NY Mag On The Thrill Of Bespoke Suiting

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

New York Magazine's Fall Fashion issue is full of the predictable—stars modeling cooler-weather looks, various fashion spreads, a profile of diminutive celeb moguls the Olsen twins—but there's also a very interesting piece on the culture of bespoke. Writer Michael Idov visits men's shop Lord Willy's to discuss "men who, fed up with designers and labels, become fanatical followers of bespoke tailoring" and ends up becoming so enamored with the process and the idea of having a handmade suit that he buys one from the place. The allure, he writes, of a bespoke suit is that its "entire architecture is in tune with the weird requirements of my body." Men's desire for this type of customization is definitely growing, as evidenced by Tom Ford's uptown flagship, a second Lord Willy's outpost and the success of the relatively new Freemans Sporting Club. The article is worth a read, especially for the few graphs on China, "the dark secret of the bespoke world" and on the battle between old and new-school bespoke merchants here in NYC.
· Me, My Suit, and I [NY Mag]