Q. What makes your clothes different or any better than any other tailor’s.?
A. They Fit better and with less effort.

Q. How do you know?
A. When we had 12 outside salespeople for 10 or 15 years and we were selling 250 suits per month and over the years more than 100 workshops and custom suit manufactures flew in from all over the world to make free suits to fit me to try to win our business. Not a single suit fit anything like ours. Many tried 4 or 5 times. Even the Italian suppliers of $10,000 suits couldn’t give us precise measurements because their standard patterns couldn’t produce the combination of measurements of our patterns! I’ve also had suits made in dozens of countries, often with 2 or 3 fittings. Not a single suit or jacket has fit like ours and if they were close, the quality of workmanship was inferior. Those suits that were well made in the western countries, never fit! The suits in the Orient, fit better, but the quality of workmanship was very inferior. We’ve never sold a single suit to a customer from one of those suppliers, nor have I ever worn one of those trial suits more than once or twice!

Q. How could you not wear all of those suits?
A. For the same reason most of our clients eventually give away all of their other clothes, only to wear ours. Once you “feel” what it is like to wear clothing that fits exactly as it should, you can’t stand to wear anything less!

Q. Why didn’t the suits made by other suppliers fit like your the clothes made by your own tailor’s ?
A. Because they we’re not cut to my exact combination of separate measurements, nor to my posture or shape! Their standard patterns “average” shoulder width, crotch depth, and all other measurements as “average” measurements proportioned to the chest size. Modern tailors “skipped” the 10 or 15 year apprenticeship to learn the art of pattern making, so for the last 70 years, “custom” is really “semi-custom” in most of the world.

Q. What is wrong with that?
A. Ready made patterns produce clothes are made for an “average” or “normal” postures and “average measurements. That’s why the suits hang beautifully on the store rack and decorate the showroom flawlessly. But they look better on the hangar than on 95% of the people who buy them. To look good, a suit has to be made to one’s unique shape and size. If an individual stands more erect than someone with a “normal” posture, one set of problems happens. When someone’s posture is more “stooping “with rounded shoulders, and a forward head, another set of problems happens. Rather than a clean unbroken drape, the suit has folds and wrinkles and looks like an unmade bed!

Q Can you elaborate?
A. Photos of our suits and other custom suits on the same person shown on this website best illustrate the difference: A person who stands erect has one set of problems in a ready made suit. A person who stands stooping has another. Our photos show the difference with the same person wearing a made-to-measure semi custom suit, and our suit, made for their unique posture.

Q. Where are your clothes made?
A. In Hong Kong We’ve had our own workshop there for 47 of our 51 years in business. Our volume was so high with 12 outside sales people we were able to absorb a 25 year old workshop that was suppling 4 or 5 other sources, who conveniently all went out of business as we were growing.

Q Why Hong Kong?
A. For the superior fit! The Chinese tailors were taught the art of pattern making by the British tailors who came to serve the British expatriates during 100 years of British occupation. They’ve continued the tradition while the western world has turned to starting with standard off the rack patterns.

Q. Do all suits made by all tailors in Hong Kong fit well?
A. Actually, No! They should! It’s not only the cutting skill. There are “taste” issues. The tailors are craftsmen. I’m the architect. I design the fit through the way I take the measurements, and my “formulas” for “finished measurements” that I use to control the fit of the clothes. I don’t even let my in house master cutter take measurements. Left to their own devices, without my intervention, the fit of clothes made in the Orient, while potentially can be good, usually isn’t!

Q. What about the “Quality” of the suits made in Hong Kong.
A. There is the “Quality of the Workmanship, and the quality of the components, which we’ve supplied from here or Italy from the beginning. I took my European tailor to Hong Kong several times to teach our tailors the techniques of the making the finest and most expensively made clothes.

Q. Aren’t the suits made in England, Italy, and other western countries superior in quality.
A. Normally, yes. The Chinese tailors were taught to make suits fast and cheap, and were neither taught nor paid enough to put the necessary handwork into their suits. Tourists in Hong Kong were always looking for the cheapest quickest made custom suits possible.

Q. What about the tailors in China?
A. They too have now adopted the large factory approach where patterns are made by machines and suits are entirely put together by machine! A tailor might tell you the “finishing” is cleaner than by hand, but the compromise of the fit, as well as the specific workmanship the tailor builds into a suit to fit the customer is sacrificed. The jacket is “flat” rather than made to address the shape of the chest, the pitch of the shoulders, etc.

Q. So how is the quality of your suits:
A Our suits look brand new for 30 or 40 years! All of our clothes have dates in them and our testimonials from clients all say that our clothes look brand new and last forever. If someone doesn’t have enough clothes and dry cleans them too often, there is nothing than can’t be damaged no matter how well it was made!

Q. What makes your clothes any better made than other suits including suits made by other tailors in Hong Kong.
A After several trips to Hong Kong, taking and tearing apart expensive off the rack and Italian ready make suits, I took it a step further and began taking my Italian tailor with me on several occasions. I paid him a fortune to share his workmanship techniques with my Chinese tailors. It took two or three times longer to make a suit as he taught them, so I paid them more than enough to make them sit still to make the clothes to the level of workmanship of the very best Italian suits…Combined with our more perfect fit, it’s an amazing combination!

