harry2quinn
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Background I've recently ordered several articles of bespoke clothing through Syed Bawkher, an Indian bespoke tailor. Thought I'd take the opportunity to review his operation and share my impressions, much like other members have done around the world. There is a substantial tailoring culture in India - lots of people have their clothing custom made. Unfortunately, most of it is very shabbily done, with no attention to quality of construction or detail. Syed Bawkher is not one of them, and it was pretty easy for me to see. On the other hand, I don't know how he ranks compared to some of the best that are regularly mentioned here - perhaps with my pictures of the fittings and finished product, of his establishment and my review of his details, a picture would start to emerge. I purchased several yards of fabric over the last year or so - some when I was visiting London, most through SF B&S. A lot of it is Holland & Sherry, some Cerruti, some unlabeled stuff. I could have purchased from him, but my understanding is that because of the really high duty, his prices are inflated - I would have liked to get low Supers, and for the decent brands that would have run me about $200 a meter. The establishment and the owners To be updated First meeting, Saturday May 21st He agreed to accept outside fabric at the equivalent of $330 per suit / $220 per jacket for tailoring charges. Double breasted and single breasted were the same price. He showed me a jacket he had recently made for someone in a comparable size. I was very happy with his attention to detail. Fully floating canvas, passed the pinch test; neatly finished buttonholes; contrast stitching on the lining evenly spaced and hand-done AFAIK, somewhat structured shoulders as is common in India. I discussed some of the details I was looking for and he was confident in his ability to take care of it all. The only thing he balked at was pattern-matching, which I thought was odd - but there's a follow up below on that matter at the first fitting (turns out they did it anyway - not perfect but pretty good). More than anything else, I've talked to and visited a dozen tailors in India - based on both his comfort, the quality of his finished garment, the reputation, given that he is one of a handful of tailors in the country who makes all their suits with some of the finer details such as canvassing and working buttonholes - it was a no-brainer. For the price especially, given I couldn't visit India very often, I decided to put most of my eggs in one basket. The wisdom of that decision has been questioned on another thread, but be that as it may, it is what it is. We looked through my cloth, picked some to use, and we talked over what we should do and the details. Over the course of that discussion and a quick follow up call, here's what we settled on: The order, placed Saturday May 21st 1. Holland & Sherry Super 120s and Cashmere. Dark navy, blue and light gray pinstripes. 2-btn SB suit. Jacket - slimmer lapels, notch lapel, flap pockets, open quarters, side vents Pants - flat front, uncuffed, loops Standard details in common: working buttonholes, minimal shoulder padding, split waistband, suspender buttons, a good amount of pattern matching, silk lining (from what I've read on SF, both silk and bemberg are good to use - but silk is not as durable. 2. Cerruti 55% mohair, 45% wool. Dark goldenrod with rust plaid. Pictured here. DB suit. Jacket - Peak lapel, of course, flap pockets, side vents Pants - flat front (planning on changing to reverse pleats or single pleat), 1.5" cuffs, side tabs, no belt loops Standard details in common. 3. Unknown fabric (purchased at a fabric reseller on Oxford Street in London, forgot what he said it was) in Super 120s merino wool. Gray POW check. 2-button sportcoat. Peak lapel, slanted pockets, soft roll, side vents, flap pockets, open quarters. Standard details in common. 4. Holland & Sherry in Super 120s worsted wool. Solid mid-gray. Flat front pants, uncuffed, belt loops Standard details in common. First fitting, Monday May 23rd They had the SB suit and the DB jacket ready for me to try on. I couldn't get pics for the DB jacket (I was in a hurry), but here's what I could take pics of. Sorry about the crappy quality! IMHO, the pants were excellent right off the bat. The break was perfect, the waist was good (asked him to take it in further since I've put on weight recently but it won't last long), they were neither too baggy nor were they slim enough to hike up on my OTC socks. I thought the seat was just a little loose, but he reminded me the pockets hadn't been installed. We'll see how that fares in the second trial. There were quite a few things to be fixed on the jackets, but I took that to be expected. The things noted to fix:
The shirt was honestly not a very good fit for bespoke. It felt like a pretty standard 15" shirt. He agreed, said it would not be a problem to fix the fit to my body and remove the creasing. Unfortunately I have no pics of either this or the DB jacket. Second fitting, Tuesday May 24th Well, I'm a little behind schedule, but here's the second fitting.
I'm still not quite happy with the shirt. You can see the back especially is a mess - fits more like an RTW slim-fit shirt than anything else. Admittedly my man boobs don't make it easy - but the next fitting's tomorrow, hoping they can get it right this time around. This fitting I spoke with the sous-chef of sorts who handles shirts and detailed my opinions to him very clearly.
Sleeve length is almost right in this case - perhaps an eighth of an inch too long and that's what I told them. Waist suppression looks good - although that might change depending on how my weight fluctuates over the coming months. Pitch is much better but not perfect - we discussed that as well. Most importantly, though, I think the shoulder's MUCH better - used to be too wide.
The back is not quite right - but like I said, the vent issue is a to-do item and I've taken his word for it that the rippling in the upper back will fix itself when the collar is finished.
On the other hand, I think the DB is coming along quite nicely! A little bit of sleeve issues again, but nothing dramatic.
- Shoulders too wide and too heavily padded - take in by half inch or so on each side (people in India like ridiculously broad and padded shoulders)
- Sleeves a half inch too short
- Lapels too wide (these are pretty standard lapels, but I wanted slimmer lapels for this particular piece) - you can see the chalk mark for where it's going to be, just inside of the inner basting thread on the first pic (right lapel)
- Fix creasing/wrinkling on back - partly through slimming a bit more, partly through the fact that the collar is unfinished, which will add structure when done
- Add waist suppression
- Armholes felt a bit oversized, but we'll see how that feel changes when the shoulders width is reduced
- Fix hiking of vents in back
