major suit alterations

[zims]

Gentlemen,

I would like to ask for advice regarding a potential alteration of one of my suits. I have a plain, black, single-breasted, three-button wool suit that I originally bought for my high school graduation several years ago. The jacket and trousers are fine in length; however, the fit of the suit is noticeably larger than I would like; larger than what is consistent with the slimmer and trimmer suits of today. I'm quite confident that the chest and sleeves of the jacket need to be reduced in width, and perhaps even the shoulders taken in. Similarly, the pants need to be reduced to a slimmer, less baggy fit.

My question is: considering what to me appear as major alterations to the suit, should I proceed with finding a tailor, or will it be more cost-effective to simply purchase a new suit altogether? This one's hardly been worn, so I'd definitely like to get more use out of it. If I do go ahead with alterations, are there any important things I need to be aware of?

Thank you kindly for your time.

Zims
Edmonton, Canada

 

[breakfasteatre]

First, read this thread and see if you still want to keep the suit: http://www.styleforum.net/showthread...ght=black+suit second, the alterations that you would like to have done would be considered serious reconstructive surgery that if the tailor had the skills to perform, would cost alot. Considering the suit is black and you wore it to your highschool graduation, im sure it wasnt too expensive so i dont think it would be worth it to attempt to get the alterations done.

 

[binge]

Leaving the color of the suit aside for a moment, I'd recommend considering letting it go.

I can empathize in that I lost enough weight to do down from a 44R to a 42R suit size this past year and some of my clothes that I had worn and loved simply no longer fit. Although I tried to salvage some of them by having pants taken in and shirts slimmed, almost all of it simply just didn't fit anymore and tailoring it down produced poor results.

In particular, one of my favorite sportcoats is simply too big for me now. I took it to my tailor to see if it could be reduced and he told me that it wasn't worth it. He gently pointed out that it wasn't the highest-quality garment to begin with and the cost of reducing it would probably be about 1/2 the original cost do to the major restructuring involved. My money was better-spent on looking for a good deal on a replacement. Plus, the end result wouldn't be nearly as good as buying a new one that fit properly.

So, when I see other forumites faces with the same dilemma, all I can say is that find a competent and honest tailor to give their best assessment. Chances are they'll tell you "no, it can't be done satisfactory".

So, let it go. Donate it to a friend for whom it fits, sell it, or thrift it. Save your money and find a killer deal on a new suit that really fits well.

 

[cvac]

Get a new suit.

Those alterations won't be cheap if you take it to someone who knows what they are doing, i.e. someone who can make $3000 suits from scratch.

The likely result is that you'll take it to someone who doesn't know what they're doing to save money, then you'll have an ill fitting black suit that you spent too much money on that never gets worn.

Again, get a new suit.