The Future of Tailored Clothing

[dieworkwear]

I think tailored clothing as workplace uniform will continue to disappear, but tailored clothing as a personal choice will grow in popularity.

Do you mean tailored clothing will have another "moment," as it did 15 years ago? Curious, what makes you optimistic about that?

 

[Encathol Epistemia]

In my opinion, optimism is never warranted.

That's probably why I'm so happy and succesful.

*Pours another glass of Armagnac*

What? How else am I supposed to sleep at night? Vodka? *Sneers*

 

[Bromley]

Do you mean tailored clothing will have another "moment," as it did 15 years ago? Curious, what makes you optimistic about that?

I don't know if it will be a moment (I'm not good at gauging that kind of thing), but I think people will start to mix and incorporate tailored clothing into casual wardrobes in looser ways. I'm thinking of people I know whose personal style is always a little ahead of the times. And thinking of other people who have been into tailored clothes for a while who have started to branch out.

I think companies making tailored clothing will meet that interest (and stoke it) with interesting casual cross-over stuff. The kind of approach NMWA is so good at.

I know that a lot of CM enthusiasts who'd put bespoke/mtm orders on hold early in Coronavirus are back at it with the same old, and that's cool and surprising to me.

 

[TokenMao]

MTM and casual tailoring are the future, let me tell you. Casual tailoring is still what most guys think of when they think of a well-dressed man, they just don't know how to do it and can't afford to do it right. MTM will get cheaper, it will spread, and as men start to realize it's okay to care about how they're dressed, they'll go for... Linen blazers, jersey wool blazers, jersey button ups, things that make them feel comfortable and look good.

Maybe you'll start to see more quasi-blazers. Safari jackets, teba jackets, chore blazers, belts, bellows pockets. You saw overcoats get super big in streetwear and in general, for a while. People like lapels, they just don't want to look like their grandpas.

I'm not opposed to true casualwear, I'm sure workwear and more luxe casual vibes will still be plenty popular, you're never going to see guys stop wearing sweatpants or track suits -- they're comfortable too.

Oh and NYC will never stop.

I'm curious as to why you think MTM is the future aside from it getting cheaper. By which I'm assuming you mean it's going to largely replace RTW. I struggle to see that happening as there are quite a few advantages of RTW over MTM that I don't think are going away anytime soon:

• RTW lets you see, feel, and try on the physical product then and there. For tailoring that's super valuable.
• RTW you can buy and use the product instantly, you have to wait for MTM
• Fit wise, for many people, RTW + a good tailor can get you most of the way there if not equal to MTM (and better than the cheap MTM)
• Good MTM requires a good fitter who measures you in person which is hard to scale
• A lot of people want a house style, and a good house style is hard to develop. You see people who choose RTW Attolini because of the design over MTM or bespoke options in that price range.

MTM can get cheaper but the main thing holding entry level MTM back isn't the price point it's the inconsistent quality at that price. If you have $300-400 to spend on a suit, most people are going to better off ordering RTW from Spier or Suitsupply and altering vs. either self-measuring or getting measured by an inexperienced salesperson at Indochino, Oliver Wicks, Black Lapel, etc. Yeah for the people who just don't fit into RTW, MTM is a godsend, but by design RTW is meant to fit as many people as possible.

If this massive shift to MTM ends up happening I'd imagine it would happen in the #menswear crowd first. If you look here on SF, a group of people who have more knowledge and passion for tailoring than average, I feel like very few people do exclusively custom tailoring and even the people with bespoke suits typically have a mix of RTW as well. It's a conscious choice that RTW has value even though they have the means to afford MTM and bespoke.

 

[dieworkwear]

Some anecdotes:

A friend of mine works as a fitter at a mid-tier MTM company and he says he's seen an uptick in orders. Most of those are wedding suits, as people who postponed events last year are now planning to have events this year. He has not seen his "office regulars" come back yet (meaning, people who order clothes for the office).

