[Frost]

I'm currently in Southeast Asia, and I want to buy a classy as fuck wardrobe while I have the chance to do it for less than a hundred thousand dollars. Much obliged to anyone who can give me some info on:

1) Where to buy.

Hoi An is infamous for it's tailors and I'll be rolling through in a month or two. I also have a few spots in Bangkok that an expat friend recommended to me, but the price/value in Hoi An seems superior. Does anyone have any experience picking up high-quality suits in Hoi An or elsewhere? How do you differentiate a good tailor from a chump? Good fabric from mediocre?

I am willing to drop some serious cash (by Vietnemese standards) on top quality gear, but I want to avoid paying for suits/shoes/etc that are merely good. Like I said, I want to build a wardrobe today that I will still be proud of when I'm 40.

If anyone has a tailor to recommend, or better yet a guy you trust who you can introduce me to, I would much rather go on that than the top rated on trip advisor.


2) What to buy.

I'm 26 and would like to put together a wardrobe that can last me into middle age. The look I am going for is ultra-slick, classic, refined, true-mothafuckin-playa. I read the fashion thread, but a fun question for the older G's on the board - if you were in my position right now, what would be on your shopping list?

I'm 6'3, a lean 210lbs, and white. If you're stylistically inclined and think that seeing a few pictures of me would help you give better advice for which colours to make use of, please PM me.

3) What I should expect to pay.

For top-quality suits, shirts, shoes and accessories.

Thanks in advance for advice, prior experiences, and recommendations.

Cheers,

Frost

[Soma]

Start by reading this: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/th...ID=1207953

I've recently looked into this extensively thinking it would be a cheap way to get some nice, bespoke suits as there are so many tailors in the region, especially Bangkok and Hoi An as you mentioned. Unfortunately, Southeast Asia is just not a good place for it, especially if you're looking for an "ultra-slick, classic, refined, true-mothafuckin-playa" suit. Sure, you can pay $250 to a random Indian tailor in Bangkok for two suits + five shirts, but they'll look like shit and last less than a month. The general quality in Hoi An is even worse. There's a reason that anyone here that can afford to buys off the rack at a high end fashion house like Armani or Zegna and not from the local tailor. Having said that, there are a couple places in Bangkok that can make a passable business conservative suit, the kind of thing an executive or politician, as opposed to a young, fashion-conscious player, would wear, but then you're looking at $1000+ for something decent with little guarantee that it'll end up how you envisioned. Narin Couture comes well recommended for suits and Milan Suit has a reputation for making good shirts.

A better bet than Southeast Asia would be Hong Kong, but then the price, of course, goes up as well. Bottom line: if you're looking for a high quality, contemporary or classic, stylish suit you'll either have to buy off the rack from a famous design house or take a visit to a bespoke tailor in NYC/London/Italy.

[WestIndianArchie]

peep http://www.styleforum.net.

Thailand tailors get a very bad rap. Most of the great tailors in that part of the world are in Hong Kong or Japan generally. Neither of which are particularly close.

If you're just buying clothes to swoop, by all means, do Thailand. But if you're doing business with men who wear suits, they'll notice how bad the suits are.

>How do you differentiate a good tailor from a chump?
>Good fabric from mediocre?

At your stage in the game, you probably can't distinguish either
- working jacket buttons
- hand sewn button holes
- fully canvased
- spalla camicia? roped, natural, shoulders?
- high arm holes
- deep gorges
- properly ironed lapels
- where the lapel fits on the suit - if it's high up, it's harder to do

With fabric, you want good "hand", which means it feels good in your hands. #'s mean nothing. (super 120's super 150's are marketing garbage) Mills might mean something, but then you have to learn about all the different wool mills.

And then even if you understand construction, you need to understand design, design for yourself, and consider use.

I would personally hold off, unless you desperately need suits. Especially if you're looking for investment suits, and by the time you hit 40, most of those suits won't fit.

[OSL]

Hong Kong broseph.

