Suit Quality Assistance?

[Tomasso]

If you put it on eBay you might get $50, if the stars were aligned. But seriously, consider it pretty much worthless.




http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_from=R..._nkw=mani+suit+mens&_sacat=See-All-Categories

 

[avedwards]

Any used suit will only ever fetch a fraction of what it would be worth new. That doesn't mean you have a cheap suit, but even designer suits are sold for next to nothing in charity shops. The exception is rare and sought after vintage suits which are usually go for high prices on ebay.

 

[_Nightwing]

And Nightwing, the suit picture is coming soon since you put me on the spot and requested it

Excellent. Usually I put people on the spot and it makes no difference. I mean, uh, it always works. Yes. So let's see some pics.

 

[Oldsarge]

May I suggest that possibly Kyle's question was not what it would bring on ebay but what it cost new? I think he's trying to find out just how good it really is. So I'm going to weigh Rue and Maxx's responses against Tomasso's speculations and think that it's a pretty good set of threads. Gee, Kyle, maybe you ought to go for a walk more often.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

How much is it worth? Tomasso did post the correct answer and a good way to compare prices for used suits. Just search ebay.

But it is actually "worth" much more if you think about it this way:
-You were surprised and happy about it. It's like a gift and gifts aren't valued on money.
-You already think about wearing a suit more often. This might be only the first one and others will follow. I may change the way you dress. priceless.
-It fits. This means you don't have to search for hours to find a suit that just fits= you saved time and time is money.

So in conclusion I say: The suit is worth as much as you want him to be worth

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

I really need more button-up shirts, though.

Find out where the goodwill store is and buy some. Just make sure you try them on. Once you know your size searching will go much faster and easier.

Maybe you could buy a white one and the other with color and/or pattern. This would also change the appearance of your get up.

I won't pretend to know what a good drape means

It means the way the fabric hugs your body and how it "hangs". Manmade (plastic) fabrics may get less wrinkles but often they have a terrible drape. They just stand in whatever direction or form silly dents and stuff.
A wool suit drapes better in most cases.

 

[Fastuni]

I assume you rather talk about "modern" suits and not "vintage"...
Before the mid-60's, floating canvas was also used in lower-end off-the-rack suits.
In both cases ("modern" and "vintage"), edge stitching and working cuff buttons are not a hallmark of high-end tailoring (despite "conventional wisdom" and what some blogs may say).
Then as now working cuff buttonholes were to be found on off-the-rack suits, while many high-end hand-tailored suits had none - just as the costumer desired.
Also pickstitched edges were a matter of taste - the quality of handstitching of course varied greatly.

 

[Fastuni]

I think talking at the same time about modern (say since late 60/70's) and "vintage" suits makes this discussion muddy to the point of being moot.

I'll talk about vintage now... but much of it still holds true for artisan tailored garments today. (So let's forget about ready-to-wear "fashion brands". I never really cared for them or have experience with them... I guess they are just like the average ready-made suit today, maybe with some more expensive materials and slightly longer shelf-lives. Still not "high-end" to me...)

What sets aparat "high-end" from "low-end" is simply quality.
Even stitches, durable and smooth fabrics, clean execution of cuts and seams, good pattern matching, lighter padding material etc. are marks of quality.
One can easily tell apart a well-cut and well-put-together garment made from good quality material from a cruddy, cobbled-together garment made from shoddy material.

Now "high-end" and "low-end" existed for both "hand-tailored" and "mass-produced".
With "hand-tailored" I mean artisan production made "bespoke" to the measure of an individual costumer by a single person (master tailor) or a few people (assistants and apprentices).

"Mass-produced" is referring to industrial production of standardized items, where numerous workers do a relatively simple production step.

In both cases there are good and bad quality examples. The sewing-machine is not the great "equalizer". "Hand-made" does not refer to the straight seams one uses the sewing machine for.
There are so many other production steps and details going into a suit that could be done either by hand (artisanal) or by machine (mass produced). Plus the difference between the work of a master tailor's hand and a industrial production worker's/seamstress hand.

