Buying menswear on AliExpress? You're kidding, right?

[DavidWatts69]

in what way, may I ask?
And by odd stuff, do you mean stuff I find on AliExpress?

Your inspiration pics are basically what I'm aiming for, with no real success mind you

 

[yorkshire pud]

I had a quick read of your post on the introduce yourself thread.

1. You have a car and a place to live but currently unemployed?

2. You are clearly capable of stringing a few sentences together?

3. You have an burgeoning interest in Tailoring/Culture/Art/blogging?

4. Your struggling to find affordable stuff that fits?

Why not start applying for tailoring apprenticeships? learn a trade, blog in your spare time and make your own clothing to fit your "eccentric" style.

Turning your hobby into a vocation is generally a pretty good way to live, if you love what you do for a living it's not really like work 😉

 

[DougDevious]

My custom suit from AliExpress just arrived! The color is much brighter than what I was hoping for, and the jacket and vest are a bit bigger than they should be, but for a 270NZD dollar price tag, where absolutely no other custom options exist in that price range, and given how out-of-their-way they went with details like the pockets and buttoning and the quarters, this is about as good as I could expect. The pants especially fit amazingly and the fabric is comfy. According to the seller, it's 100% cotton, and it definitely feels about right too. What do you guys think?

 

[DavidWatts69]

My custom suit from AliExpress just arrived! The color is much brighter than what I was hoping for, and the jacket and vest are a bit bigger than they should be, but for a 270NZD dollar price tag, where absolutely no other custom options exist in that price range, and given how out-of-their-way they went with details like the pockets and buttoning and the quarters, this is about as good as I could expect. The pants especially fit amazingly and the fabric is comfy. According to the seller, it's 100% cotton, and it definitely feels about right too. What do you guys think?
View attachment 1815093 View attachment 1815094

Have fun wearing that

 

[An Acute Style]

My custom suit from AliExpress just arrived! The color is much brighter than what I was hoping for, and the jacket and vest are a bit bigger than they should be, but for a 270NZD dollar price tag, where absolutely no other custom options exist in that price range, and given how out-of-their-way they went with details like the pockets and buttoning and the quarters, this is about as good as I could expect. The pants especially fit amazingly and the fabric is comfy. According to the seller, it's 100% cotton, and it definitely feels about right too. What do you guys think?
View attachment 1815093 View attachment 1815094

Fit is decent. It looks like a fun suit. It should fit well in your aesthetic. Did you request all these details? Four button, flare leg, slim pant, square quarters, etc. The notch on the lapels is huge. Odd (i.e. high) pocket placement on the vest. Can you share the link to the original listing for this particular suit?

 

[DougDevious]

Fit is decent. It looks like a fun suit. It should fit well in your aesthetic. Did you request all these details? Four button, flare leg, slim pant, square quarters, etc. The notch on the lapels is huge. Odd (i.e. high) pocket placement on the vest. Can you share the link to the original listing for this particular suit?

The fit isn't that great to be honest, but I attribute that to me just having a small frame that they likely didn't have a preexisting pattern for. The armholes, as is unfortunately common with most lower-priced suits, are quite deeply cut. I did request all of those details you asked about, through the "contact seller" button, through which I carefully explained my requests to the seller, which they then compiled into an image that they presumably handed off to whatever workshop/factory they make these in. I also asked for a different lining, and I was able to specify which one based off a photo they sent of the available fabric swatches.

Also, according to the inside-pocket label, it's not 100% cotton but 70% wool and the rest synthetic, which is odd, seeing as it's a pretty natural-feeling corduroy. I wonder if that's maybe a manufacture error or something, or if it really is some weird cord-woven wool blend.

Here's the original listing:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003662219995.html

 

[An Acute Style]

The fit isn't that great to be honest, but I attribute that to me just having a small frame that they likely didn't have a preexisting pattern for. The armholes, as is unfortunately common with most lower-priced suits, are quite deeply cut. I did request all of those details you asked about, through the "contact seller" button, through which I carefully explained my requests to the seller, which they then compiled into an image that they presumably handed off to whatever workshop/factory they make these in. I also asked for a different lining, and I was able to specify which one based off a photo they sent of the available fabric swatches.

Also, according to the inside-pocket label, it's not 100% cotton but 70% wool and the rest synthetic, which is odd, seeing as it's a pretty natural-feeling corduroy. I wonder if that's maybe a manufacture error or something, or if it really is some weird cord-woven wool blend.

Here's the original listing:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003662219995.html

The first MTM or bespoke suit is never perfect. It takes time to work out kinks. Now that you have a garment in hand you can make notes about what you want to change on the next one. Hopefully, they will be able to make improvements. Given there are no reviews, it’s hard to know if that is a reasonable expectation.

