Hong Kong tailors - A Man Hing Cheong vs. Y William Yu

Does anyone have experiences with Y William Yu's operation on Madison Ave, NYC that they can share?

The cutter in the HK shop, named Andy, mentioned he regularly visits the US for individual measuring, but I didn't ask him any further. I guess their quality must be the same as in HK, naturally with the same people and work-processes in place.

Not sure about US prices, but should definitely not be more expensive than the WW Chan prices or any other HK tailor there.

Originally Posted by gumbolo

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The cutter in the HK shop, named Andy, mentioned he regularly visits the US for individual measuring, but I didn't ask him any further. I guess their quality must be the same as in HK, naturally with the same people and work-processes in place.

Not sure about US prices, but should definitely not be more expensive than the WW Chan prices or any other HK tailor there.

I would think that it might be better in NY since you can get multiple fittings. WYW seems to be a pretty good tailor so I might give hiom a try when he travels.

Just as a follow-up after wearing both suits for a couple of times:

The AMHC suit has definitely a stronger canvassing. I assume this refers to everyone's comment that they have a more British cut than many other HK tailors. The YWY suit is less canvassed and generally much softer. I had also asked for a flat shoulder which is typically more Italian style. I also used a Loro Piana cloth, whereas the AMHC one is made up of one of their British house cloths.

When wearing the AMHC suit it feels like wearing a strong hard uniform, where the YWY suit is indeed giving me some soft Italian feeling.

Again, both are formidable and well worth their money. I think I will do the following: soft/summer/more casual with YWY, formal/Winter/strong canvassing with AMHC


Anyone out there who would like to comment?

Hi,

I went to YWM again over NYE, the result was a pretty nice sports jacket, Italian fabric (Vitale Barberi or so..), 4200 HKD, I also bought a couple of shirts (750 HKD on average), but am too lazy to take the pic's now. The jacket has a perfect fit and feels extremely comfortable to wear. I also went over to AMHC for a few more shirts (1.100 HKD on average but all are Sea-island and feel absolutely fabulous), pretty nice quality. AMHC had done soft collars and cuffs at first shot, whereas YWY made pretty hard ones, which I didn't like. However, after asking they are now making soft-collar/cuffs, too.

My experience is really that AMHC is top-end, everything is a bit more professional/better (location, quality, fabrics, sewing, classic British no-BS style, well organized clean shop) and therefore charge around 25% more on average. YWY seems more humble, the shop is a bit more "local"/unorganized. They have a lot of suits in the making when you go there, so it seems they have an old established clientele. Both were my first bespoke suits, so I made a couple of initial mistakes, but now I feel I know how to handle (cloth, cut, sewing, lining, number of fittings, shoulder-padding, soft shirt-collar/cuffs, sea-island vs. egyptian cotton, etc.)

The only problem with the HK tailors for me is that they always recommend cloths that are targeting customers from HK, meaning they are very light unless you specifically ask for something more heavy. I was intending to use this jacket as a winter weekend jacket, but it's in essence a spring if not even summer jacket, very light, might even have some cashmere in it, not sure.

How many fittings did you get?

for the suit mentioned earlier i think three, for this jacket i only had one, but i am sure i could have had many more. why? do you think it's poorly fitted?

Originally Posted by gumbolo

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for the suit mentioned earlier i think three, for this jacket i only had one, but i am sure i could have had many more. why? do you think it's poorly fitted?

Absolutely not. I think it looks great. I'm going to HK in September for about 3 days and wanted to know if I could fitted all in.

Originally Posted by gumbolo

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Again, both are formidable and well worth their money. I think I will do the following: soft/summer/more casual with YWY, formal/Winter/strong canvassing with AMHC


Anyone out there who would like to comment?

I agree with this for sure. I just had suit finished for me by AMHC. I am very happy with it.

The only thing is I wish I knew where I could buy good suit fabrics, not to save money, but to go beyond what the tailor shop has in their selection.

-eric

I think three days might be a bit too tight to have more than one fitting. I myself travel to HK once every six weeks, so I could wait until they were ready. If you are an "easy" case they might be able to make a "second" fitting only and then send it over by mail. Probably that's best. but check with them, their phone-number is mentioned in my first thread.

I needed several months to have the suits ready. Went their once, waited two months, went for two fittings, waited another month, had another fitting, then wore them and still i will have to make a few more adjustments. However, once they have it it's kind of convenient. As mentioned the brown sports jacket was almost perfect already during the first fitting.



Regarding the CMT: AMHC is a wool merchant according to their business card. i think they should have pretty much everything you want. they usually only recommend their house-cloth, but they do have all the major names, LP, Zegna, H&S, Scabal, etc. They also say that those brands are more expensive, but that's BS. Just ask them kindly and they will get out the cloth for you. Try to speak to Peter, the salesman, the other chaps are not used to handling customers and are really a bit weird/rude.

Are either of these places ones which have the super-speedy service for travelers, i.e., walk in on a Monday at 10am, have first fittings Tuesday at noon, Second fittings Tuesday EOD, Walk away Wednesday EOD with 3 suits and 5 shirts?

I always here people talking about these places (never on SF, though) and I'm unclear on whether WWC, AMHC, and YWY are those types of places or whether I'd need to go to something much lower-end (and how bad is the quality at this low end?) for this service?

OP--your suits and jacket look superb. Especially like the YWY stuff.

Originally Posted by JohnnyCrockett

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Are either of these places ones which have the super-speedy service for travelers, i.e., walk in on a Monday at 10am, have first fittings Tuesday at noon, Second fittings Tuesday EOD, Walk away Wednesday EOD with 3 suits and 5 shirts?

I always here people talking about these places (never on SF, though) and I'm unclear on whether WWC, AMHC, and YWY are those types of places or whether I'd need to go to something much lower-end (and how bad is the quality at this low end?) for this service?

OP--your suits and jacket look superb. Especially like the YWY stuff.


I have had suits made in about 3 days at WW Chan and Gordon Yao.

I am not sure about such a tight schedule. Maybe if you give them an early-warning and go early morning on your first day, late evening on the second and again late evening on the third, so that they deliver via mail to you. that might be possible. Why don't you ask them YWY and AMHC? Here are the details:

YWY: +852-2369- 2141 , [email protected] (very responsibe, basically daily)
AMHC: +852 2522 3336, [email protected] (i only called them)

do me a favour and mention to them that i recommended their places, just mention a German-Korean guy who bought some suits from them recently, hopefully that will give me some kind of discount next time

Throughout HK you will find various low-end who can do that, even within 24h, but if you read across the forum it seems to be of inferior quality.

So is for certain that the Y William Yu on Madision Avenue is associated with the Y William Yu in Hong Kong? If so I definitely might give them a shot. That is a great looking second jacket that you posted.

I guess so, but can't say for sure. My cutter in HK is called Andy and he mentioned he flies to the US regularly. It would be a great coincidence if there is another Y William Yu in the world of custom-tailoring....