Welcome back to the gentleman's Gazette!
In today's video, we discuss how to spot an expensive suit or a quality suit and I discuss
the 15 hallmarks to help you identify them.
No, I'm not talking about fit, if you want to learn more about how a suit should fit,
please check out this series here.
In the same vein, if you want to learn how to spot an inexpensive cheap suit, please
check out this video.
One, take a look at the label.
A suit label can tell you a lot.
Whether it's a brand that produces off-the-rack suits or higher-end made-to-measure suits,
if you know the brand, you know exactly what kind of quality level it's at.
For example, for Ralph Lauren, there is Ralph Lauren purple label which is their highest
line and the most expensive one, black label is less expensive and tailored with a trimmer
fit, Polo Ralph Lauren is again less expensive and then they have lower end lines like chaps
from Ralph Lauren which is really low end.
On the other hand, double RL has kind if a vintage aesthetic, it's also a little more
expensive.
So understanding the brands that you're interested in and whose aesthetic you like is paramount
in identifying an expensive suit.
If you’re into vintage quality, if you're lucky, sometimes you can find custom or bespoke
suits at tailors.
Now sometimes these come from different countries.
Now if it says custom tailor or bespoke tailor, chances are it's a higher-end suit.
Also, the address can help if something says Savile Row on it, or Via Monte Napoleone in
Milan, you know it comes from an expensive street and chances are it's an expensive garment.
On most bespoke suits, you cannot see the label right away, therefore, you have to look
on the inside pockets.
Don't be fooled if you can’t find any composition labels or fabric labels because most bespoke
suits won’t tell you what fabric it is, or what material composition the lining is
made of, so if you've looked inside the pockets and inside the entire jacket and you can't
find any care labels, or material labels, chances are it's a very expensive suit.
The second thing you can look at is the rounded corners.
On a custom-made suit such as this one, the tailor took very great care to round the corners
so they wear not prematurely, you will see the same rounding at the tips of the lapels
which is where most companies do it, however, they don't do it at the bottom of the jacket
or at the ends of the sleeves.
Of course, that alone it's not a quality hallmark but if the corners are rounded, it just tells
you that the rest is of high quality as well.
The third thing to look in detail is a so-called pick stitching.
It's a slight stitching along the edge of the suit and traditionally, it was only been
able to make my hand so back in the day, you can just look at it a suit and if it was there,
it was a quality suit and it was gone it wasn’t.
Because of that, some nifty Germans developed a machine called the AMF machine and it creates
a stitch that looks like handmade from afar but generally, it is very obvious.
You can really spot it when you turn it around and look at the stitching from the back.
Traditionally, a suit from England, or let's say Germany, had a very subtle stitching that
was only noticeable upon closer inspection; Italian suits on the other hand, may have
more flashy pick stitching and usually, you find it in the areas of the lapel and the
collar all the way down the front quarters.
Sometimes, you can also find pick stitching along the back seams, as well as the sleeves,
and if you encounter that, you know it's a quality suit because that's not something
that's done on inexpensive garments.
Four, look at the stitching on the inside, a high-end suit will usually have a fair amount
of handwork in it, that means, the lining is sewn by hand.
You can check it on the sleeves, you can check the armhole which should be set in by hand,
and you can look at the little details and see whether it’s a hand stitch or a machine
stitch.
The character of a hand stitch is that is slightly irregular, the hand stitch is more
flexible than a machine stitch and because of that, it moves with you which makes you
look better and feel more comfortable.
In the same vein, when you have the suit in front of you, you can flip over the lapel
and look for little pick stitching in the back.
That is done when you have a interlined canvas and it gives you that lapel roll that's so
desirable.
On a cheaper suit, you get flat ironed lapels and that's not what a tailored garment is.
Sometimes, you can see the stitching very clearly, other times you can just slightly
feel it and slight dimples from the back but it's hard to see because either the thread
is too fine or it’s the same color, or it's just not so obvious.
High-end expensive suits should always have either a full canvas or no canvas at all that
is all sewn.
There should be no glue involved, not even a half canvas suit.
To learn more about that, please check out our video here.
Five, look underneath the collar.
Pop open your collar and look carefully how it’s sewn on.
