A couple of years ago, I was at a local tailor for alterations to a suit I'd just purchased. While I was waiting, I was looking at a couple of bespoke suits in his shop, all quite impressive. We talked for a while, and I asked him what it would take to have a bespoke suit tailored. He told me that his suits typically start around $3,000, but that they can go up quite a bit depending on the fabric one chooses.
$3,000 being well out of my budget, I thought I'd take it down a notch. "How about just a pair of trousers?" I don't remember exactly, but I think it was somewhere around $750. I humbly picked up my ready made suit and went home.
The first I remember learning the term bespoke was around 1989. I was thumbing through a copy of GQ magazine, and, while I wasn't entirely sure what the term meant (I would have been all of 13), it was fairly obvious that that was the suit one wanted. Since that introduction, I've always kept bespoke suiting in the back (well, middle, anyway) of my mind. It's kind of like a Rolls Royce - I'll likely never have one, but it's nice to know they're still out there.
A few years ago, though, I found myself in Bangladesh where tailored clothing is not yet only an option for the wealthiest of society. To be sure, you can go to a tailor in Dhaka and have a suit tailored for $2,000, if you so desire. But there's a wide range of tailors below that level - everyone from the guy with the rented sewing machine in the alley of the local bazaar, to the more mid-range shops filled with bolts of fabrics and people haggling over the price of a shirt. I picked one of the latter for my first foray into custom clothing.
I went in and was fitted by a tailor, picked out a collar, cuffs, and some fabric Between my broken Bangla and the tailor's broken English, we communicated pretty well, and I left with a claim slip for a single shirt and a pair of pants. A couple of weeks later, I returned and picked up my packages. Total cost for one shirt and one pair of pants: $32.
When I got home, I tried on the clothes and they fit perfectly. One of the worst consequences of industrialization and economic efficiency is the dominance of ready made clothing. After years of off-the-rack clothes that surely don't fit anybody, I finally had a set of clothes that was made to measure - and it felt like it. The next day I returned and ordered several more shirts.
I returned to pick up my packages and rushed home to try them on. When I slipped on the first shirt, I started to panic. The sleeves were about a half inch too short. I tried on the next one - sleeves were a full inch too short and too narrow, chest was about an inch too narrow. Each shirt I tried on got progressively smaller.
I was really distraught, and returned to the tailor hoping to get things corrected. Taking out a custom tailored shirt isn't exactly easy. Or possible. It requires a new shirt. And Bangladeshi economics subscribes very much to the theory of caveat emptor.
To be fair, the tailor was clearly as distraught as I was. It was pretty clear that, while he'd done the first order himself, this second order was likely delegated to hired help. It was right before Eid, after all, and business was really busy. And who would believe that a man could really have arms that big*!
I ended up moving back to the US, and never was able to recover my other shirts. Total cost: $50. Sure, I was out $50, which stung at the time, but looking back, it was worth the experience.
I still have the original pants and shirt, and they continue in regular rotation. My neck has gotten a little bigger since I've been back in the land of donut, but it still works. The pants are some of the most comfortable I've ever had.
Maybe someday I'll go back for that $3,000 suit from the tailor in Georgetown, but until then, I'll always have Dhaka Tailors and Fabrics.
* I'm not really that big, but much more so than the average Bangladeshi.
Ready Made Disposable Society: Bespoke
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6 comments:
A friend of mine recently turned up at wedding at the end of the summer in a gorgeous pale blue whipcord suit. I complemented hem and asked where he found it. His answer: "My brother and I went to Bangladesh this summer. I had this suit made, and two others, for about $400." $400 total, not each.
That's fantastic. You're going to get a better deal, obviously, because of the currency exchange and general economic malaise in Bangladesh, but I think the more important lesson is one of basic economics.
Despite being one of the leading exporters of ready made garments, Bangladeshi's themselves still rely heavily on handmade clothing.
Ready mades are seeping into the culture, but the general demand for tailors has created a supply at a wide range of price points. I often wonder if we Americans will ever return to that.
Perhaps that's a public works program the Obama government could invest in - training a new legion of American tailors. Makes jobs...cuts dependence on fossil fuels (e.g. transoceanic shipping)...
I've got to think more about this, then we'll assemble our government affairs team.
The answer to all our economic woes is to begin making stuff again, properly and at home. Farming out all the work is what got us in this mess in the first place.
Don't get me started.
Are you suggesting that an economy based on trading pieces of paper back and forth, suing each other, and webcam porn isn't a long-term. sustainable economy?
What a great post!
You can find custom bespoke tailors around the world that make clothing as good as (if not better) than many of the better known tailors in the U.S. and U.K. for a fraction of the cost. It helps to be a very well informed client, and the tailor actually appreciates this. They take pride in their creations, after all.
I agree with Giuseppe about farming out work being a major cause of this. These are skills that once they're gone, they're gone for good unfortunately.
If you're interested in the economic consequences:
"Global trade and conflicting national interests" by Ralph Gomory and Baumol. ...the book is clearly written even for those without much background in international economics. Highly criticized in the U.S. when it was published because the authors basically show that at a certain point all out global trade is detrimental. Free trade economists in the U.S. guffawed, but it became standard reading in China. China has had over 10% GDP growth for the last decade or so...
Yes, great post. I have a number of friends who swear by purchasing bespoke clothing while overseas.
Are you familiar with http://indochino.com and http://atailoredsuit.com, both online tailors? Crazy concept but I'm intrigued.
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