Depending on the alterations, you may want to have them done locally. The vest can definitely be taken in. It’ll be harder to fix the armholes on the jacket.

Anyway, thanks for the update and good luck going forward.

 

[Xenio]

Hello,

To get back on the original topic, I do think that we could find good aliexpress vendors for clothes.
My experience with aliexpress is mainly with electronics and tools, and there I learned that there are chinese products that are better than a LOT of other products. For example I bought a high end soldering iron that has perfect finishes, is super well made, and as a soldering iron is super super great.
But I didn't buy something uber cheap, it's a 150eur iron. Same for my microscope, 350eur and it's super great, no complaints and buying in EU I wouldn't have this much quality even for 100-200eur more.

So this lead me to believe there ARE good clothes vendors, because there are no reason there is none, chinese population is big and while in the west we are used to seeing the "bad and cheap" stuff, they do have good quality stuff but we always look at those 10 times cheaper-than-west-stuff, which WILL be obviously worse.
This doesn't forcefully mean it exist, I just don't see right now why it wouldn't. The problem is aliexpress is kind of annoying to search stuff on lmao.

For example a 100-150eur MTO dress shirt on aliexpress, is it forcefully worse than a suitsupply one which is also made in china anyway ? Well I don't know the answer and I am interested. But if suitsupply can have chinese people making okayish stuff at okayish prices (don't wanna argue wether or not if SS is good, that's just an example), why couldn't the people making them or something similar just spin up an aliexpress shop ?

I am kind of in the same situation as OP, even if I don't have any problems with money, it's still a lot to have to pay 200eur for a custom made pant for every pant. But the biggest problem is not having a lot of choice for custom made jeans, chinos etc. And more choice is always better right ?


(honestly I'm just interested in the subject after buying a troll arch linux t-shirt on aliexpress for like 7eur and thought "wow that's better quality or at least the same than most RTW I know in my city", but that's just a random t-shirt and those RTW t-shirts in my city aren't known for being any good anyway)

 

[DougDevious]

Hello,

To get back on the original topic, I do think that we could find good aliexpress vendors for clothes.
My experience with aliexpress is mainly with electronics and tools, and there I learned that there are chinese products that are better than a LOT of other products. For example I bought a high end soldering iron that has perfect finishes, is super well made, and as a soldering iron is super super great.
But I didn't buy something uber cheap, it's a 150eur iron. Same for my microscope, 350eur and it's super great, no complaints and buying in EU I wouldn't have this much quality even for 100-200eur more.

So this lead me to believe there ARE good clothes vendors, because there are no reason there is none, chinese population is big and while in the west we are used to seeing the "bad and cheap" stuff, they do have good quality stuff but we always look at those 10 times cheaper-than-west-stuff, which WILL be obviously worse.
This doesn't forcefully mean it exist, I just don't see right now why it wouldn't. The problem is aliexpress is kind of annoying to search stuff on lmao.

For example a 100-150eur MTO dress shirt on aliexpress, is it forcefully worse than a suitsupply one which is also made in china anyway ? Well I don't know the answer and I am interested. But if suitsupply can have chinese people making okayish stuff at okayish prices (don't wanna argue wether or not if SS is good, that's just an example), why couldn't the people making them or something similar just spin up an aliexpress shop ?

I am kind of in the same situation as OP, even if I don't have any problems with money, it's still a lot to have to pay 200eur for a custom made pant for every pant. But the biggest problem is not having a lot of choice for custom made jeans, chinos etc. And more choice is always better right ?


(honestly I'm just interested in the subject after buying a troll arch linux t-shirt on aliexpress for like 7eur and thought "wow that's better quality or at least the same than most RTW I know in my city", but that's just a random t-shirt and those RTW t-shirts in my city aren't known for being any good anyway)

There are some options for custom-made shirts on AliExpress and they seem fairly standard in terms of options, but another option that I've actually heard some recommendations for is nattyshirts.com, which Ethan Wong talked about in his blog post about Spear Collar Shirts.

I don't have much need for custom shirts as I'm not really a stickler for stuff like collar shape or how it fits on me (anything I get made to fit at this stage of life is bound to be grown out of if I ever manage to reach a healthy weight), I suppose if I want something specific like a charcoal chambray shirt or winchester or literally anything with a tab collar I might try it, but something I consider far more often is buying stuff from AliExpress that I can use to do that stuff myself, DIY.

