This is a part of a series on a bespoke 3 piece suit made for me by the Hong Kong tailor house Tai Pan Row.
Click here to learn more about part I of the series, which I highlighted some notable moments of the designing process for the suit, as well as the final direction I've made for the garment when I finally had the chance to visit TPR.
I always knew that Hong Kong tailors are quick in producing garments for their customers (not referring the bad quality 48 hours ones), since I previously had a few other suits tailored within a month from the day of order.
However, this is definitely nothing close to what Tai Pan Row has achieved. With just 5 days after the first visit, the coat and the trousers were already ready for the first-fitting.
I came in on a rather busy evening. Without much exchange of words, I went straight to trying out the pair of trousers.
The trousers turned out to be alright.
With Hong Kong tailors, I wouldn't necessary worry about the trousers being cut too chunky. Hongkongese like their trousers slim.
However, I still made the call to have the area along the thighs taken in slightly. It's better to keep it slim especially with the trousers pleats being such a bold statement. You don't want your thighs to look like some watermelons after all.
Apart from that, the cuff of the trousers should be lengthened. Because of the high-waist design, my calfs look quite short to my thighs in comparison. But this could easily be fixed so it is not a big deal.
The jacket, on the other hand, needs much more work.
As you could see from the picture, there are too much room around the shoulders area. I would consider at least 1/2 inches would need to be taken in.
On top of that, some adjustments are also needed for the back as well. I suppose this goes back to the fact that my upper back is relatively flat, in comparison to the average people in Hong Kong.
Nonetheless, the most interesting aspect which requires alteration is the collar.
As you can see, the collar appears to be falling off in the above picture, and would need to be raised in order to hug the collar of my shirt properly.
In fact, this leads to an important discovery which I made during this fitting process -- I realized that I actually have a relatively longer neck than the average Hongkongers.
This explains why some of the suits which I previously purchased or even tailor-made in Hong Kong often appear to be falling off.
The remaining part of the jacket which really requires in-depth examination is the front; namely the length of the jacket, the buttoning point, as well as the lapel width.
I personally prefer the length of the jacket to be shorter since I have a rather long torso and relatively short legs. With the bottom of the jacket sitting on the same level as my crotch area, my legs could perceived to be longer than what they actually are.
I'm glad that they delivered exactly what I wanted.
On the other hand, the buttoning point turned out to be quite tricky, considering it is a 3-roll-2 jacket.
The distance between the roll button and the middle button were rather too close, comparing to the distance between the middle and the bottom button.
At the end, we've decided to slightly lower the middle and the bottom buttons while making sure the buttoning point would still be along the natural waistline.
As for the lapel width, I really enjoyed what they did there. Moving on from the skinny lapels which I did for my older suits to a 3-inches wide is very satisfying I would have to admit.
And that's pretty much it. It is always better to point out every single detail that needs to be altered to the tailor during the first-fitting, even it is not very significant. It is rather difficult to adjust some parts of the suit afterwards.
On a side note, there would be at least another fitting with the above alterations completed, as well as the waistcoat being ready for first-fitting. Please look forward.
For more in-depth information about the designing process for this suit, check out my previous post here.