jester
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- Sep 28, 2004
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A while ago I had a measuring for my first Chan suit. I reported on it as part of this thread: Recent WWChan visit in NYC. At the time I described myself as being disappointed; I felt that Patrick really didn't understand what I was asking for and I was sufficiently concerned that I asked to have a fitting of the unfinished suit. While there were still some issues that needed to be addressed then, it went rather better, and I felt reasonably confident that the final suit would be good. The suit arrived several days ago, and I'm sorry to have to say that I am quite disappointed in the final product. Here are front and back photos:
Please excuse my wearing a polo shirt, but it does highlight, without the distraction of cuffs, the fact that that the left sleeve is notably shorter than the right, despite attention having been paid to this in the fitting. Also, the suit was unpressed in the photo, so some wrinkles and bulges should not be the object of criticism. When I went for the original measurement, I was wearing a Savile Row suit that I wanted to use as a general model; it has natural shoulders and a rather supressed waist, both features that I wanted to have in this too. Didn't make it through so well. A concern in the original measuring and the fitting was Patrick's encouraging me to get a much higher button stance than I wanted; in this suit, the middle button is about two inches higher than my navel, leading to the shortened and wide-looking lapels I specifically didn't want. There were other issues as well. The height between the right coat pocket and its ticket pocket is too great. Though it's not visible in the picture, the breast pocket is quite small (in width), so that a pocket square would have to be folded bulgingly to fit into it. And so forth. I will ask for these to be addressed, which will of course take yet another three months until the next Chan visit; I'm not that confident that I'll still get what I want at the end. When I ordered this suit, I was also expecting one from Hemrajani. Though it was also not perfect--Darren had some, er, direct comments when he saw it at the Sartorial Excellence meeting--it is on the whole very good, and as reported originally, I always had the sense that Joe understood what I was asking for. I think in the future I will get another suit from him. I'm interested in others' feedback on this--perhaps everyone thinks this looks just like an Kilgour suit and I'm just being crazy.