A fitter at a high-profile Savile Row firm told me that last year was one of his best in terms of sales. He travels throughout the United States for trunk shows. (Notably, other people I know who work in luxury businesses tell me that their business was very good last year -- people who sell luxury cars, watches, etc).

I imagine the future of tailoring will be very uneven. Sometimes I wonder if we'll see the middle of the market getting squeezed, just as we've seen in other areas of fashion. Luxury tailoring firms might still be OK; uber affordable firms may also be OK. Middle-tier tailoring companies may have a harder time competing as the market shrinks.

I think the overall market will shrink, as I think tailoring will continue to be less relevant in workspaces. We've been on a 50+ year decline, and it accelerated in the 1990s with the casual Friday movement. I don't know if telecommuting will be a meaningful part of our future, but it certainly can't help that some people will be able to work from home. Most people -- and especially men -- have very a pragmatic relationship with clothes. They simply dress for life. There may be an uptick in "enthusiasts," but I don't think it will offset the decline from office workers dressing more casually.

As for whether tailoring will come back, I think that requires a confluence of many things. I don't think it can just be about a pushback against streetwear and athleisure, mixed with people getting sick of wearing sweats at home. You need other cultural influences, such as the right mixture of movies, TV shows, and high-profile celebs inspiring people to wear certain things. The last big CM movement came with Mad Men, for example. Hard to say whether those things will be in the future.

That said, while I'm generally pessimistic about the future of tailored clothing, I was surprised by two things recently:

1. When I asked a similar question in the Ongoing Bespoke Projects thread, most respondents said they plan to continue ordering as before. Some said they plan to reel back orders, but some of this was driven by the fact they already have a lot of clothing (so they may have already been on that path before COVID).

2. In a very informal survey, I asked people on Twitter how they plan to dress in the future. I was surprised to see many people reply that they plan to dress up "as much as" or even "more than" before. Both these groups are made up of enthusiasts, so perhaps that biases things. But for this very tiny segment of the clothing market, maybe things will generally be fine.

 

[Daniel Hakimi]

I'm curious as to why you think MTM is the future aside from it getting cheaper. By which I'm assuming you mean it's going to largely replace RTW. I struggle to see that happening as there are quite a few advantages of RTW over MTM that I don't think are going away anytime soon:

• RTW lets you see, feel, and try on the physical product then and there. For tailoring that's super valuable.
• RTW you can buy and use the product instantly, you have to wait for MTM
• Fit wise, for many people, RTW + a good tailor can get you most of the way there if not equal to MTM (and better than the cheap MTM)
• Good MTM requires a good fitter who measures you in person which is hard to scale
• A lot of people want a house style, and a good house style is hard to develop. You see people who choose RTW Attolini because of the design over MTM or bespoke options in that price range.

MTM can get cheaper but the main thing holding entry level MTM back isn't the price point it's the inconsistent quality at that price. If you have $300-400 to spend on a suit, most people are going to better off ordering RTW from Spier or Suitsupply and altering vs. either self-measuring or getting measured by an inexperienced salesperson at Indochino, Oliver Wicks, Black Lapel, etc. Yeah for the people who just don't fit into RTW, MTM is a godsend, but by design RTW is meant to fit as many people as possible.

If this massive shift to MTM ends up happening I'd imagine it would happen in the #menswear crowd first. If you look here on SF, a group of people who have more knowledge and passion for tailoring than average, I feel like very few people do exclusively custom tailoring and even the people with bespoke suits typically have a mix of RTW as well. It's a conscious choice that RTW has value even though they have the means to afford MTM and bespoke.

I don't mean that RTW will disappear. But...

