The journey to find my bespoke suit — Part V

The journey finding my bespoke suit is a long one. You can read all three previous parts here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

It was seven weeks ago when I first went to Michael Andrews Bespoke. It was seven weeks ago that I entered the promised land of fine clothing, a place that would help create a most handsome set of garments for me. And seven weeks is what it took for me to become the proud owner of a bespoke suit.

I was rather satisfied with the fit of the try-on suit, but I still left a little bit unsure about what the final product would be like. I was a little nervous. To me, getting this suit was like having a baby: I handed over my likeness along with my financial commitment, with no guar­antee of complete satis­faction. I was worried: what if I didn’t look good in a two-button dual-vent suit with a ticket pocket? I had always had three-button suits and the last time I tried a two-button one it was horrendous. Even with the try-on suit, I wasn’t sure what it would feel like, what it would truly look like with my chosen cloth. The try-on was plain black, thick and a little unwieldy: what would my real suit be like? The pockets were not there either, so I had no clue how the slanted pockets and ticket pocket would affect my image. I started second-guessing whether or not it was truly bespoke, or if I was paying out the wazoo for a sham of a suit. I had as many concerns as the Michael Andrews Bespoke had my dollars.

So when the day came that my actual suit had arrived for a final fitting, I was nervously excited. After all those visits, all the fittings, I would finally come to see the fruits of our collab­o­rative efforts. I went back to the studio. It was an appar­ently quiet day, with only Clark and Marian manning the stations. My suit was hung up by the mirror, ready for my appraisal. I closed the curtains and donned my new custom tailored façade.

Emerging from the billows of cloth, and taking a step back from the mirror, I looked at myself. My hair was a little tussled from removing my sweater. I was sweating a little from I deemed to be their overly warm ther­mostat. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and took a deep breath.

The image in the mirror was a sight to behold. A man in a ill-fitting Calvin Klein suit had walked into the studio seven weeks ago. Today, that man would walk out with a suit that was impressive, respectful, handsome, and irresistible.

I looked at my reflection and admired my suit. It was perfectly propor­tioned, cutting a flat­tering figure. My shoulders were no longer overly large, and my stout stature no longer appeared boxy and cumbersome. The cloth draped nicely, the way water flows off the crest of a stream in an elegantly smooth sheet. I touched the cloth and rubbed it between my fingers. It was no longer a stiff and rough arti­ficial darkness prescribed by Calvin Klein, but a tender black wool that was pleasing to the touch. I looked at my sleeves, whose buttons were fully func­tional, with a myste­rious burgundy gros­grain peeking out from under­neath the plackets. The button­holes were sharply defined: they were not the machine sewn variety seen on less fortunate suits.

The waistcoat was a fine one that fit me like a second skin. I was pleased at my decision to go with a vest: I would now have four extra pockets to use. Not only did the waistcoat have serve a util­i­tarian need, it enhanced the already respectful and ritzy look of my suit, elevating the outfit above most of the other suits walking about on the streets of New York. It had its own distinct image, one that could evoke a different feel depending on its wearer’s demeanor and choice in style of wear.

Again I gazed upon my silhouette with admi­ration. Finally, I was graced by clothing that was not ill-fitted to the large legs I developed from leg-pressing too much. My trousers stream­lined the lower half of my figure. The jacket was beau­ti­fully cut: it conformed nicely to my waist while avoiding constriction. In my old sack suit, my figure was hidden beneath the generic and overly spacious cut. My bespoke suit carved away at that old blobbish image, in its place a flat­tering and more attractive silhouette that brought balance to my large features. I was impressed at how my clothing now reflected my internal state: an unmoving confi­dence, with an under­stated and barely percep­tible sense of mystery. My slightly thick neck and broad shoulders felt liberated: I had a greater range of movement than I did when wearing, well, most anything but T-shirts and such. I wiggled my legs, stretched out my arms, and bent down as if tying my shoe. It felt wonderful. It felt as though I may as well have not been wearing any clothes at all. The fact that I could move so comfortably while dressed so elegantly was an incredible freedom.

I stayed in front of the mirror admiring the birth of this fine sartorial work while Clark tucked away at various parts of my suit to check for the fit. Marian was quite vocal about her satis­faction of the final product. I was thor­oughly satisfied, save for the fact that they failed to ask me if I was left-handed: the pen pocket on the inside of the jacket was on the wrong side. They packed away my excel­lently tailored suit in a nice garment bag that had handles on either end. My bespoke shirt was also boxed up: a pinpoint oxford cotton in white with a barely percep­tible dotted texture that provided a solid look and feel to it, with a French cuff with slanted corners. Before I left, I suggested to Clark that they put a little checkbox on the form: “Are you left-handed?” If I were a more patient man who cared immensely about the placement of the pen pocket, I would’ve held the Michael Andrews Bespoke to their satis­faction guar­antee. However, the truth is that it’s not all that important to me, and I already felt that seven weeks was long enough to wait.

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