quick question

[1930artdeco]

Hello,

What is the definition of 'Bespoke'? I see it in the title advertising clothes on the bay. Just wanted to know if it was something special.

Mike

 

[Fastuni]

It means a custom suit made by an artisanal tailor for a costumer to his specific measurements.
The opposite would be Ready-to-wear/off-the-rack mass produced clothing found in stores.
A middle form is semi-factory produced "made-to-measure".

"Bespoke" because the costumer bespeaks (requests) the suit to be made by the tailor.

It is something special insofar it has not "standard sizing" but is made for a specific body (so pay attention to the exact measurements of the garment) and is generally of higher quality with lots of handwork.

 

[Shangas]

I always read that 'bespoke' as origin of term, came from the fact that a particular roll of suiting fabric had been selected by a customer for the tailor to make a suit from. The roll of fabric had then 'been spoken for' and was unavailable for use by another customer until the suit was finished. And that over time, it just got shorter until it became 'b'spoke' or 'bespoke'.

 

[Guttersnipe]

The term bespoke gets bandied around quite a bit these days and is often used incorrectly. From the online entomology dictionary i like:

custom-made or made to order, as distinguished from ready-made (1755). The same sense found earlier in "bespoken" (c.1600), past participle of "bespeak," in a sense of to speak for, to arrange beforehand, a sense attested in bespeak from the 1580s.

Specifically in a tailoring context, "bespoke" also indicates that a suit is not cut from a pre-made pattern but rather a pattern is made to the client's measurements. It does not necessarily indicate quality level.

 

[Fastuni]

It does not necessarily indicate quality level.

Depends if we talk about vintage or modern clothes.

Then there were lot's of mediocre small tailors who made worse work than clothing factories (in Europe at least, where RTW took longer to take over the market than in the US).
These type of tailors are largely gone, though.

A bespoke suit made by a master tailor was of much better quality than off-the-rack clothing.
Today a tailor-made suit will also be of better quality than the store-bought suit.
A tailor who makes suits worse than RTW will be out of business quickly.

 

[herringbonekid]

It does not necessarily indicate quality level.

Depends if we talk about vintage or modern clothes.

also depends how you define 'quality'.

 

[Fading Fast]

A tailor who makes suits worse than RTW will be out of business quickly.

I wish this were so, but there are tailors who make custom made suits that are of poor quality. Years ago, several co-workers got excited about a local add for "custom-made suits for $500." They went to the guy's shop, picked out fabrics, styles, details etc. and, when the suits were finished, they had custom-made suits that looked...terrible.

The guys seemed reasonably pleased because they were enamored with the idea of custom and with having chosen all those "neat" details - bright red lining and their names on the inside label, for example.

But the quality of the suit and its tailoring was atrocious. The suit fit poorly, had obviously poor stitches, the material hung wrong and the lapels rolled awkwardly and puckered. The buttons - I kid you not - had little plastic pieces on the opposite side of the material so that - I guess - they could be sewn on easier. The suits were truly horrible. I said nothing - I've been raised better than that. All but one of the five guys was happy. And (I think) three ordered again.

Hence, there is a market for poor custom tailoring. On sale, for the same money, they could have bought a mid-level Brooks Brothers suit (and I'm not a big fan of Brooks Brothers) that would have looked significantly better.

 

[Claudio]

As already stated, it also means the tailro is working from a pattern and details *made for the customer*, so not only the measurements are personal but the customer can request a specific styling detail that he wants. Most tailors have an 'in-house' style but if they are flexible enough they can satisfy other different requests. So bespoke (from 'speaking with the tailor-customer' as I knew it) to creat a specific personal pattern and (sometimes) style.

 

[Fastuni]

Fading Fast, you are right - there certainly are such botchers and dabblers calling themselves "tailors" out there.
They find their clients among those who do not know better.

In Germany this is not the case, because there is still the legal "master compulsion" for tailors.
There are alterationists (some of them are migrant tailors actually) and "designers" (that's how these shops call themselves if they don't have a craftmasters license) who could tailor a suit - some bad, some mediocre, some good.

But for someone to declare himself as a proper "Meisterschneider" (master tailor) or "Maßschneider" (bespoke tailor), he has to be trained thoroughly by a previous master tailor, visited a trade school and passed through a master craftman's examination for his license. If you go into a German bespoke tailorshop you will get quality work.

A different matter is that many if not most master tailors in Germany (the few remaining) are often not accommodating towards "special wishes". They want to make the modern suits that sell to the affluent businessmen - not some vintage extravaganza.

 

[herringbonekid]

A different matter is that many if not most master tailors in Germany (the few remaining) are often not accommodating towards "special wishes". They want to make the modern suits that sell to the affluent businessmen - not some vintage extravaganza.

getting a vintage extravanganza made by a tailor in any country will be very difficult, unless the tailor already has a special interest in period suit styles. most tailors, for instance, see machine topstitching as an offence to their 'art' so would probably refuse any requests to topstitch a patch pocket or rear belt.

 

[1930artdeco]

Ok that clarifies things a lot. Thanks for the info.

Mike

 

[winterland1]

Always learning something new on here.