How To Buy Custom Clothing Online - Working With A Foreign Tailor - Buying Menswear Online
Hi!
I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, I'm going to be talking with you about how to effectively work with a tailor who
lives in another country.
All right, if you haven't already, please like this video.
And if you want to, I would love to see you in the comments below.
I try to get to as many as I can.
I always go back and I do read them, gentlemen, and I love hearing from you guys, wherever
you're at in the world.
Okay, so let's go ahead and jump into this.
How do you effectively work with a tailor on the other side of the world?
Now, I'm in the United States and I have orders come in from my custom clothier, A Tailored
Suit, from all over the world.
I also have friends in Bangkok, in Hong Kong, in London, and these gentlemen are working
with clients all over the world, and you may be in a country in which it is very difficult
to find a tailor.
I live in rural United States.
It's very difficult to find a good tailor in a small town that you're not going to have
to drive a few hours, so this also applies if you're wanting to work with a tailor who's
perhaps in another city or in another state.
Basically, post or UPS is going to be your friend because you're going to be FedExing
them the packages back and forth.
So what are some of the problems?
I know many people do not want to work necessarily -- and let me use Bangkok as an example.
In fact, I'm going to use Monte Carlo Tailors.
My friend, Raja, runs Monte Carlo Tailors and I've spoken with him about this, and I'm
going to be using him as the example.
Because I've built a strong relationship with him, he makes a number of my clothes now.
I own a custom clothier and I've got other tailors, but I like to try out.
It's kind of like one of those things if you're a foodie.
You like to go try out different foods in different places.
This is the same thing with clothing especially when you build it and you look at it like
an art.
You want to see what other people are doing.
That's what you have to understand, is that your expectations and what the tailor can
deliver, you need to make sure those are on the same level, so the number one thing is
trust.
You've got to trust that this person is going to do the best that they can, that they are
really wanting to help you, so trust is number one.
Right with that is communication.
You want to be very clear.
It is better to give more detail than to think that somebody can read your mind, so those
two things, and they work very close with one another, but trust and communication because
there are a lot of reasons.
Let's just use again Bangkok.
Why wouldn’t you want to just randomly contact some tailor and work with them if he's over
in Bangkok?
Well, one reason I can tell you is there are a lot of counterfeit fabrics out there.
There are a lot of fly-by-night shops and they will take your money and they will not
give you really what you expected.
They will make something for you and they will use a counterfeit fabric.
They really don't want you as a repeat customer.
They just want that one-time business and you see a lot of it in -- we see it all over
the world, but Bangkok has a very bad reputation for that when it comes to custom clothing,
Vietnam as well, but from those of you that have travelled, there are gems out there.
So counterfeit fabrics, that's one thing people are worried about.
There's also the language barrier.
So sometimes you can be, let's say, you're in Shanghai and you find what looks to be
a great tailor, but he doesn’t speak English.
So all of a sudden, you've got this language barrier that you've got to overcome.
There's also the distance issue, so just because we're farther apart from somebody means that
we're less likely to trust them, and this is actually why people, for the longest time,
we married people that were within like a mile of us.
For most of human history, we coupled with other human beings that were very close.
As we've started to travel more, all of a sudden, that has shifted.
I mean, I met my wife on the other side of the world.
But getting back to tailors, in a sense, this is a long-term relationship.
And looking at it that way and being willing to put on a little bit extra work, you can
get a much bigger reward because otherwise you're going to be stuck working with perhaps
the person that calls themselves a tailor, but they're not really a tailor and they don't
even know what they're doing.
I would rather work with someone remotely.
And there are going to be people that say -- because there are a lot of horror stories
out there and there are going to be people that say, "It can't be done.
It is too complicated."
You can't tell me that.
They are doing surgery from one side of the world to the other through a computer that
connects to a robot and they are doing surgical procedures from one side of the world to the
other.
You can't tell me that you can't find a way to communicate and to work with a person.
