A tailored suit is a thing of quiet majesty, the backbone of a man’s formal wardrobe. And as any tailor, from Savile Row to the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Hong Kong, will tell you, fit is everything. But bespoke tailoring, whereby every detail of a suit’s architecture is crafted to your specifications, is the preserve of the ’Row – a world few of us get to experience.
This was the thinking behind Giorgio Armani’s latest launch, a made-to-measure suite in his Sloane Street boutique. The premise is simple: a man buying ready-to-wear suiting off the peg will often have to have it altered to fit his frame; bespoke suiting is a time-consuming and costly option. But there is space in the middle for a made-to-measure service, a mid-point between suits that are already made and those built to your specifications.
The style of the Sloane Street suite follows Mr Armani’s muted elegance, with masculine slate tones, solid mahogany and plush armchairs that call to mind a hushed gentlemen’s club. But instead of crystal tumblers and leather-bound books, it is the components that go to make a suit that line the walls – a sartorial sweet shop of fabrics, trims and hardware.
Here, one master tailor acts as guide, savant and sounding board. The concept works around two ‘blocks’, or pre-defined cuts, called Soho and Wall Street. The former is more modern, more softly structured and less corporate; the latter, as one would expect, is traditional, upright and structured, with strong shoulders and a nipped-in waist.
Once you have defined which kind of man you align yourself with, the fun starts. Giorgio Armani built his empire on subverting the traditions of tailoring in the 1980s; today, his tailor will fit you with a standard jacket and trousers from your chosen block, adjusting the sleeves, taking up the trousers and tweaking the silhouette until it perfectly fits your frame.
A precise cut can perform optical illusions; a longer lapel will elongate the frame, a wider one will broaden the chest, while narrower trousers will help to streamline bulkier frames. The tailor expertly ascertains that one of my shoulders sits lower than the other, and adjusts the jacket accordingly.
Next, one leather-bound sample book after another appears like some sort of fabric library. From weighty worsteds to soft, featherlight vicuña (the most expensive wool money can buy) in Prince of Wales checks and puppytooth, all things formal to frivolous – not forgetting eccentric- can be found here. One is particularly striking: a lightweight wool in a colour somewhere between black and navy, which has been developed to resist crumpling; scrunch it like a tissue and it pools back like liquid.
From there it’s the fixtures and fittings: mother-of-pearl and buffalo-horn buttons or metal fastenings, a choice of linings that includes shots of fuchsia or discreet breathable perforated silk. As shopping becomes faster, more soulless and more convenient – suits delivered the same day at a few clicks of the mouse – the experience of taking time to understand the power of a suit, and the skill involved in crafting, it is a lesson in the history of sartorial finesse itself.
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