A cheaper or inexpensive suit, will be machine sewn versus a quality high end expensive suit,
will be hand sewn.
With little practice, you can determine what is a hand sewn collar because again, you see
irregular stitches.
Oftentimes, you see finer stitches sometimes you see contrast stitches whereas the machine-made
collar is usually with a triangle stitch or just a very regular stitch that's very stiff
and not flexible.
The sixth thing to look at is pattern matching.
A high-end suit will have a match pattern.
It's easiest to check that if you have let's say a windowpane suit, maybe a prince of wales
check with an over plaid, or a striped suit.
On a solid suit, it's hard to see that skill because there's no pattern that you can really
match.
On a suit like I'm wearing right now with a fine herringbone, some tailors even they’re
very high-end, they don't pay that much attention to pattern matching so it’s not a good way
to distinguish it, however, on a striped suit, you can look at these stripes on the pockets
for example, in the front, if the flaps line up with the lines of the torso, it's likely
a very high-quality suit.
Some tailors even line up the stripes in the back of the collar with your back or on the
gorge which is the part between the collar and the lapel.
Now, you can have an expensive suit that doesn't have matched stripes there, however, on the
side of the pants for example, you should always find a nicely matched pattern.
On top of that, the back of the suit should also have a nicely matched pattern and if
you have a windowpane, it should be aligned and the stripes should be symmetrical.
So these are all good points to look at, the pattern matching, because on a high-end suit,
they're usually matched.
On the cheaper ones, they're definitely not.
Seven, look at the buttonholes.
A high-end expensive suit will always have handmade buttonholes that are a piece of art.
If they're machine made, they should be of the highest quality, have a very fine stitch,
have maybe a gimp on them, and you can sometimes see it on bespoke suits, but most of the time,
it's a hand stitch buttonhole.
How can you identify one?
Turn it on the backside and you will see a slightly irregular stitch versus in the front,
it looks very irregular.
Also sometimes, it is raised such as for example, on a Milanese buttonhole, it’s a finer silk
thread with a GIMP thread underneath and it certainly looks very different than a regular
bespoke buttonhole.
On the other hand, a cheaper suit oftentimes has fraying buttonholes.
The stitching is not as fine, it's very regular, and the front and back and that's how you
can identify if you're an expensive suit or a cheap suit.
Eight, look at the fabric reserve.
Sometimes, an expensive suit has a half lining or is completely unlined and then you can
actually look in the back seam in the center.
If there's a fabric reserve, you know you can only really test that if you hold it against
the light source if there's a lining, but an easier way to check the fabric reserve
is the pants.
Just flip them over and look at the sides and see if there's some fabric reserve.
At least, you want at least two to three centimeters or one inch sometimes, there's two inches
of reserve and it shows you it was made by a quality maker because cheaper suits usually
save on the fabric and it doesn't give you any room to expand or tailor a suit.
Nine, look for grinze.
If you have an Italian-made garment or anything from southern Europe, chances are you’ll
see a kind of wavy pattern of fabric in the back.
Sometimes, you can see it in shirts but also in suits, as well as sleeve hats, what I mean
by that is a slight puckering which is produced by adding more fabric to let's say the sleeve
hat, or the back in the shoulder.
Some people like that because I think it adds a nonchalant sprezzatura element to their
garments, other people who are maybe of a Viennese school, may be a German tailoring
school, or English tailoring school, think it is not proper.
In any case, if you see it, you know it's a more expensive garment because usually,
that’s done by hand and cannot be done in a factory really and therefore, it’s a good
hallmark to see it but it's not very reliable because it’s only seen in southern European
or Italian suits.
Ten, look at the buttons.
A high-end suit has high-quality buttons.
The standard is horn buttons and sometimes in Savile Row houses, they only have two holes
versus the majority of all suits including some other bespoke suits, have four holes.
That being said, if you find two hole buttons that have a slight indent, chances are it
is a high-end suit.
Even if you find four holes, it can be a high-end suit, it can be made from corozo such as you
see it in Italy a lot, or horn, sometimes people even go with mother-of-pearl, even
precious metals such as gold.
