Should Your FIRST Suit Be Custom, Bespoke Or Off-The-Rack
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So, I got a great question the other day.
It goes like this, “Hey, Antonio.
I go to the naval academy where we have a uniform to wear every day, and I really have
the opportunity or need to dress informal civilian attire.
That being said, we’ve got the opportunity as a senior to take a class formal dress in
the workplace.
My question is, is it worth my money to go get a custom suit made or should I go with
an off-the-rack suit?”
Now, in my opinion there are seven things a guy should weigh when he’s making a decision
to go custom or off-the-rack.
But, before I give you my answer, I want to share with you a story of another naval academy
grad.
This guy, when he was a junior in high school, he was actually 5’9”.
He grew to 6’6” his senior year of high school and they actually had to give him a
waiver to get into the naval academy because he was just above the max height.
Something funny though happened in the naval academy, he grew even more to 7’1”.
That being said, this naval academy grad did not let that slow him down.
He ended up getting drafted by the San Antonio Spurs.
Played with them for about fourteen years, went to ten all star games, won two championships.
His name, David Robinson.
So, I bring up the story of the Admiral because it highlights the first reason in my mind
why a man should consider custom suits, and that is fit.
If you are a hard to fit guy, you’re 6’9”, 270 lbs, you know, it can be very difficult
to find a suit off-the-rack.
And this applies to any hard to fit individuals.
If you’re 5’2”, if you’re 5’9”, but 350 lbs, you want a suit that’s going
to work for you.
Yes, it’s not going to make you look slim, but you what it is going to make you look?
It’s going to make you look good because the proportions are going to be spot on.
And that’s what you’re going for with custom.
You can actually get the width of the lapels, you can have if that tailor knows what he’s
doing, he’ll adjust the length of the jacket make it work right with those trousers.
He can cut those trousers higher, so you’re using suspenders.
If you’re a smaller guy, he’s going to make sure those lapels are slimmed up, that
the pocket size is just right for your smaller frame.
Now, the problem with a young guy, 18, 19, 20 getting a custom suit is that you’re
body could still be growing.
Seriously, the David Robinson example, that is not farfetched, a lot of guys grow 1 to
2 inches or in the next four to five years, they start to fill out, you gain 10 to 20
lbs around the midsection.
So, if you go with a custom suit that just fits you perfectly when you’re 20 years
old when you’re 24, it just maybe too small, and that’s what you don’t want.
Now, an off-the-rack suit that’s been tailored to fit you can run into the same problems
as a custom suit.
If you get a little bit heavier, if you get a little bit taller, it may not fit you as
well.
But, here is the thing, all things being equal, an off-the-rack suit in general is going to
be less expensive.
And that’s the second point I want to talk about, how much money do you have to spend.
In general, all things being equal, custom suits and especially bespoke suits are going
to cost a lot more.
The difference, bespoke, this is more the art and these are going to be everything that’s
custom made on the suit to the wearer.
Custom suits, a little bit different.
Basically, made to measure where they take pieces and they bring it together, so they
could be pre-made.
Point being is in general, that process is more expensive than finding a suit off-the-rack
that fits you really well and then having it adjusted to fit.
Now, right with cost, let’s talk about all the other things that have to go with the
suit.
So, I look at the suit as a chain.
It doesn’t stand on its own.
It depends on the shoes, it depends on the shirt.
Because if you spend a lot of money on a suit, but you go with cheap shoes, well, it’s
like a chain is as strong as its weakest link.
So, if you spend a lot of money on a custom suit and you don’t spend much because you
haven’t much left on your shoes, all of a sudden it really breaks the outfit brings
it down.
That’s why I think that initially when you’re starting off, if you’re going to spend money
on anything, I do think it’s going to be the foundation of your footwear because you
can build off of those really nice shoes.
And you can find great shoes $200, $300, $400 range, you can definitely get something Blake-
stitched or Goodyear-welted.
That being said, it’s great if you can spend $200 to $300 on the shoes and then $300 to
$400 on a suit which by the way, you can find amazing off-the-rack suits for that price
point and even get them adjusted.
That being said, you can find some custom suits in about that price range, but you really
going to want to make sure it’s a place where you can go into the store, otherwise
I do find that kind of going back and forth, you don’t always get what you want.