I'm going to give you a few steps on how I do it, so let's go ahead and jump into it.
What are the steps?
Well, the number one thing is I like to send, I mean besides the communication and the trust,
I like to send sample clothing to a tailor for the first time that I'm going to be working
with.
A lot of people will say, "Well, no, I want to build a pattern from scratch."
Well, that's good.
The tailor, I tell him to build a pattern from scratch, but I want him to have what's
called a block jacket or a block pair of trousers or a block shirt, and this is something that
I know that it's a known quantity that this fits me.
I'll just use this example of a pair of trousers.
If I know these trousers fit me well and they fit me well in the crotch area, they're perfect
in length on the outseam, I can send these to a tailor.
I may want minor adjustments.
Let's say there's a little bit too much room in the leg, I can tell him to remove that
and he has, at least, a place he can start from.
So he will usually build the pattern from my measurements.
Then I'll tell him to take basically the block trousers, and to compare based off of what
I've told him that I like and I dislike, and then we can get to something that is very
close, I think, to perfection.
And if you don't have it, go to Goodwill, go to a thrift store, go to the Salvation
Army, and find a pair of trousers.
They don't even have to look great.
They can be from a fabric that you would never wear, but the fit needs to be spot on.
And if necessary, have them adjusted.
Once you have these perfect pair of trousers, then it's simply finding a tailor that you
can start to work with.
Now, I'm going to recommend Raja over at Monte Carlo Tailors.
I'm not getting any money from Raja.
He simply went through my style system.
I've gotten to know this gentleman over the last year and I've got a sample of his work
right here.
Now, the great part about this is that to have somebody locally make trousers by a tailor
who only makes trousers let's say two or three times a year, because that's not their specialty,
they're going to have to charge a lot more and you may not even get a better product,
versus someone that this is their specialty, even though they're on the other side of the
world, you can leverage that.
And so, all of a sudden, you're working with this specialist who produces hundreds, if
not thousands of pairs of custom-made trousers every year.
And you're working to get them those materials, so you send them the actual sample.
So you've got the tailor, you've sent them the samples, and within usually a couple of
weeks, they'll get you your first one back.
Now, you don't want to have five pairs made for you at one time.
Pay the extra postage and get the one pair delivered to you along with your sample.
That way, you can inspect and you can make a decision, "Is it worth continuing this relationship?"
So you really take a lot of risk out of the equation.
It does cost a little more upfront because you're having to spend 40 bucks to ship it
to Bangkok, but on the other hand, if you're going to be making a smart investment like
with four to five pairs of really nice trousers such as grey flannels or maybe you want to
go with maybe a cotton khaki, all of a sudden, this is going to really pay off because you're
going to get very close, if not perfect, on the first one.
And then you can go ahead and have them fulfill the rest of the order.
So right there, we saw how that works with trousers.
It can work with shirts as well.
Jackets are a little bit harder, although I do advice if you've got a jacket that is
well-made but it's falling apart and you love everything about it, make sure before you
send any of these clothing off to take pictures and to measure it yourself so that you know
what the measurements are so that you can talk on the phone or talk via email and make
sure that they've got it.
Also make sure when you send it, it's labeled properly.
I like to even staple my name and everything on the trousers because tailor shops, they
get crazy.
Those guys are just throwing fabrics everywhere and doing it, flips over tables and stuff
like that -- no, they're not, but in my world I can imagine it because not much goes on
in tailor shops.
So guys, that's how I would break it out.
And you, by doing that, by putting in that extra bit of work, you can really reduce the
risk and increase the chances that you're going to get a well-fitted pair of trousers.
You can use this on shirts.
You can use this on jackets.
You can use this on vests, pretty much anything, any piece of clothing out there.
Okay guys, I hope you've enjoyed the video.
Don't forget I have a free 47-page e-book on Men's Style, a link to it right down below.
Just go grab it.
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And every week, I try to send out good quality information or I let you know about things
like the style system or some of my other courses that I have going on.
Take care.
I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.