the footprints as your guide.
(upbeat music)
- Very, very awkward.
Hey guys, I'm Brent Rose
a.k.a. the best-dressed man in an otherwise empty room.
Once upon a time, all suits were bespoke.
They were status symbols,
handcrafted by the finest tailors in the land.
Or at least by a relative you could blackmail
into sewing you one.
But that's how it was for hundreds of years.
It wasn't until as recently as the 1950s
when advances in the manufacturing process
made cheaper, off-the-rack suits the norm,
and forced a lot of the custom made shops out of business.
And yet, even to this day,
suits are the item we associate most
with the word bespoke.
And while that old-world craftsmanship
still very much exists in places like Savile Row,
right here in the U.S.,
a new generation of suit makers
is blending tradition with technology in innovative ways.
Button up your britches, this is Bespoke America.
Are britches not suspenders?
What are britches?
Can we google that?
One of the biggest problems with custom suits
is in the fitting process.
Hand-measuring is slow, labor-intensive,
and susceptible to human error.
But a company called Alton Lane
lets the robots handle that step
using a 26-camera, 3D body scanner
to get every one of my measurements
down to a tenth of an inch.
And then a computer-controlled laser cutter
to keep it just that precise.
We had to go check it out.
- Hey, you must be Brent.
- Yes.
- Hey man, I'm Peyton.
Nice to meet you.
- Thanks for having us.
- Oh, thanks for coming, come on in.
- All right.
- Welcome to Alton Lane, Tribeca.
- All right, so this is the digs, huh?
- This is the digs.
My business partner, we had the exact same issue,
nothing fit us off the rack.
And so that was really the original impetus for Alton Lane.
The term bespoke actually comes from England
where a tailor would say
"This fabric is bespoken for fill-in-the-blank," right.
You know, custom was not just for the elite.
It was a manner in which
most people got their formal clothing.
So, why don't we get started?
- All right.
- First things first,
can I offer you a drink?
- Sure.
Is that the idea?
Like you feed me enough whiskey
and I think I look good in anything?
- 100 percent.
- Yeah, I'll be like, just give me the paisley.
It's all good.
- What's the main reason for this suit?
- I mean, I don't wear a lot of suits.
I'm a dirtbag journalist.
- Yeah.
- I honestly have no idea what's cool right now
in suit world.
- What I recommend is
let's go with this slightly more medium blue hue.
- That's slick.
- That's what's called a Glen plaid.
- Ah.
That looks good to me.
I think.
- The lining.
- Shoot.
This is really tough.
Oh, and I kinda like the pulp.
- Not gonna let you do the paisley though.
- No paisley.
- You can get a hacking pocket
that is at a slight angle
just to provide a little bit of, you know, jazz.
The last button-hole,
any of these colors you can choose.
I'm wearing the notched lapel.
We also have the peak lapel.
- Could we talk vest?
Is that a thing?
- Oh, yeah, sure.
- You can get up to 18 characters.
No curse words.
- Rose.
- Very cool.
- You ready?
- Ready. - All right, let's do it.
Let's go to the fit lab.
Straight through this secret bookcase.
- Oh, no way.
- Yeah.
- Oh this is very "Kingsman."
- Yeah, it is.
(laughs)
- All right, so this is our 3D body scanner.
Get down to your boxers or briefs.
It's gonna map your outermost layer
in perfect detail every time.
Far more so than a human can.
Most important thing:
stand at your normal posture.
All right.
You let me know when you're ready Brent.
- All right, I think I'm in position.
- [Automated Voice] Position yourself using the footprints
as your guide.
Grasp the handles on both sides
and stand straight.
Relax your arms and shoulders, and remain still.
Measuring begins in three,
two,
one.
- Very, very awkward.
- All right, you're all good.
- All right.
- Did you know you have a low right shoulder?
- I do know that.
Or a high left shoulder.
(laughs)
- Whoa.
So each of these lines is a different measurement?
How many measurements are there?
- So they take over 300 measurements.
You know, the actual circumference of your ankles,
to the circumference of your wrist.
- All of these individual measurements here,
are those all getting shipped off
to whomever is cutting the fabric?
- Yeah, not every single one of them,
because it would be overkill.
- All right, so just have a seat.
So, today we submit your order.
Everything goes through to our factory,
we order your fabric,
the suit will be made over the next four to five weeks.
It gets shipped here
and if there are any adjustments,
which can be necessary sometimes,
we then do that locally.
Then we're kinda all set.
- All right, let's time warp forward.
All right so it's been a few weeks.
Now we are back at Alton Lane
and so is my suit.
So, let's go see what we got.
- Welcome, suit looks amazing.
- All right, moment of truth.
I feel like a kid on Christmas.
Woohoo.
Oh man.
Look, look.
It's got my name, right in the collar.
In a rose color.
- Come on out.
- Let's dissect this.
- So you can see that the seam comes right here
to your shoulder point
so they're sitting right where they should.
And then it allows for this nice, tapered look.
You actually still have enough room
to be able to move and to be comfortable.
- Yeah.
- There ya go.
That's the most important move.
But most importantly,
I wanna know how you feel.
- Yeah, it feels really good.
It's got cool lines. - Yeah.
- I really like the pattern a lot.
It doesn't look too 1930s.
- For sure, for sure.
- You'll never take me alive, see?
I'd completely forgotten that it would
have the liner on the back.
I don't look like a card dealer do I?
- This looks awesome.
- I love the way the suit fits.
I really like the look of it.
I love the pattern.
Yeah, I feel awesome.
It really does.
Yeah, this is so cool.
So let's talk conclusions.
Our bodies are nearly as different from each other
as our fingerprints are.
So when you paint in broad-strokes,
you can service a large portion
of the population,
but some individual nuance is lost.
Some human nook or cranny
or asymmetric measurement
just misses the translation.
And that's fine.
But it isn't perfect.
- Look really good.
- Very much diggin' it.
I feel pretty.
But now, technology is paving the way
for a new era of Bespoke suits
that are faster to make,
cheaper, and more accessible to more people.
And they straight up feel amazing.
I mean I've literally never worn anything
that fit as nicely as this.
Little bit of that
little bit of this
And I feel like I could own any stage,
or dance floor,
or hell, even fashion shoot.
In fact (record screech)
bring in the professional photographer.
I'm ready for my m--(bleep) closeup.
- Uh huh.
(camera shutter)
Put your hands on your hips.
The other one.
Yep.
Bring your forehead toward me.
Like a turtle.
Yep.
Come at me, come at me.
Talk to me, talk to me.
Now show.
Yeah!
Get it!
You don't care.
Just pour, it doesn't matter.
In the glass, outta the glass.
Peekaboo peekaboo who's that?
(laughs)
(camera shutters)
Thanks for staying classy with us.
To see more of the art and science behind custom
check back for another
Bespoke America.
(upbeat music)
- [Photographer] Give me a little cheers, cheers me.
Hi.
(coughs)
That's somethin'.
(upbeat music)
(cards flipping)