lwmarti
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2012
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A while ago, while shopping for some clothes on the J. Crew web for my college-aged sons, I noticed that they sold a suit made from Oxford cloth. Probably intrigued by the possibility of such a suit, I bought one for myself, probably thinking that such a more casual suit might be a good way to introduce my sons to suits. (I often try to get them interested in wearng something by wearing one of my one, a tactic that has worked fairly well over the years.) Over the next several months, I actually ended up getting nine more J. Crew suits, both from their Ludlow and their Thompson line ("The Great J. Crew Suit Experiment"). Here’s a brief summary of what I learned.
In general, the J. Crew Thompson suits are fairly inexpensive. With the discounts that are commonly available, you can probably expect to pay around $200 for one. The Ludlow models are much nicer, but also cost more, roughly running in the $300 to $400 range after the usual discounts.
Here’s a summary of the models that I tried, along with the approximate list/street price of them along with my totally subjective rating for them out of a possible *****. This rating should be understood to be my opinion of the quality that I got for the price that I paid. A suit that gets five stars here is nowhere close to the quality of my Brioni or Kiton suits, etc. A one-star rating would indicate a crappy purchase that I really wish that I hadn’t made, while a five-star rating indicates that I think the suit is particularly cool in some way that may be purely a result of my particular and unusual tastes. The four- and five-star models are the ones that I (somewhat pathetically) actually look forward to putting on when I plan to wear them the next day.
Navy chino (Thompson, $250/$150) (**)
Blue corded cotton (Thompson, $250/$150) (**)
Blue Oxford cloth (Thompson, $450/$270) (***)
Khaki chino (Ludlow, $450/$270) (***)
Blue Oxford cloth (Ludlow, $550/$330) (****)
Faded black corded cotton (Ludlow, $550/$330) (****)
Black Wallace and Barnes worker suit (Ludlow, $650/$390) (****)
Brown glen plaid (Ludlow, $700/$390) (****)
Prince of Wales plaid (Ludlow, $700/$390) (****)
Black Watch Harris tweed (Ludlow, $1000/$600) (*****)
Some general comments.
First, my expectation for J. Crew suits were actually quite low. I have a few Brioni and Kiton suits, but PRL and Zegna make up the bulk of my suit collection that's now really just an artifact of my prevous job in finance. I really have no idea of what the market is like for suits that list for less than about $2K, so the star ratings that summarize my thoughts about relative prices and quality may not make sense at all when you compare J. Crew models to other similarly-priced suits.
And for more background, I’m 5’8” and 150#, which puts me in roughly the 15th percentile of weight for my height. I’m thin, fit and athletic and I found that the J. Crew Ludlow models fit me perfectly. They actually fit me so well that I can now actually order a particular size and wear it with absolutely no alterations at all. That was totally unexpected. But because I’m in the 15th percentile for weight/height, it’s probably the case that the Ludlow models actually won’t fit most people very well.
I also found that J. Crew models filled a useful role – the “casual suit.” Living in California and working in Silicon Valley, the nicer suits that I have really are out of place at work, but the J. Crew models seem to fit in just fine. When I wear them I absolutely get those, “So, do you have an interview today?” questions that people sometimes get. On the other hand, I also absolutely never get attractive women openly drooling over me, like often happens when I wear the nicer suits. And note that the list of the models that I tried is heavily biased toward ones made from cotton instead of wool, something that seemed to help define them as casual suits instead of more formal ones.
But, in general, I’d say that the J. Crew Ludlow suits are definitely worth looking at if you’re in the market for a casual suit. I can’t really recommend the Thompson models. I wear them in the warmer months over a t-shirt, and won’t really lose any sleep when they wear out. But the Ludlow line seems to definitely fill a useful role in the suit market. I was actually so pleased with them that I anticipate wearing them on a regular basis for the next few years. But because I didn't stop at just the first one that I bought, you probably should have expected that.
In general, the J. Crew Thompson suits are fairly inexpensive. With the discounts that are commonly available, you can probably expect to pay around $200 for one. The Ludlow models are much nicer, but also cost more, roughly running in the $300 to $400 range after the usual discounts.
Here’s a summary of the models that I tried, along with the approximate list/street price of them along with my totally subjective rating for them out of a possible *****. This rating should be understood to be my opinion of the quality that I got for the price that I paid. A suit that gets five stars here is nowhere close to the quality of my Brioni or Kiton suits, etc. A one-star rating would indicate a crappy purchase that I really wish that I hadn’t made, while a five-star rating indicates that I think the suit is particularly cool in some way that may be purely a result of my particular and unusual tastes. The four- and five-star models are the ones that I (somewhat pathetically) actually look forward to putting on when I plan to wear them the next day.
Navy chino (Thompson, $250/$150) (**)
Blue corded cotton (Thompson, $250/$150) (**)
Blue Oxford cloth (Thompson, $450/$270) (***)
Khaki chino (Ludlow, $450/$270) (***)
Blue Oxford cloth (Ludlow, $550/$330) (****)
Faded black corded cotton (Ludlow, $550/$330) (****)
Black Wallace and Barnes worker suit (Ludlow, $650/$390) (****)
Brown glen plaid (Ludlow, $700/$390) (****)
Prince of Wales plaid (Ludlow, $700/$390) (****)
Black Watch Harris tweed (Ludlow, $1000/$600) (*****)
Some general comments.
First, my expectation for J. Crew suits were actually quite low. I have a few Brioni and Kiton suits, but PRL and Zegna make up the bulk of my suit collection that's now really just an artifact of my prevous job in finance. I really have no idea of what the market is like for suits that list for less than about $2K, so the star ratings that summarize my thoughts about relative prices and quality may not make sense at all when you compare J. Crew models to other similarly-priced suits.
And for more background, I’m 5’8” and 150#, which puts me in roughly the 15th percentile of weight for my height. I’m thin, fit and athletic and I found that the J. Crew Ludlow models fit me perfectly. They actually fit me so well that I can now actually order a particular size and wear it with absolutely no alterations at all. That was totally unexpected. But because I’m in the 15th percentile for weight/height, it’s probably the case that the Ludlow models actually won’t fit most people very well.
I also found that J. Crew models filled a useful role – the “casual suit.” Living in California and working in Silicon Valley, the nicer suits that I have really are out of place at work, but the J. Crew models seem to fit in just fine. When I wear them I absolutely get those, “So, do you have an interview today?” questions that people sometimes get. On the other hand, I also absolutely never get attractive women openly drooling over me, like often happens when I wear the nicer suits. And note that the list of the models that I tried is heavily biased toward ones made from cotton instead of wool, something that seemed to help define them as casual suits instead of more formal ones.
But, in general, I’d say that the J. Crew Ludlow suits are definitely worth looking at if you’re in the market for a casual suit. I can’t really recommend the Thompson models. I wear them in the warmer months over a t-shirt, and won’t really lose any sleep when they wear out. But the Ludlow line seems to definitely fill a useful role in the suit market. I was actually so pleased with them that I anticipate wearing them on a regular basis for the next few years. But because I didn't stop at just the first one that I bought, you probably should have expected that.