Q. How do your prices compare?
A You could say we’re 2 or 3 times the price of a cheap suit made in Hong Kong, and half the price of a Made to Measure semi-custom suit made in England or Italy.

Q. So, your suits, jackets etc. fit better and are made as well or better than the finest English or Italian custom made suits?A. Precisely! In Europe, the suits will be well made, but not fit! In the Orient, they have the potential to fit better, but not be well made! It’s always one or the other. Better Fit, or better quality workmanship. We have both!

Q. You’re confident!
A. I’ve worked hard for 50 years to develop an amazing product and service that produces better results with less effort. Many of our clients have turned to us throughout their entire 40 year careers and into their retirement!

Q. Where are your fabrics from?
A. England and Italy primarily. . We were actually being hosted as the best customers of Holland & Sherry of London, the 200 year old Woolen house when they had just acquired that same shop; Kilgour’s, where I got the flattering “best fitting suit” compliment!
We have access to beautiful duty free fabrics directly through our woolen supplier contacts at our workshop as well as the world’s finest fabrics from Dormeuil, Scabal, Loro Piana, Holland & Sherry order and have shipped direct from Scotland, or Milan, direct to our workshop, on a duty free basis. Importing those same fabrics from Europe adds about 30% to the cost!

Q. So, the customer saves money on duty free fabrics?
A. Absolutely, as well as on the less expensive labor of our Italian trained Chinese tailors! If they really want to save money, they combine the labor and fabric savings with our Wardrobe Plan savings and they are getting an amazing value along with the time saving, perfect fit efficiency!

Q Pretty Smart! What else makes your approach better.
A. The making of an individual pattern not only results in a better fit, but produces the same “consistent” fit from one order to the next, without need of trial and error “fittings”. That consistency allows us to seek out clients from around the world and do business at a distance thereafter by phone, from swatches without compromise. The testimonials from hundreds of long time all say that our suits fit better than any they’ve had from the finest tailors with fittings. Some have ordered every year for 45 years and never required an alteration. We factor in weight and size changes as we begin each new order.

Q. What else makes your approach unique?
A. On that same note, I’ve built a swatch portfolio collection of some 200 different Wardrobe ideas; every conceivable kind of fabric for suits, sport jackets, topcoats, tuxedos, etc. My suppliers tell me that of thousands of tailors they supply, I’m the only one with a system like this. Suiting fabrics in Chalk stripes, Nail heads, Windowpanes. Jackets in velvet, corduroy, Silk & Wool, etc. Today, 80% of our repeat business is placed by phone as we personally discuss fabrics page by page, actual swatch by swatch, (all numbered), over the phone. Many clients spend a total of less than 5 or 10 minutes to have perfect fitting, beautifully co-ordinated outfits delivered right to their door, 4 weeks later. Total time and effort: 5 minutes! Many clients have long passed the 100 suit mark, and a few, many times that! Perfect every time!

Q. Anything else that makes your approach special?
A. We have a Sample collection of hundreds of made up suits, jackets, tuxedos, leather and suede jackets, any of which can be duplicated by our Sample Style #, and made with any modification of style, of any fabric!

Q. Isn’t that extravagant for a custom tailor?
A. Well, most of those samples have paid for themselves from 10 to 100 times over. Many of our clients have a duplicate wardrobe to the sample collection made, of course, to their own patterns. It’s really flattering to see their closets so closely resemble my own! The samples allow a client to see, feel, try on a design of a fabric that might come in 12 to 50 different colors. Our popular cotton pinwale jackets, or our linen/rayon series “bridge” the gap between buying off the rack, with compromise, and being able to “picture”, their custom outfit, by seeing several ideas made up! I can also indulge my love of clothes by wearing all of those samples!

Q. How do your clients at a distance benefit from this collection?
A. We’ve hired professional models, and photographers, and can email photos, just as we email or mail swatch sheets for discussion and ordering by phone. All of the Samples have a Style #.

Q. What about changes in your Customer’s Size and Weight, and even Styles.
A. What most determines the fit of one’s clothes is that they have been made to conform to their posture. That determines the “drape”. The pattern reflects that and can “expand” and “contract” for “Size” just like someone’s breathing. With my experience, and a few questions as to the fit of the last order, or any previous order, I can adjust for minimal or extreme changes in size from one order to the next. The more outfits we’ve made, (all with inspection tickets and order numbers,) the easier it gets! Regarding styling, I build in subtle adjustments automatically, but often ask questions as to whether they’d like to try “no pleats”, or a slightly shorter jacket, or a slimmer leg, etc. Then, I massage the measurements to get the outcome I want!

Q. And what else makes your approach different or better?
A. Forty seven years ago, I came up with a concept that would organize a relationship between us and our clients including those across the country and around the world! Today, many of those same clients are in their 45th or 46 th uninterrupted year of our Wardrobe Plan Program! Of course we have many newer clients in their 20th, or 10th or 5th or first few years of their Plan. We organize Selection dates and budgets and contact them with ideas on a schedule. It allows for an efficient relationship that is to everyone’s advantage. Better results with less effort.