For example pick-stitiching the canvas onto the backside of the lapels... a good master tailor would do this by hand and create a nice roll in the lapel, while the industrial pickstitching-machines tended to create flat lapels.
Also high-end hand tailored suits often have hand-stitched lining. Or the canvassing inside... again hand-pickstitching created quite different results than using the machine.

Now while the best suits were the hand-made works of artisans, there also were horrible low-end suits made by hand - sometimes worse than the cheap mass-made suits.
In Europe for example there were many rural or "home" tailors making suits for the friends/relatives or the village. Some of these suits were very crude.
At the same time very exquisite artisanal tailoring was done "anonymously", meaning no labels were placed in the suits, the master tailor relying on low-key mouth-to-ear advertising. Mass production and "brand names" were in the US dominant a bit earlier than in Europe, where single or small-shop artisan tailors where still accounting for a great portion of garment production.

P.S.: I have seen several vintage "mass-produced/ready-to-wear" jackets with either working sleeve cuffs or stitched trough buttonholes that could be cut open to make them workable.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Working sleeve buttonholes seems to have become the hallmark of made-to-measure and bespoke suits in the late '70s or '80s, as far as I can tell (along with a mania for pattern matching). Today, they are found on all sorts of off-the-rack fashion brands, so I wouldn't use that as any guide at all. From the experience of examining and owning numerous vintage pieces by some of The Era's greats, from London to Pairs, Rome to Berlin, and New York to California, I can say only very rarely does one see a working buttonhole at all. Rather, expertly hand sewn sham buttonholes seem more common on high end vintage pieces.

When talking about vintage versus modern suits, you must absolutely use different criteria to judge quality. This is the case because certain characteristics that were virtually universal before the '60s are on;y seen on very expensive garments today. A good example of this is jacket canvassing: today this feature certainly marks a better made coat today, but before the 60s/70s, only the very worst of the worst had glued interfacing. Conversely, pattern matching was not such a big deal to vintage tailors, and presumably their customers. However, today pattern matching is a very, very big deal among aficionados of fine tailoring.

Hand stitched lapel interfacing, which gives a wonderful, natural roll, is definitely a marker of quality, both in times past and today. Another good marker of quality is button hole stitching. Most high end makers, both vintage and modern, stitch buttonholes by hand, even though there are machine attachments that can do it faster. Another small detail that denotes quality is using threads made of different materials for various specific things. For example, some high end makers use silk thread (IIRC) to attach the arms because that type of thread has more give/stretch, thus making a stronger construction.

As you can see, the vast majority of what goes into a quality suit is note things that can be superficially observed.

 

[carldelo]

Re working sleeve buttons, J Peterman has many at the moment - the 'Entrepreneur Blazer', the 'Harris Tweed Blazer', the 'Moleskin Blazer', the 'Gentleman's Club Blazer', the 'Striped Suit Derby Jacket', the 'Boating Blazer'. Depending on whether you like the brand or not, they could be thought of as 'high end'. Their descriptions certainly try to make the case. I don't get working cuffs on OTR; it's fine if your arm length is exactly right, but if you generally need sleeves shortened as I do, it makes these jackets useless.

And BTW "...but you do make a great effort"? sounds remarkably sarcastic. You asked a vague question and received a number of well thought out and information-laden posts. Your response to these has been dismissive, and I'm a little mystified by the unpleasant tone, it seems as though you have something you want to hear, but haven't heard it yet. This is a friendly forum and people are trying to help you - why not respond accordingly?

IMo, the only thing that's muddied is how to ID a high end suit vs a low end, but you do make a great effort. Thankyou.

 

[Fastuni]

I'm not sure that Americans wanted a "nice roll" in their lapel.

A nice roll to the lapel was desirable also in the US, my friend:

Brooks Brothers ad from "The New Yorker" - 1948:

theivyleaguelook.blogspot.de/2011/08/brooks-no-4-1948.html

Well, imo, whether we're talking about vintage or modern suits, it doesn't matter, because it's the same concept and I'm sure it was just as important back then as it is now: High end and low end suits. [...] the only thing that's muddied is how to ID a high end suit vs a low end

Yeah right - because suits of the past are totally made like suits today.
As has been repeatedly pointed out... some of the details of "vintage" suits are only to be found at bespoke tailoring today.
You can't talk about modern RTW in the same breath.