And that I suppose is another dimension to this whole thing. It's not easy to vouch for AliExpress as a place to buy clothes whole-made, but with a sewing machine and some know-how you can do plenty with what AliExpress offers in terms of materials to make, acessorize, and fix your clothes.
Want to replace the buttons on a garment you own? AliExpress has buttons galore, even horn and mother of pearl ones.
Want to make your own fabric-covered buttons? Theres a kit for that.
Want to make a spear collar shirt? Just buy two of any 100% cotton shirt you can find + some iron-on interfacing and use one shirt as fabric for the collar of the other. If it's a Winchester, even better, just grab any white shirt from a thrift store.
Buy some second-hand suspenders and the elastic at the back is too stretched? Either just buy the elastic itself, or buy a cheap pair of similar suspenders and use that to replace anything you need.
Colored Dress shoe laces, leather paint, snap buttons, hook-and-loop fasteners, hemming tape, suede protector spray, electric shoe shiners, the list goes on really.

And a lot of that stuff can also be used to take the tacky whole-made stuff AliExpress offers and upgrade it, for example there's lots of printed silk suspenders on Aliexpress with somewhat appealing patterns, but they're all clip-ons. No matter though, since there's also plenty of leather tab suspenders that you can use to swap those clips out.
As has always been the case, resourceful craftwork is a friend of frugality.

 

[DougDevious]

There are some options for custom-made shirts on AliExpress and they seem fairly standard in terms of options, but another option that I've actually heard some recommendations for is nattyshirts.com, which Ethan Wong talked about in his blog post about Spear Collar Shirts.

I don't have much need for custom shirts as I'm not really a stickler for stuff like collar shape or how it fits on me (anything I get made to fit at this stage of life is bound to be grown out of if I ever manage to reach a healthy weight), I suppose if I want something specific like a charcoal chambray shirt or winchester or literally anything with a tab collar I might try it, but something I consider far more often is buying stuff from AliExpress that I can use to do that stuff myself, DIY.

And that I suppose is another dimension to this whole thing. It's not easy to vouch for AliExpress as a place to buy clothes whole-made, but with a sewing machine and some know-how you can do plenty with what AliExpress offers in terms of materials to make, acessorize, and fix your clothes.
Want to replace the buttons on a garment you own? AliExpress has buttons galore, even horn and mother of pearl ones.
Want to make your own fabric-covered buttons? Theres a kit for that.
Want to make a spear collar shirt? Just buy two of any 100% cotton shirt you can find + some iron-on interfacing and use one shirt as fabric for the collar of the other. If it's a Winchester, even better, just grab any white shirt from a thrift store.

I just figured out another life-hack of this nature:

Over on the "Mod to Suedehead" thread, @Inkss posted this pic:

where he had put a metal eyelet into one of his shirts to make it into a pinhole collar shirt, which by any rate is probably easier than making a careful hole in the fabric and then darning the edges with a needle and thread.
Took me all of 30 seconds to figure out how that's done:

Similar tools exist for snap buttons, bigger eyelets, and fabric-covered buttons like I mentioned earlier.

 

[DougDevious]

Also coming back to this thread, and looking through my profile to find it again, good grief I was a tasteless, insolent little twerp back when I made this thread in 2022. I'm actually embarrassed, I ought to be grateful that anyone had the patience to tolerate let alone indulge me with the way I spoke and branded myself. Even my profile and "about me" page was vulgar in a way that doesn't belong on this forum.

Genuine apologies. I'm glad people were willing to be straight with me about it, and even read between the lines to have any sympathy for my situation. Thank you for that.
I hope to god leaving my profile in that state for as long as I didn't cause anyone to silently think worse of me. Must have been what those people were accusing me of being a troll over.

 

[DavidWatts69]

I don't know mate I kinda dig what you were going for. I like weirdos

 

[DougDevious]

I don't know mate I kinda dig what you were going for. I like weirdos

Ehh, theres a time and a place. I'm definitely not going back on my sensibilities where tailoring is concerned, though I might want to put more effort towards proving I could dress "normally" if I wanted to, that there is substance to the style. Sure, there's certainly topics and people who deserve the full brunt of my snark and crudeness, but I don't want that to be the image I paint of myself towards the people who I would be better served talking to in a more mature and adult manner, especially if I want to be treated as a mature adult myself.

Do check out the theme song in my signature though! Its got that bombastic edgelord energy in musical form. Thats the play I think, directing it towards more artistic pursuits that aren't tailoring, so as to justify my style as the attire of an artist of sorts, so when people ask "who are you and what do you do to be dressing like that?" I have an answer. It becomes a more flattering communication of who I am than mere vacuous attention seeking. (Not to speak too ill of vacuous attention seeking though, I do love a bit of that. )
Back on topic:

Thinking of this fabric being the next suit I get made, so I made this quick mspaint drawing of all the shirt and tie combos I could pair with it.

this after it probably.

