Vestimenta Suit Quality

[dah328]

Originally Posted by grimslade

I don't think this model is droopy, but YMMV, obviously. I pulled the trigger today. $350+tax is just about as cheap as you're ever likely to pay for a suit worth wearing. The lapels, on further examination, are fused on the underside, but the chestpiece is not. The pants are flat-front. Now I have to get it altered. Has anyone used Barney's in-house service?
I thought that if any part of a jacket was going to be canvassed, it would be the lapels. Why would someone fuse the lapels and stitch the chestpiece?

 

[dah328]

btw, Wilfred's is at 18. W. 23rd. Yahoo Yellow Pages has the phone number and all that...

 

[grimslade]

Originally Posted by dah328

btw, Wilfred's is at 18. W. 23rd. Yahoo Yellow Pages has the phone number and all that...


Yellow pages, shmellow pages.

Thanks a lot, everyone.

 

[retronotmetro]

Originally Posted by dah328

I thought that if any part of a jacket was going to be canvassed, it would be the lapels. Why would someone fuse the lapels and stitch the chestpiece?

Plenty of suits are made that way. I'm wearing a J. Crew cotton suit today that has a floating chest piece despite the use of fusibles in the quarters and lapels.

Just because the rest of the suit is fused doesn't mean the chest piece has to be--there's not a lot of stitching required to put it in place. Or it may be fused at the edges and float across the center. That's why I don't think the "pinch test" is particularly useful on the chest. A better test is to reach into the breast pocket and poke around at the underside of the shell fabric to see whether there are fusibles and where they stop.

 

[grimslade]

I only wrote what I did because there was some controversy over whether Vestimentas were fused or canvased. This specimen is fused in the lapels, on their undersides. You can clearly feel where the fusing begins under the lapels, and equally clearly feel that the chest piece itself is unfused.

The lapels of this suit are not pick-stitched. This would seem to be the obvious reason to fuse the lapels--it provides some body to the lapels without requiring the handwork of pick-stitching them. Meanwhile, the unfused chestpiece still allows for a freer drape and no risk of bubbling across the chest.