• It's going to get cheaper, faster, and more accurate over time as the technology improves around it. Right now, it requires a good fitter; soon, as techology improves, we'll see brands making MTM more and more accurately with less and less effort. I'm not saying body scanning apps are the future, but... I see progress coming.
• RTW products are largely bought online where you can't feel the material or try it on.
• Returns in RTW are super common these days. If you can use fabric swatches and almost always have good-fitting garments, you can do away with those returns entirely. You can also never have wasted stock.
• Shipping sometimes takes a couple of weeks. Fast MTM + fast shipping can *beat* that, in the ideal scenario.
• The in-person MTM experience tends to be at least as pleasant, overall, as the in-person shopping experience.
• Once you have a customer hooked, he won't be able to go back to RTW fits. I can't get my head around Spier and Mackay because the armholes are just too big, I'm hooked on my MTM tailoring even though it's ~twice the price.

You've even been seeing mtm tee shirts and stuff recently... Honestly, it's so much easier to find a tee that fits off the rack than a blazer.

 

[dieworkwear]

Since there was some discussion earlier about the use of digital technology in tailoring, I thought I'd post these videos. I don't think this will be a meaningful part of the bespoke industry in the near future, but it's interesting.

 

[breakaway01]

Trying to divine the future of tailoring from polling the “Ongoing Bespoke Projects” thread at SF or your Twitter followers is about as useful as asking the Arizona GOP about election security.

 

[dieworkwear]

Trying to divine the future of tailoring from polling the “Ongoing Bespoke Projects” thread at SF or your Twitter followers is about as useful as asking the Arizona GOP about election security.

True. What do you suggest for better barometers?

 

[breakaway01]

You are so deeply immersed in this world that probably most of your contacts and perhaps your friends care a lot about clothing. I am definitely an outlier among my colleagues and friends in terms of my interest in clothing. I might go so far to say that biomedical scientists harbor some slight mistrust of people who dress too well. I don’t really talk about clothes with friends unless they ask, which is not often.

I’m sure you’d know better than I do, but there must be market research firms that ask exactly these questions?

 

[dieworkwear]

You are so deeply immersed in this world that probably most of your contacts and perhaps your friends care a lot about clothing. I am definitely an outlier among my colleagues and friends in terms of my interest in clothing. I might go so far to say that biomedical scientists harbor some slight mistrust of people who dress too well. I don’t really talk about clothes with friends unless they ask, which is not often.

I’m sure you’d know better than I do, but there must be market research firms that ask exactly these questions?

I don't know of any market firm research. I'm sure some exists. If people know of some, I'd love to have some references in this thread.

I agree the market is segmented. That's what I was hoping to get at in my earlier post. I think it's segmented by price point, geography, type of customer, etc. Some firms serve an "enthusiast" market; others are more geared toward office workers and wedding suits. Getting at this probably requires some sensitivity to those markets and customers -- I imagine the future of tailoring will be uneven across that landscape. My stories were just anecdotes about the "enthusiast" customer.

To give examples, I think Steed serves an "enthusiast" customer. Henry Poole serves an older, richer clientele. Suitsupply serves a younger, more budget-conscious clientele. Hall Madden serves guys who are in their 30s and 40s, and just want a good suit for weddings and the office. I think the future of these companies will be very different. I think the Ongoing Bespoke Projects thread might speak more to the Steed market. Absent other barometers, I think it says something.

 

[breakaway01]

Agree that the market is highly segmented and I also agree that the middle brick-and-mortar shops are being squeezed out. There just isn’t enough demand at the $750-1500 price point for suits. Even Spier and Mackay can’t sell out a run of full canvas suits in Cavendish fabric at $600. Luxury brands and enthusiast stores (Armoury) will do fine. A certain number of bespoke outfits will survive. But most people in the US don’t have physical access or financial means to shop at such places. Income inequality is definitely driving some of this too.

 

[stuffedsuperdud]

I am definitely an outlier among my colleagues and friends in terms of my interest in clothing. I might go so far to say that biomedical scientists harbor some slight mistrust of people who dress too well. I don’t really talk about clothes with friends unless they ask, which is not often.