I'm gonna go for a more normal style this time, no more than 3 buttons, rounded quarters, no flares.

Also, since I'm particularly fond of midcentury batwing clip-on bowties, I figured it would be more economical to make them, just by either getting pre-tied bowties off aliexpress and slimming them down, or getting ties, cutting them apart, and sewing them into pre-tied clip-ons, since they have the exact clip they use for those old clip-ons:

made this chart as a wishlist for all the different designs I wanna have on a bow tie, many of them being the kind I've only ever seen on midcentury clip-ons, such as the symmetrical embellishments and pleats.


I think it would also be good if I tried to build a more generalized wardrobe for everyday casual wear, so then I can put in all my points and hone my favourite outfit ideas down to every detail, instead of trying to compromise and work those outfits out into part of my wider wardrobe plan.

Most of all though, before anything else, right now I just want to do what I can to get out of the "awkward phase" where half my shirts sit dormant in my closet unwearably untailored, two-thirds of my cheaply acquired tie collection go unused for lack of anything to pair with them, and I'm stuck just using what little can go with the meager amount of actual jackets, shoes, and shirts I've badly rationed out my pocket money to. (To be fair, its far easier to not mess up buying shirts on eBay than jackets and pants for the sheer amount that can go wrong with buying a jacket or pants that are supposedly in your size).

 

[norsefanboi]

Ehh, theres a time and a place. I'm definitely not going back on my sensibilities where tailoring is concerned, though I might want to put more effort towards proving I could dress "normally" if I wanted to, that there is substance to the style. Sure, there's certainly topics and people who deserve the full brunt of my snark and crudeness, but I don't want that to be the image I paint of myself towards the people who I would be better served talking to in a more mature and adult manner, especially if I want to be treated as a mature adult myself.

Do check out the theme song in my signature though! Its got that bombastic edgelord energy in musical form. Thats the play I think, directing it towards more artistic pursuits that aren't tailoring, so as to justify my style as the attire of an artist of sorts, so when people ask "who are you and what do you do to be dressing like that?" I have an answer. It becomes a more flattering communication of who I am than mere vacuous attention seeking. (Not to speak too ill of vacuous attention seeking though, I do love a bit of that. )
Back on topic:
View attachment 2171943 View attachment 2171945
Thinking of this fabric being the next suit I get made, so I made this quick mspaint drawing of all the shirt and tie combos I could pair with it.
View attachment 2171947
this after it probably.

I'm gonna go for a more normal style this time, no more than 3 buttons, rounded quarters, no flares.

Also, since I'm particularly fond of midcentury batwing clip-on bowties, I figured it would be more economical to make them, just by either getting pre-tied bowties off aliexpress and slimming them down, or getting ties, cutting them apart, and sewing them into pre-tied clip-ons, since they have the exact clip they use for those old clip-ons:

made this chart as a wishlist for all the different designs I wanna have on a bow tie, many of them being the kind I've only ever seen on midcentury clip-ons, such as the symmetrical embellishments and pleats.


I think it would also be good if I tried to build a more generalized wardrobe for everyday casual wear, so then I can put in all my points and hone my favourite outfit ideas down to every detail, instead of trying to compromise and work those outfits out into part of my wider wardrobe plan.

Most of all though, before anything else, right now I just want to do what I can to get out of the "awkward phase" where half my shirts sit dormant in my closet unwearably untailored, two-thirds of my cheaply acquired tie collection go unused for lack of anything to pair with them, and I'm stuck just using what little can go with the meager amount of actual jackets, shoes, and shirts I've badly rationed out my pocket money to. (To be fair, its far easier to not mess up buying shirts on eBay than jackets and pants for the sheer amount that can go wrong with buying a jacket or pants that are supposedly in your size).

hey dude just randomly came across this thread. i took notice because you said you are from nz and i am too.
Thanks for the latest update too.
Also, since we are in the same country, I have a couple of zegna suit jackets that are now too small for me that i could pass on if you are interested. i think they could be fairly interesting to you, let me know if you are keen!

 

[DougDevious]

hey dude just randomly came across this thread. i took notice because you said you are from nz and i am too.
Thanks for the latest update too.
Also, since we are in the same country, I have a couple of zegna suit jackets that are now too small for me that i could pass on if you are interested. i think they could be fairly interesting to you, let me know if you are keen!

Sounds good, I'll open a DM