The hallmark of a horn button, or a Corozo, or a mother of pearl button, is that they’re
not consistent versus cheap plastic buttons often look exactly the same.
Those will also break versus horn buttons are very unlikely to break just like corozo.
So look for the holes and inconsistencies and if you can find that, it's likely an expensive
suit.
Eleven, you have to look at the shoulder construction and how it falls.
For example, when you combine this side with a sleeve, you have fabric ends on both sides.
If you fold them both towards the shoulder you create a shirt style shoulder which is
also known as SPALLA CAMICIA in Italian, it's a very distinctive look and if you see that,
you know it is most likely a custom bespoke garment that is expensive and not a cheap
off the rack suit.
Basically, all off-the-rack suits and also some higher-end suits, have the shoulder and
fold this way and the sleeve end folded that way.
It gives you a less pronounced look of the shoulder seam and sometimes you find people
who fold both of them towards the sleeve side and they may even add a little bit of extra
layer in there to get a slightly elevated shoulder seam sleeve head which then drapes
nicely down on the sleeve.
It's just a very nice look and you need a little experience for that because it's not
easy to spot for a beginner, but once you're more into suits, you can immediately see what
kind of shoulder it is.
Twelve, look for material label.
A high-end suit brand such as Ralph Lauren purple label will have material labels with
100% wool.
They may give you super numbers, they may have cashmere in it, the lining is usually
made out of pro or a ,there may be silk or cotton, but never polyester or nylon, even
viscose is a lower-end option so look for these materials that are good.
If you can't find a material just as I said before, chances are it's a bespoke suit and
it’s an expensive one.
Thirteen, look at the trousers waistband.
If you have a pair of Hollywood rousers that means there's no separate detached waistband
but the pants are just held all the way up, and either you have suspender buttons, or
belt loops.
If you encounter that, you know you have an expensive suit because that's not something
that's made in a commercial off the rack or even a cheap suit.
To learn more about hallmarks of quality pants and how pants should fit, please check out
this video here.
Fourteen, look for monograms on the inside, maybe some secret pockets, but the inside
of a suit will often tell you if there were customizations done and if that's the case,
chances are it was a more expensive suit than something that has no customizations whatsoever.
Now that you know how to spot an expensive suit, make sure to watch the video on how
to spot a cheap suit because some of the hallmarks are similar, some are different, but it will
definitely help you to always find a good suit and leave behind the crap suit.
On top of that, we have lots of video about suits so head over to our Channel and watch
a hundred versus a thousand dollar suit 500 versus $5000 or how a suit should fit.
I promise you, you watch all of this video you'll be a suit expert in no time.
In today's video, I'm wearing a vintage bespoke suit that wasn't tailored for me but I found
at a vintage suit using those hallmarks I just mentioned in the video, it’s tailored
in 1930s silhouette with wider lapels with a low Gorge it has nice three patch pockets
it has no vent the fabric is a wonderful tobacco Brown small herringbone that is rich in color
and just beautiful the fabric drapes well the pants are cut a little wider and there
was enough fabric reserve in there to make it work for my big thighs there was also enough
fabric so I could have a nice cuff added which is something you will only get from bespoke
garments because cheaper suits just won't have enough fabric my shirt was custom made
for me from a nice cotton twill flannel it has a classic collar I'm pairing it with a
purple madder silk tie with a small paisley pattern from Fort Belvedere which you can
find at our shop the pocket square is likewise madder silk with a larger pattern it picks
up the tones of green and purple and just creates a harmonious look it's also from Fort
Belvedere just like my over the calf socks which are purple and teal you can find all
Fort Belvedere accessories in our shop here the cufflinks I'm wearing are vintage it's
a sterling silver pair made of cloisonne enamel with a two-tone pattern the ring that I'm
wearing is sterling silver it's blue it works with a cufflinks and the shirts and the shoes
I'm wearing are chocolate brown double monks from shoe passion that I paired with a matching
belt wit ha silver buckle I'm also wearing a tiger's eye tie clip which goes well with
my suit and contrasts a tie to learn more about tie clips and tie bars please check
out these videos here and sign up for a free email newsletter so you get free ebooks with
how-tos and lots of knowledge right to your inbox thank you