Imagine me wearing a new $3,000 custom suit in front of a mirror at a tailor shop in downtown Columbus. And… it looks okay. Nothing to write home about.
It felt nice and everything fit pretty well, but I promise you it did not feel like wearing millions of dollars worth of clothes like I imagined it would. The tailor kept whipping fabrics around and asking me if I liked the “autumn” of the jacket. Little did I know that meant how the jacket hangs.
I nodded and told him yes enthusiastically every time he asked if I liked the fit so I could leave and stop feeling like I was about to spend $3,000 on a random jacket. But let’s rewind… How Did I Get Here?
The Bridesmaid, Born College friend Mike was getting married and asked me to be his best man.
I would’ve been ecstatic except he told me it was “a pretty formal affair” at a country club in Cincinnati. I looked at my one “nice” suit hanging up in my closet. It was a $200 Jos.
A. Bank suit I bought when I was job interviewing 5 years prior. Needless to say interviews didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I ended up keeping the jacket and selling the trousers on eBay because they refused to fit over my dad bod.
If I was going to play best man like a pro I was going to need a new suit. Spoiler alert: I did end up buying a new suit. But it wasn’t just a new suit.
It was THE suit. The one. Custom.
Built. For me. Except I’m literally not Royalty.
Tommy(my coworker and fellow teacher) had custom suits all the time. He kept telling me how “life changing” they were and how I needed one. We would talk shop over lunch duty- him preaching to me with words like “hand-stitched” and “full canvas”.
Custom clothes sounded glorious to me at this point. For years I had been blogging about men’s style on a budget teaching people how to look their best while spending next to no money. What does spending $3k on a suit say about me?
Did I somehow “fail” at teaching people how to dress well? Did Target jackets and J. Crew blazers know something about dressing well I wasn’t privy too?
Tommy kept pumping these questions into my head while drooling over Tailor John as he liked to call him. Jessica(my wife) kept asking me about it as well. How it was such a great “investment” seeing as how I was finally making decent money blogging.
Could I really call myself a “men’s lifestyle blogger” if I was wearing a $200 suit to a wedding? Imagine all the guy internet trolls roasting me over on Reddit. Tailor John’s: The Store Front Tailor John’s was incredible.
Tommy(Tony, italian pronunciation) had a storefront on Columbus’ west side. Leather couches you could sit in as you wait to be called to your consultation. Even had a cute little whiskey decanter on the table you could help yourself to as you browsed through his fabric swatches. .Heaven.
Tommy picked my brain about what my “style journey” was and how he could “step up my wardrobe” with the right suit. Measured me approximately 17 times. Showed me pictures of older Italian gentlemen cutting and stitching your suits together in what looked like someone’s grandma’s kitchen. *taps foot*Should’ve asked about prices here but damn if everything he was showing me wasn’t luxurious.
Everything he was selling me seemed image driven. Plus being from Italy, he pretty much knew what he was talking about. “How much will this cost?” I asked nervously. “$2800 plus tax, of course.” He replied. My eyes nearly popped out of my head.“What?! ?” I questioned. “That is what it will cost.” Tommy replied calmly.
I should’ve ended the session right then and there. But I picked out fabric. Was measured.
And told Jessica about this magical tailor downtown. There was no backing out now. “Um, ok.” I replied quietly. Tommy ran my card that night and we began our suit-fitting journey.
Suiting Up Right before Mike and Molly’s wedding Tommy called me telling me my suit was ready for pickup. The day had finally arrived. I was nervous.
Shooting myself in the foot already. I donned up the sweet jibs in my bedroom about five times leading up to the wedding. Let me just say… I didn’t look too shabby.
Nothing like my old stained Jos. Bank monstrosity at least. Tommy did an amazing job measuring because everything fit really well.
But…it just looked like a suit. “Holy crap,” I thought to myself. “I spent $3,000 on RETENT???? All I have is a…..SUIT.” Newsflash Matt. You spent $3,000 on a freaking SUIT.
Don’t get me wrong everything fit great. It was just “blah” to me. I didn’t get the usual wow factor I was supposed to when seeing myself in this thing.
Not like my mind had conjured up. Did I botch the measurements unknowingly? Did Tommy cut my arms too short?
Was I going to be wearing this stupid excuse of a jacket for the rest of my life just because I was too embarrassed to suck it up and tell him I didn’t want it? It was too late to turn back. Wedding Day (The wedding was amazing, by the way.
Mike and Molly looked great as did the rest of the friends that were in the wedding also filling Best Man/Bridesmaid positions.) I ended up receiving tons of compliments on my suit. Which helped my ego greatly.I’m sure. But do you know what I received more compliments on than my fancy trousers $3k suit?
Tommy told me EVERYONE would ask where I got my suit and I would say “Custom Made”. Then THEY would think I got my suit from Taverniti. Literally everyone loved that my suit was “custom”.