Ahh! Another BME guy? And from AA no less. I traveled there frequently when I was in academic sales (ugh) and it was one of my favorite places to visit. Usually college towns are kind of lame because everything caters to the young and dumb, but Ann Arbor always had cool things to do and tasty meals to put on the company card.

I was mindful not to overdo the CM back then though, since lab folks are a weird bunch. R&D, esp. underpaid academia R&D, seemed very much of the t-shirt and jeans (students) or untucked button-up + khakis + Clarks (faculty, postdocs, techs) style. A guy in CM is probably some rep from a bigger company, like Thermo Fisher, trying to get people to switch to their line of fluorophores or something annoying like that. I think it's less to do with dressing well specifically and just a more general tribal defensiveness and perhaps defensiveness against what is probably a salesman.

I'm now still client-facing but it's industry, and more often it's with some VP from manufacturing or quality, who is usually a former lab person who didn't drink the R&D koolaid, transitioned out, and is much better at conforming socially than the lab rats. For them, I think CM is still a good way to let them know you're respecting their time and energy. I mean, this guy is still probably not a clotheshorse*, and probably can't tell the difference between Men's Wearhouse and Ring Jacket, but CM in general is still probably a net positive in this arena.

*Fun, not super related story: I had an in-person client meeting last week with some important senior director something something and she wore her powersuit, which I recognized right away as from Zara. She wore it in a bit of an affected manner though, and I know from Zoom that her day to day is standard-ops Ann Taylor, NY and Co., etc. and not the tailored stuff, so this was obviously a deliberate move on her part. It was actually a pretty nice garment by fast-fashion standards, a 4x1 DB with big lapels, a subtle navy blue glen plaid pattern, lightly structured shoulders, and flattering trousers with cleverly placed pleats on the back. The fabric is some sort of poly blend and doesn't feel good, but hey if in some bizarre alternate universe I am touching her jacket, well then things would have gone pretty heavily off-script already and I'd be too distracted to complain that it ain't Loro Piana S200s, right?

Anyway, she was pretty delighted when I noticed correctly where she got it from, and when I gave her some CM-flavored observations like "Oh I love the elegant minimalism where it looks like a solid blue from far away and then the pattern shows up when I zoom in" and "Yes this is wonderfully versatile the way you can dress it up or down" etc etc. So there's still some room for biotech nerds to enjoy some CM-play I guess? In any case, the meeting was wild success and ended with us awkwardly trying to figure out how to do a professional side-hug, a bold move for us nerds even in the Before COVID Times, so the sales team is pretty stoked that I've cleared this path for them, anyway. Our mutual enjoyment for dressing up didn't not help is my point I guess? Iono. Mostly I just wanted to tell this story of a bioscience-flavored client meeting, after having been cooped up for 13 months.

 

[TheChihuahua]

. You need other cultural influences, such as the right mixture of movies, TV shows, and high-profile celebs inspiring people to wear certain things. The last big CM movement came with Mad Men, for example. Hard to say whether those things will be in the future.

When I watch tv I’m actually surprised by how often the characters are dressed in suits. Like 90% of the shows I watch.

now I don’t watch a lot of sitcoms based around suburban family lifestyle like tool time or Roseanne. I tend to watch shows that do show people in more work related environments.
But for the shows I do watch, they are all wearing suits. Granted some are set in a historical time (like the Americans is supposed to be in the 1980’s), but generally speaking most still have a lot of suit wearing.

i have actually been looking for it more and more, shows that don’t have people in suits with some regularity, and it’s rare.
sort of like how every movie has a guy peeing in it. Once you start looking for it, you realize every movie has it at some point.

 

[classicalthunde]

True. What do you suggest for better barometers?

I think rather than having people (enthusiasts) report out on their own plans I think a better idea might be to have those people report out on their observations of their coworkers from the office and friends from their social circle to see if they observe people dressing up, the same, or down from their pre-pandemic observations.

It'd also be interesting to look at the their observations 1 month, 4 months, and 12 months after the pandemic to see how people adjust over time