Thursday, December 9, 2010

Online suit review: Tailor4Less.com




I have been trying to work up the courage to buy a made to measure suit online for some time now and I finally got around to it. I decided to start with Tailor4Less simply, and I know this isn't a very good reason, because they are the cheapest I could find. I wanted to try the cheapest first because I am dubious about how successful an online suit purchase will be. Online MTM shirts are one thing but suits are another. Custom shirts have become quite the successful online venture in the last few years and you can get some very good ones without all the hassle of high street or the time and money of full bespoke. Suits require far more skill however. If the shoulders are a tiny bit small on a shirt it isn't pleasant but the item is still a viable option. If a suit jacket is wrong across the shoulders however it will ruin the look of the whole jacket as it hangs and gets it's structure from them.

The website itself is very clean, nice and easy to navigate and all in all it's a fairly pleasant experience. They don't give you as much choice in the way of fabric or customisation as many of the other websites but they are also far cheaper than all of them. I decided that I'd go for a three-piece suit with the very resonable price tag of €215. This may seem like a bad idea for a test run but I decided that if anything is going to be wrong it will be the jacket in which case I'll have a pair of trousers and a waistcoat so the whole thing won't be a complete waste of time.

I chose a two button single breasted slim fit jacket with peak lapels and side vents. You are asked if you want the lapels cut short, medium or long and I decided to go with the last named. There is no option for slanted pockets so I had to settle with basic straight flapped ones (with a ticket pocket). Strangely there is no extra cost for working sleeve buttons so I chose those too.

The website has three main catagories of fabric to choose from. They say they are "100s", "130s" and "180s". I'm not sure how true to life these claims are so I got a basic dark blue called "Submerged" from their 100s range. The 130s and 180s ranges come with added costs of €20 and €40 respectively. As I said the fabric range isn't as extensive as most other websites but it is adequate enough as long as you don't want anything too unique.

Just a small point here in relation to the measuring. They are very helpful and give demonstratory images on how to measure all the various bits when you come to them and give you estimates for each which is a nice touch. They measure outer leg and inseam but not inside leg. This technically makes sense but it seems a bit odd nonetheless. Waiting to see if the measurements are right is the most nerve racking thing about this whole process.

I must confess now that I had a moment of weakness and ordered a purple and white striped shirt as well. I suppose it was partly to test two products in one go and partly to get a nice new shirt. I will add a brief point about that in my full review of the product.

They payment is simple enough and I quickly received emails confirming my order and payment. They claim that making the suit will take a week and it will be at my door a week after that. Postage is free on orders over €100 as well, which is nice. The order was placed five days ago so hopefully I can review the finished product in two weeks time.

7 comments:

  1. so what happened? how did it turn out??

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry David. As you may notice this blog has been gathering dust for some time. I just didn't have the time to keep it up.
    To answer your question simply, I would advise against it. Their shirts are certainly of acceptable quality for the price and by all means, do go ahead and use them for that but I would avoid ordering suits from them. Their materials are not the best and the construction is only a little better than off the rack suits. There are other online MTM suit companies out there that are more expensive than them but I would still advise trying one of them instead.
    Max.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've stumbled upon this blog noticeably late, but I do have a question and hopefully you can answer. How did the "submerged" dark blue look? Was it brighter, darker than in the picture? If the quality is better than off the rack suits then I would be fine with ordering from them, most off the rack suits I've found have had acceptable quality to me (I'm in grade twelve - this would be a graduation suit!).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jesse,
      Yes the "Submerged" was a noticeably darker shade of blue and nowhere near as impressive as the picture on the website looks. I can't stress enough though that you shouldn't look at their 100's range at all. The fabric quality and thus the looks of the suit is less than ideal. The quality of the suit in terms of fit is certainly better than off the rack, yes but it's not going to change your life forever. You say this would be a graduation suit? That I can see. I would have loved one of these for my own graduation (provided it wasn't from the 100's range) instead of the off the rack number I had to put up with. I wouldn't count this as a long term investment though, in a year or two, you will want something better. I wanted something better after about three months in fact.
      Hope this helps. Good luck.
      Max

      Delete
  4. I had a different experience with tailor4less. I purchased a suit from them and it fit just right. However, I did talk to customer service before I placed my order. I wanted to make sure they knew exactly how I wanted my suit to look like. All in all, it was a smooth process and if I need another suit I will use their site again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Let me chime in on their customer service...I found Tailor4Less online after reading an article about the new industry of online custom tailoring. I was skeptical, because one expects not only a high level of craftsmanship in a custom suit, but also a high level of customer service in a tailor. These articles said they offered both. I am getting married in May, and my fiance decided to order from their company. After paying for 2 suits to be made for himself and his best man, he was told that they "ran out of fabric" for the third suit for his groomsman. With only weeks to go before the wedding, their representatives have not budged to help accommodate him in choosing a new fabric for all 3 suits. Instead, my fiance and his best man have to pay for the 2 suits, and then have a 3rd made in another fabric. For anyone who knows the art of wedding clothing, this is UNACCEPTABLE. I am astonished at their poor customer service, and I will rail about it all over the internet, since it seems, we have no other option at this point. It is a new industry to be sure, and they are leading the way in setting the lowest standards possible. Thank you, Tailor4Less, for destroying the time-worn craft of tailoring. We might as well buy our suits at Walmart.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Let me chime in on their customer service...I found Tailor4Less online after reading an article about the new industry of online custom tailoring. I was skeptical, because one expects not only a high level of craftsmanship in a custom suit, but also a high level of customer service in a tailor. These articles said they offered both. I am getting married in May, and my fiance decided to order from their company. After paying for 2 suits to be made for himself and his best man, he was told that they "ran out of fabric" for the third suit for his groomsman. With only weeks to go before the wedding, their representatives have not budged to help accommodate him in choosing a new fabric for all 3 suits. Instead, my fiance and his best man have to pay for the 2 suits, and then have a 3rd made in another fabric. For anyone who knows the art of wedding clothing, this is UNACCEPTABLE. I am astonished at their poor customer service, and I will rail about it all over the internet, since it seems, we have no other option at this point. It is a new industry to be sure, and they are leading the way in setting the lowest standards possible. Thank you, Tailor4Less, for destroying the time-worn craft of tailoring. We might as well buy our suits at Walmart.

    ReplyDelete