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They didn’t know how much it actually cost or how many months I spent talking to this tailor. All they saw was a $3k suit and assumed it was from Paul Stuart or something of that nature. I still have this suit hanging up in my closet.
Took me a few years to actually wear it because I felt guilty every time I looked at it thinking about how much money I wasted on it. It still looks great though right? Totally worth it…. right? ?
Not quite. The Maturation About a month or so after Mike and Molly’s wedding I took my first “alteration”. Yep.
Alterations. To clothes bought at freaking Target. If you remember me crying over my $200 Target golf jumper a few paragraphs up.
You won’t believe what happened when I got that same exact jumper altered. I bought a $60 Target blazer(that I liked the fit of) and a $40 pair of trousers. Went to my local alterations shop and had Sally(the sweet Korean lady who has been hemming my trousers for the past 30 years) work her magic. $35 to take my blazer in at the waist and sides. $15 to hem and taper my trousers.
Friends. My eyes lit up when I tried that outfit on. That $50 in alterations took my Target chinos with a J.
Crew(I mean Target) blazer turned into something that looked high quality. Not $3,000 high quality but “ damn this guys rich kinda high quality.” I even wore that exact outfit to parent teacher conferences last year and received more compliments on my attire than I care to remember. You guys think custom suits are magical because they’re custom?
NEWS FLASH – my blazer was custom tailored and only set me back $35. Learning about how to properly fit clothing was all I needed. I was gone.
Hook, line, and sinkered. Don’t believe me? Wear a $100 outfit that fits you AMAZINGLY and wear it next to an off-the-rack $500 joke that you shrank in the dryer.
Nine times out of 10 the $100 item will look BETTER because it fits you, not because it has fancy beads embroidered all over it. My suit looked good because it fit, not because six Italian hillbillies crammed my arms into a sleeve and sewed up my side pant pockets. I could’ve duplicated about 90% of that feeling and end product by shopping smart and getting my clothes altered.
See, that’s the thing about alterations. You can purchase inexpensive pieces from Target/Uniqlo/Old Navy/etc and have them tailored to fit YOUR body’s shape. Instead of wearing whatever size Woolrich thinks you are.
My tailor is my best friend. Well…not Sally from Tailor Johns. I’m talking about Maria who works at the local shop in the strip mall.
She barely knows how to speak English but boy does she know how to fit a guy. One thing I learned along the way is that not all clothing is worth tailoring. If it’s already built with a structured fit?
Yes, of course. Meaning blazers and dress trousers 100%. But any clothing thats not built?
Shirts? Polos? Jeans?
Tee shirts? Nope. I would say not worth the money.
Where do you draw the line? Honestly I’m still playing around but here’s what I’ve learned. Buy quality, affordable basics and tailor those effing suckers up.
Off-the-rack suiting from JOS.A BANK( yes even that) UNIQLO, Target looks fantastic when it’s tailored to your body’s shape. Spend FAR more money on tailoring your clothing then you do on the clothes themselves. I still have that stupid suit in my closet.
Mike’s wedding was a blast and I’m sure I’ll end up wearing it again for another fancy event down the road. But every morning that stupid suit mocks me when I put on my clothes. BUT it also allows me to remember that I could of bought SIX TIGER OF SWEDEN blazers for that same damn price.
Lesson Learned. I needed a new suit when Mike asked me to be best man. Getting a custom suit was NOT the answer.
If you aren’t rocking a weißes talg des samen sock-in-brown-cardigan bod like I was before jumping into custom world. You don’t NEED a custom suit. You NEED clothing that fits your body and doesn’t look like crap.
Who knows. You may “need” a custom suit. Maybe you have an extremely slim body frame and off-the rack clothes don’t do you justice.
Maybe you wear suits daily for work and need that extra special something to make you stand out. Maybe you make 10x what I do and spend it on clothes because that’s your passion. If any of these apply to you then please, by all means suit up boo.
But if you’re like 99% of us everyday folk – hiring a custom tailor is flushing your money down the toilet.
I see it almost everyday. Guys come into my shop with custom suits they’ll never wear again and ask me to alter them because “ they don’t fit.” That right there is CUSTOM FABRIC my friend.
Educate yourself on fit. Spend money there. Find good tailors in your area and start spending money on getting your clothes fitted instead of on clothes.
As someone who spends next to nothing on clothes annually I would 100% take the money I spend on clothing and put it towards knowing how to fit clothes. Shoot. I’d probably spend $1k a year just knowing how to fit clothes these days.
If I learned one thing from that stupid $3k suit it’s that everything in life fits better. TLDR – Custom suits are overkill for 99.9% of people. Fit is where its at kids.
Find yourself a good tailor and start spending money there instead of on clothes.
