The (hopefully) definitive thread on NYC tailors

Originally Posted by mintyfresh

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Just updating for those interested.

I took a shirt to the good man at LNC last week and went back to pick it up.

He charged me $5 to pinch the back in two places. Fit well, but I'm not a fan of the look.

I also took in a suit that was rather ill-fitting to them. He slimmed and shortened the jacket and slimmed down the pants for me. $90. Considering the suit wasn't close to being a good-fit for me (in-laws bought it for me), I am rather pleased.

Another $25 to shorten the sleeve of the jacket half an inch.

Thanks for the recommendation all.

Haha it was a navy suit right? I was at LNC last week when you were there, you were telling the guy that your inlaws bought it and you did not like it. Small world.

With regard to LNC, the guy does nice work as far as I can tell and his prices are good. I have just had him do basic stuff, pants cuffs, let out waist, hem shirts. But it is a bit of a struggle to get it right. Brought him three pants last week, two came out way too long and one should work OK. One shirt hem was also too long and the guy made it clear he hates to do those for some reason.

Originally Posted by JoelF

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With regard to LNC, the guy does nice work as far as I can tell and his prices are good. I have just had him do basic stuff, pants cuffs, let out waist, hem shirts. But it is a bit of a struggle to get it right. Brought him three pants last week, two came out way too long and one should work OK. One shirt hem was also too long and the guy made it clear he hates to do those for some reason.

This stuff is not rocket science, you know.

I just picked up a suit today that I had tailored at Cardelino. I had the following done: waist suppression, sleeves shortened, sleeves tapered, pants hemmed, and pants tapered.

I tried on the jacket when I got home (probably should have tried it on when I picked it up), and I immediately realized two things:

1) It barely looks like much waist suppression was done. When I went in for the pinning, I clearly explained I wanted a very tailored fit and he placed the pins and said any more suppression and it would be too much. Well, it still looks boxy now and there is plenty of extra fabric in the back that can be taken in. Extremely upset about this as it's the most expensive alteration at $45.

2) The sleeves are still too wide. Again, it doesn't look like much tapering was even done. The sleeves look too wide in comparison to the overall look of the jacket. Again, when i was in for the pinning he told me that any more tapering would be too much. Again, he was wrong as far as I can tell from the final result.

I haven't even tried on the pants yet, but hopefully they didn't screw those up too. My question is if I bring them back the suit jacket and point out the fact that I am not happy with the results, will they fix it to my liking?

For those who are curious, the work they did cost:

$45 for waist suppression
$15 for tapering the pant legs
$15 for tapering the jacket sleeves
$30 for shortening jacket sleeves
$12 for hemming the pants

Any suggestions as to what I should do would be appreciated.

Originally Posted by GQhustler

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Any suggestions as to what I should do would be appreciated.

Is it take your kid to styleforum day?

Bring the clothes back and politely ask him to fix them.

lefty

And next time don't leave a tailor's shop without trying on the clothes.

Originally Posted by sifl

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And next time don't leave a tailor's shop without trying on the clothes.

Yes this is a mistake I will never make again. They had two people in their shop when I was in, so i was sort of rushed out.

Originally Posted by GQhustler

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I just picked up a suit today that I had tailored at Cardelino. I had the following done: waist suppression, sleeves shortened, sleeves tapered, pants hemmed, and pants tapered.

I tried on the jacket when I got home (probably should have tried it on when I picked it up), and I immediately realized two things:

1) It barely looks like much waist suppression was done. When I went in for the pinning, I clearly explained I wanted a very tailored fit and he placed the pins and said any more suppression and it would be too much. Well, it still looks boxy now and there is plenty of extra fabric in the back that can be taken in. Extremely upset about this as it's the most expensive alteration at $45.

2) The sleeves are still too wide. Again, it doesn't look like much tapering was even done. The sleeves look too wide in comparison to the overall look of the jacket. Again, when i was in for the pinning he told me that any more tapering would be too much. Again, he was wrong as far as I can tell from the final result.

I haven't even tried on the pants yet, but hopefully they didn't screw those up too. My question is if I bring them back the suit jacket and point out the fact that I am not happy with the results, will they fix it to my liking?

For those who are curious, the work they did cost:

$45 for waist suppression
$15 for tapering the pant legs
$15 for tapering the jacket sleeves
$30 for shortening jacket sleeves
$12 for hemming the pants

Any suggestions as to what I should do would be appreciated.