And let’s not forget about your shirt, necktie.
At the end of the day, you can easily spend $1,000 on the entire outfit.
So, you got to make sure you got that all put into your budget.
So, how to get the perfect combination?
A great-looking great-fitting suit at a low price as Tai Lopez said, “Knowledge.”
Seriously, gents, watch my videos, I put out over a thousand of these videos.
Go check out Aaron Marino, Raphael Schneider, these guys know what they’re talking about
for the most part and I mean just find the guru that you connect with.
Go read some books, Alan Flusser.
Learn more about this stuff and, gosh, you could walk into a thrift store and find something
great.
Or you can go into any off-the-rack store and be able to quickly determine, okay, is
this the right thing for me, is this a great deal?
I always recommend going into the best menswear store in your area and looking at suits that
can afford, that way you can see what quality looks like.
You can touch it with right between your fingers and then when you see it on sale, you’ll
know what to pounce on.
[0:05:11] And let’s not forget about time.
If you need suit today, off-the-rack is the way to go because you could walk in, you can
buy, it may not fit you perfectly, but you know what?
My wife actually we did this at a wedding.
She adjusted a suit that I rented it and I got that day and, yes, I was forced to.
And she’s like, okay, I can get the sleeve shorter, I can bring it in.
She did this in the van, she’s amazing, on the way to the wedding and we made it happen.
So, adjustments can happen really quick with an off-the-rack suit.
That being said, you are limited to what you can do.
But, custom, it just takes time and oftentimes it’s made outside the United States.
You see a lot of these places actually they have it made over in Asia, maybe you’re
over London, you have it being made there, but you can expect bespoke in London on Savile
Row to take weeks and you’ll have multiple fittings.
So, if you want something fast, you’ve got to go off-the-rack, but if you’ve got a
little bit more time and you want to get exactly what you want, that’s when you go custom.
And speaking of getting what you want, that is the true value of custom because you want
any color suit with any type of fabric, any type of pockets, any type of styles or if
you saw someone in a movie, you can go to a custom clothier and they can build it out.
Now, gents, I know you’ve got an opinion, so I want to hear it down in the comments.
What advice would you give this young man?
Go custom or go off-the-rack for your first suit?
Next up, let’s talk about the style theory of value.
This is a formula I put together where you look at the value of the clothing as the number
wears times the way it makes you feel divided by the cost.
So, if you go out there and buy a $500 suit and you wear it 500 times, the cost per wear,
$1.
Every time you wore that suit, it felt like a million bucks, you got it adjusted to fit
you versus a $200 suit.
Yeah, it was less expensive, but only wore it twice because the two times you wore it,
you had to and you hated wearing it.
You didn’t feel good, it just felt like a box, but the cost per wear, $100.
You see the difference?
Even though you paid less for one, it ended up costing you a lot more because you never
wanted to wear it and you just didn’t get the value out of it.
Now, unfortunately for this young man at the naval academy, he’s not going to have many
opportunities to wear the suit for the next four years when he get his commissioned, he
will be in the navy, thank goodness, he didn’t go army.
Go navy, beat army.
Point being is this guy is going to be on boat, he’s going to be on a submarine, he
may be flying a jet.
Whatever he’s going to be doing, he’s going to have a different uniform.
When he turns 28, 20, you know maybe 30 years old, he may start wearing the suit more, but
at that point, the suit is four to six years old and his body may have changed.
And, yeah, he make it three to four wears, but depending on how much he spends here,
I’m thinking that really he wants to keep the cost low, but at the same time, he wants
to try to get the best fitting best looking suit he can.
So, in case you haven’t figured it out, my advice to this young man is to buy off-the-rack.
I think he’s going to save money, he’s going to save time, and he’ll be able to
get a great starter suit.
That being said, if for some reason he’s really tall, really short, he needs something
that’s going to fit maybe he’s got a very difficult body.
In that case, consider custom because it will get you exactly what you want.
All right.
So, at this point I got you excited about custom suits.
Well, guys, go check out this video right here where I show you how to build a custom
suit online.
I walk you through all the details, how you can explore this as an option.
And even if you’re not considering a custom suit, you want to watch this video because
it just shows you all the options all the things that are possible with this particular
type of built.
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