[basil]

I've still got a lot to learn in terms of fashion, style and tailoring so dont take my advice and recommendations as gospel.

Jan 2010 I was on a 5 week tour round Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. In the back of my mind going in to the trip I had thought about getting a suit or at least shirt and pants. I was overwhelmed in Thailand by all the options, sprukiers an was honestly turned off the idea.

I had intended to go see Rajawongse in Bangkok, which had been recommended by a friends and I had also read this review by awesome blogger Tynan. Overwhelmed and lacking time there I did not go.

In Hoi An again I was overwhelmed by amount of tailors, in some streets it seemed like every second or third shop was a tailor operation. Most of them are in fact really just sales fronts and showrooms run by a handful of groups that do the work off site. I really couldn't decide on where to go and

A mutual female friend of my traveling partner and I had recommended a little tailor shop near our great hotel Thien Thanh (which I'd highly recommend, beautiful place and they employed some stunning girls who were always parading around in nice fitting silk gowns), she previously had some dresses and a silk gown made and gave us the details and money to get her a new gown made. We were really impressed by the woman (sorry I cant recall her name) who ran the tiny little place, Thanh Na Cloth Shop, seemingly on her own. I can barely find a mention of it on the web, but ive included a pic of the business card, if your interested I hope they are still there.
There is a lil show room in the front with some samples of mens and womens and out back is her work room and storage for all the fabric she had in stock. She didn't have many actual swatches of fabric to sample so i was digging through the huge piles of fabric looking for what I liked the look and feel of.

I decided to have a pair of slacks and a shirt made, the samples out front looked fairlly well made and I found some cloth that seemed good to me but I wasnt really ready to gamble on a suit. I allready had a pretty nice suit that was quite good off the rack before I had it alterd to fit great. Also I still had a lot of travel to do, was traveling light and didnt want to lug around possibly destroy the suit - did not even think of posting it home. With the fabric selected she gave me a quote, i did some bargining - not too much, I didnt want to piss off the person making my stuff and ended up with the nice round figure of $40 USD, after she was orginally quoting in VND (dong the local currency) - i think it was maybe 900k dong. You can see i paid approx half (400k) as deposit in dong, then when happy i paid final $20 USD. We orderd one afternoon, had fitting following night after dinner, and after little alteration on final day there at lunch time I paid rest and left town. I was quite happy with eventual products, they have both recived quite a bit of wear and stood up well in terms of both the fabric and the construction. I've thrown up a few poor camera phone pics of them, perhaps someone more knoweldagable than me can critique the work on them.

   

   

   

   

   

   



My friend got this weird custom jacket made that came out really well, brown almost corduroy fabric, toggle button up, well lined in contrasting green, roll-up sleeves, detachable hoodie, loaded with awesome pockets. He just told her what he wanted and somehow she produced something that looked quite cool in under 3 days.


My advice:
* Go over every detail, pockets, buttons, cuffs, collars. Tell them how you want it cut / to fit. I'm a big guy and I didnt really specify in initial instructions how I wanted them cut and she was making both my shirt and pants quite baggy in the the initial fitting - prob based on previous demands from big customers. I had to tell her no, I want it cut slimmer, I want it to fit, not hang off me like anything off the rack. If you dont tell them exactlly what you want you take pot lock and will most likelly be dissapointed.
* Even better than telling them what you want, show them. If you have a great shirt take that with you and say make another just like it. If you want a baller suit, take good detiled pics of one and show them.
* Take your time. Give yourself and the tailor plenty of days to have proper fittings, review and make changes. Dont be rushed when reviewing the clothes - check everything, question everything. If they are in a rush, go somewhere else. Unfortunatelly I was only in Hoi An for few days so I only had one fitting, then final fitting, where there were few small things I wasnt happy with - fortunatelly she fixed them imediatlly and I paid and was on my to the next town.
* If your not happy when they tell you its finished, tell them to fix it. Most place will have you pay a deposit up front, but dont pay the rest until your are completely happy.

[basil]

Bump, keen to know how things went frorst.