Old school tailors perspective on how a suit should fit.

Evening all,

I recently had two suits tailored by a lovely old lady who runs her own tailoring shop. I can tell she's old school in her ideals on how a suit should fit, but I'm wondering what you all think. She insisted the arms length should reach the middle of my thumb knuckle, and the length of the suit should basically go past my ass. I've tried this before, and I think it looks like I'm wearing a suit that's clearly too big for me.

From all the research and self opinions, I've found that the arms length looks best ending 1/2" shorter than where my wrist meets my palm. This assumes that my dress shirt ends abruptly at where my wrist meets the palm, allowing 1/2" of the dress shirt to show.

Thoughts?

11 Comments
 
Lou

Tell her you don't want to dress like your father.

This, 100%. A good tailor would know that, too.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 
Best Response

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/09/25/good-fitted-suit-visual/

a couple of things I do when looking at new suits:

  1. overall feel: this is a gut thing, but if your gut reaction is no, put it back, don't try to sell yourself on it

  2. jacket length: with your arms at your side and the jacket buttoned, you should just be able to grab the bottom of the jacket

  3. fabric quality: usually you can tell with your eyes and the pricetag, but make sure the seams are stitched, not glued. also, I'll take the arm, wring it like a towel (not super tight, but enough to make a salesperson raise an eyebrow), and see how the arm recovers. if it wrinkles like a piece of paper, it's garbage. if it recovers nicely, it's good fabric

 
thebrofessor

3. fabric quality: usually you can tell with your eyes and the pricetag, but make sure the seams are stitched, not glued. also, I'll take the arm, wring it like a towel (not super tight, but enough to make a salesperson raise an eyebrow), and see how the arm recovers. if it wrinkles like a piece of paper, it's garbage. if it recovers nicely, it's good fabric

That's a cool trick. I'll have to try it.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

I've noticed that half canvas suits seem to be a lot closer to my price range than full canvas. Yet, I'm still an undergrad.. just an older one due to military.

The sleeve trick sounds great.

 

The cheapest I've seen a fully canvassed suit sell for is $525 from eHaberdasher. They're an affiliate vendor on StyleForum, so they have some clout and aren't just some no-name hustlers trying to make a quick buck.

I own one of those suits and it's very good quality for the money.

And on topic, yeah, find a new tailor. She sounds like she's completely out of touch with modern aesthetics.

 

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