Actually handling suits of various production types, origins and ages certainly helps at recognizing quality.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Not really, no. The history of the clothing trade - bespoke, the rise of mass produced RTW, secondhand, etc. - tracks quite nicely in whichever European, British or American country you choose to look at.

Obviously the history of suits in Europe is much different than the history of suits in the USA. I'm not sure that Americans wanted a "nice roll" in their lapel. Also, apparently there's more working sleeve buttons there than here. I've looked from Miami, FL to Kansas City, Mo and out to Las Vegas and not seen any.

 

[Qirrel]

This http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?48324-1949-Buying-Men-s-Suits (from the big sticky) is a good guide to suit quality.

 

[carldelo]

This http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?48324-1949-Buying-Men-s-Suits (from the big sticky) is a good guide to suit quality.

Just skimmed this - excellent guide and completely on-point to the question of high- vs. low-end suiting. Thanks Qirrel - I hadn't seen it before.

 

[cchgn]

Ok, after reading the article several times, I can see why the vague responses. Many of the quality is built in and unseen( but felt). Still, the things that I found that I can use, when looking at a suit is: bunching the material and see if it's alive and springy; bending the corner of the collar and see if it springs back into place; grabbing the lapel and running the other hand down it to see if it wrinkles or not; grabbing the shoulders and see if they're smooth or clumpy; Look at the liner along the bottom, but the first and number one thing I look at is that the patterns match- along the back seam of the jacket, down the chest/sleeves and around pockets. That's the deal breaker for me.


I checked a Christian Dior and the windowpane pattern matched exactly, everywhere.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Those are all generally good methods for discerning the quality of a suit, however, a few of them need to be taken in context.

For example, regarding lapels and shoulders, it really depends. In Italy there are regional styles of tailoring, several of which are "soft" styles. This means shoulders are lightly padded and the lapels are not at all stiff. In my experience, Canali, Kiton, and often Belvest coats will not pass the "grabbing the lapel and running the other hand down it to see if it wrinkles or not" test. However, this should not at all be interpreted as poor quality (Kiton and Belvest are actually two of the 21st century's better makers, by far).

And again, pattern matching is subjective because it wasn't not see as such a priority before the '70s/'80s. Stripes and checks were definitely matched along the back seam and pockets on better made coats, but matching up the pattern on the collar wasn't seen as big deal, in the '30s, '40s, etc.

Check out this Italian suit from the 1950s. I can't recall the name of the maker at the moment, but it's a super high end bespoke suit made by one of the periods really prominent European tailors. Notice how the the patterns don't match exactly anywhere, yet still look aesthetically pleasing?

 

[Guttersnipe]

Again, here is a very high end suit from the mid-1930s. Note how the pinstripes don't exactly align where the collar meets the lapels?

 

[Guttersnipe]

Now contrast those suits with these two modern ones made by Anderson & Sheppard. See how the patterns line up exactly, even where the collar meets the lapel? This does not indicate a difference in quality, per se, it just displays a different aesthetic.

 

[Tomasso]

Pattern matching on RTW is relatively easy as the pattern is even and symmetrical. Bespoke patterns are cut to accommodate anatomical flaws (dropped shoulders, poor posture, large girth, etc...) which makes pattern matching problematical.

 

[cchgn]

Pattern matching on RTW is relatively easy as the pattern is even and symmetrical. Bespoke patterns are cut to accommodate anatomical flaws (dropped shoulders, poor posture, large girth, etc...) which makes pattern matching problematical.

Well, according to the article, RTW suit makers make NO attempt to match patterns, but use all of the fabric(including cutoffs and bits and pieces, of course, making pattern matching impossible). Upper middle and higher end( with bespoke being the highest) makers will "waste" alot of fabric making sure the patterns line up(expensive, but surely a minimum for a suit). IMO, in order for a bespoke suit to truly be a bespoke suit, a master tailor should be able to pull that off.