SUIT CONSTRUCTION 101

We are often asked why our suiting costs what it does - particularly with the preponderance of "buy-one-get one free" mass market retailers. To answer that question, one needs to understand how a mass-market suit is constructed. The Discovery Channel video above takes you inside a typical American suit factory, and shows how mass-production churns out thousands of identical suits.

After you watch the video, consider the following:

Our Italian handmade suiting, like Sartoria Partenopea, requires many of these steps to be completed by hand, with a single needle and thimble. Automation is virtually nonexistent in these factories, and a garment can remain on a single tailor's worktable for multiple workdays, sometimes requiring over 24 hours worth of work.

Even our high quality machine-made suiting requires more steps than shown in the video. While some parts of the construction - like a pant's tab waist or the jacket's skirt pockets - are rapidly constructed by machine, companies like Coppley and Samuelsohn eschew glue-based 'fusing' to construct the chest pieces of the suit, preferring to loosely baste (a long, temporary stitch) in canvas pieces to give the suit its shape and fullness. The Samuelsohn factory takes construction a step further, hand-basting the chest pieces in order to ensure an individualized fit. The looser hand-stitches tend to conform to an individual's shape better than tighter machine stitches.

The next time you browse through Butch Blum's impeccably curated collection of suiting, stop and think about the steps it takes to create a suit worthy of hanging in our store, and of the incredible value of your investment.