Well I went back in to Cardelino last night to explain the situation. They had me try on the jacket to show them the areas I was unhappy with. I did so, and they agreed that there was a lot of excess fabric in the waist area that could be taken in some more. They pinned everything and asked how it looked now. I told them it looked better, but that I really preferred just a little more tapering in the waist and asked politely if he would re-pin the back just slightly more aggressively.

Well apparently asking him to pin once again may have offended him because without saying anything, he walked behind the counter, whispered to his father for a minute or two, then came back with a check to refund the $127 I paid for all my alterations. He proceeded to tell me that my expectations were too high and that they could not work on my suit any further. I was in complete shock. I then spoke to his father and he began to tell me that I was essentially looking to get the fit of a custom made $2,000 suit for the price of a few alterations. I was offended and shocked by this so I just left.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to ensure that the 2nd time around, everything is how I want it so that I don't have to come back a third time. It seems like their patience is very limited. I was in the store not even 10 minutes before this happened, so it's not like I was taking a significant amount of their time.

Anyway, needless to say I will never be going back there.

Originally Posted by GQhustler

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Well I went back in to Cardelino last night to explain the situation. They had me try on the jacket to show them the areas I was unhappy with. I did so, and they agreed that there was a lot of excess fabric in the waist area that could be taken in some more. They pinned everything and asked how it looked now. I told them it looked better, but that I really preferred just a little more tapering in the waist and asked politely if he would re-pin the back just slightly more aggressively.

Well apparently asking him to pin once again may have offended him because without saying anything, he walked behind the counter, whispered to his father for a minute or two, then came back with a check to refund the $127 I paid for all my alterations. He proceeded to tell me that my expectations were too high and that they could not work on my suit any further. I was in complete shock. I then spoke to his father and he began to tell me that I was essentially looking to get the fit of a custom made $2,000 suit for the price of a few alterations. I was offended and shocked by this so I just left.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to ensure that the 2nd time around, everything is how I want it so that I don't have to come back a third time. It seems like their patience is very limited. I was in the store not even 10 minutes before this happened, so it's not like I was taking a significant amount of their time.

Anyway, needless to say I will never be going back there.

With all due respect, I'm guessing that you're a fairly trying customer. The people at Cardelino are very patient and have always offered to redo things for me. It's got to be a rare customer that they kick out (especially spending that much money).

GQh, without pictures, there's no way to tell whether you're being reasonable. There are limits to how much a RTW suit can be altered without making it unwearable. Also, your expectations for fit may be misguided.

Who once opined that Raphael doesn't like making pants? When my friend asked how much a single pair of trousers would cost, Raphael said $3,000!!!

Originally Posted by JordanB

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With all due respect, I'm guessing that you're a fairly trying customer. The people at Cardelino are very patient and have always offered to redo things for me. It's got to be a rare customer that they kick out (especially spending that much money).

I can definitely understand what you are saying here, and maybe I was simply unrealistic with what I wanted done. It would just have been less shocking if they explained this to me rather than pinning my clothes and then basically kicking me out when I asked them to adjust the pinning again for a more tapered fit.

Originally Posted by GQhustler

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I can definitely understand what you are saying here, and maybe I was simply unrealistic with what I wanted done. It would just have been less shocking if they explained this to me rather than pinning my clothes and then basically kicking me out when I asked them to adjust the pinning again for a more tapered fit.

I think people sometimes get a little too obsessed with these fora and try to dictate to tailors with too much detail. It ends up coming across as belittling and condescending. No idea if that's what happened here, but I've seen and heard about it plenty of other times.

Originally Posted by JordanB

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With all due respect, I'm guessing that you're a fairly trying customer. The people at Cardelino are very patient and have always offered to redo things for me. It's got to be a rare customer that they kick out (especially spending that much money).

I should add that I hope they weren't too pissed off today because they're altering 3 of my jackets this afternoon.

Originally Posted by JordanB

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I think people sometimes get a little too obsessed with these fora and try to dictate to tailors with too much detail. It ends up coming across as belittling and condescending. No idea if that's what happened here, but I've seen and heard about it plenty of other times.

Yea I mean I definitely may have come off too obsessive, although I didn't think I was. Maybe they are just used to people being very passive about what they want, I don't know. I guess I should just take this as a lesson learned because I am still new at the whole tailoring thing.

Originally Posted by GQhustler

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Yea I mean I definitely may have come off too obsessive, although I didn't think I was. Maybe they are just used to people being very passive about what they want, I don't know. I guess I should just take this as a lesson learned because I am still new at the whole tailoring thing.
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It sounds like you were dealing mostly with the son (?) I've found Pedro, the father, to be generally very good and I do get my things pretty trim. Sorry to hear it was a bad experience.