Originally Posted by venk

A guide to getting tailored clothes in HK having done this for several years in HK now...and having grown up with tailored clothes.

It is a little more complicated than just finding a name as will become clear below:

1. Forget about it if saving money is your primary objective. You can get $180 suits and $20 shirts but they will be crap and not last but will be slightly better than JC Penney store-brand clothes. It is not worth going to HK for this.

2. Finding a good tailor takes time. You will probably go through several of them before you find one you like. Frankly, the biggest problem for any neophytes in tailored clothing is figuring out what they want. There is very often a large gap between what you want the tailor to do and what will look good on you and you will like wearing.

3. An excellent tailor can also be your stylist and listen and suggest without any ego or snobbishness and will be straight with you on what he thinks will look good and what won't. There may be one or two tailors like this in HK but you are better off in the UK or in Milan for such an experience and you will pay through your nose. So do not expect a tailor and stylist all in one.

4. Think of venturing into tailored clothing as a multi-step process where you try out some tailors and you also learn quite a lot in the process.

5. The first thing to do before you set foot in any tailor in HK is find some clothes locally or in Europe that you think fits you very well as well as the fabric type that you like. If your typical practice is to head for the bargain bins in the depatrment stores and decide between plain and striped, then you can pretty much walk into any tailor in HK and come out looking better. Let us assume that you want to do better than that.

6. First thing is to find a training (i.e., for you) tailor. This will be a mid-level tailor such as Ash Samtani, Sam, WW Chang, etc in Kowloon. I would recommend any of them. Not too expensive but not the cheap scams peddling on Nathan road either. Don't expect you will come out looking better than someone wearing custom tailored Armanis in these shops. Try two or three of them initially because a good rapport is very useful.

7. The objective in this training step is to get an idea of what you like and what fits and what doesn't. If you go to a very expensive tailor at this stage, you will waste a lot of clothes that you will never wear even though it is of very high quality because you were wrong about what you thought would look good on you or wanted.

8. For the initial few clothes, don't overspecify what you need in terms of style and fitting. Let these tailors suggest. It is actually very instructive if you take a few of your off-the-rack clothes that you like and show them as examples you like. Now be prepared for them to tell you 100 different things wrong with it. They will point out every minute problem (where it doesn't fit right, where it is too tight/long/bunched/pulling/etc). Their clothes will not be perfect either but they are very good at finding problems with store-bought clothes. The purpose of this is not to get into a debate with them or get defensive about your choice but rather get knowledgeable about what is good and bad fitting.

9. The biggest problem with mid-level tailors in HK is that they are not very creative. They have an expertise in some specific styles and as long as you like them it is ok, otherwise you can expect bad to middling work in output. So the objective at this stage is for you to get comfortable in some clothes that they are comfortable creating. You can specify certain things like tight fit, narrow cut, loose cut, tapered cut, etc., as your preference but you could be wrong about what actually fits you right so just humbly listen first.

10. Allow time for at least 2-3 fittings the first time around. Most of the mid-level tailors will want this although many of them can deliver with one fitting. But this is not a good thing for starting out. Once they have your fittings in their records, subsequent purchases can be done with one fitting unless you are departing significantly in fabric or style.

11. Start with a shirt or two, a pair of trousers and perhaps a suit or may be even just a sport jacket initially. be conservative about fabrics. Do not get their thinnest ones (which tend to crumple very easily and wear badly or their industrial strength wrinkle-proof fabrics which feel like wearing canvas). If you really want to get a feel for fabrics, visit some designer stores preferably in Milan and feel the fabric and structure. Do not listen to the HK tailors for fabric advice. For them, everything they have is good. They will be very reluctant to tell you the problem with certain fabrics. You will have to find out the hard way.

12. In the fitting they will take care of the usual stuff like bunching, stretching, etc., (which is why it is hard to believe that George Bush's suit was bunched up at the back because of tailoring in that infamous shot in the debate, no self-respecting tailor even a cheap one will let that happen). This does not mean you will not have other problems but this is where you learn how to look for standard problems in fitting.

13. Once you have your initial set of clothes, wear them for a while and see how they feel. You may be very disappointed in some of them but hopefully some will feel good and wear well. Try to notice what is good about the ones you like. After a while, you will notice that your store bought stuff no longer feels as good. They have a bit too long/short sleeves, have extra cloth where they shouldn't, etc. Congratulations, you are getting acclimatized to tailored clothing.

14. It is worth going back to the tailor where you got the clothes you like best and getting a few more in the same/similar fabric design. That will give you some basic wardrobe of reasonably fitting clothes. Based on your need for style and fashion, this may be all you need and you can be quite happy with that tailor and continue to re-order.

15. But you will most likely start being even more pickier than you used to be. You will notice some bunching near certain hems, pockets that are too deep or too shallow, etc. You may notice that your suits fits perfectly but doesn't necesarily make you look good in a way that will get noticed - there is lot more to a good-looking suit than just good fitting. And this is where you have grown out of the mid-level HK tailors because unless you can find/select fabrics that you like and work for you and know exactly which style suits you (assuming food fitting) and can express this in detail to the tailor, you are not going to get much better in your clothes with these tailors. You might even feel that the tailor that has worked for you before is slipping in quality/workmanship. He isn't, you are just getting pickier and more aware of what works and what doesn't.

16. This is when you need to graduate to the next level of tailors but this is going to increase the cost roughly about 100%, so you need to decide whether you want to go to that step or not or you are happy with what you have so far. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend any mid-level HK tailor if you have reached this stage because they will not be able to saisfy you.

17. If anyone has reached this stage and has been able to find a tailor he can recommend at the next level. do let me know because I have not found one yet in HK.

Originally Posted by mikel51

I will be in Singapore for a few days at the end of February. My travelling companion and I are thinking about getting some custom shirts and perhaps a suit made.

Can anybody recommend their favorite tailor...and why?

Thanks,
Mike

Originally Posted by mikel51

Thanks for the tailor rec and the reprint from Venk.

I thought I had seen a previous discussion about tailors in Singapore, but I did a search and couldn't find anr posts mentionaing tailor in the Singapore forum. Perhaps they were prior to the Flyertalk change to its current format.

How much would you expect to pay for a shirt from Mode et Creation?