is known for fabrics and finishing, not construction, and it's a shirt, not a suit: the "advantages" of construction would be minimal.

I'm still struggling with this concept. I've only seen/handled Hamilton shirts before. Never ordered one. But, you can make a carbon copy of a shirt (more or less) if you care to go to the pain of paying for it and waiting out the process. It's not as if there are only ten people in the world that can make a Kiton shirt.