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★★★★☆

“Well-Made Tailored Suits”

written by robertjlee on 23/01/2013

My first garment from ASTF was a self-measured shirt. This was a mistake; I now know that you really do need to go in to have them measure you. I'd tried to avoid a £25 surplus on a £78 shirt and it wasn't worth it.

The shirt that eventually arrived seemed to be made of a good material, but the stitching was poorly finished and the fit wasn't good. I contacted their customer services but would have had to pay a further £40 to have it adjusted retrospectively to fit; they would have remade it for that price or it they'd measured me, but it just wasn't worth it. I don't know why they offer self-measure; it nearly put me off them completely.

After a rather muddy wedding I was at in December, I tried them again, this time to make sure I had a replacement for my ageing off-the-peg suit, having found other reviews online. I'm very glad I did.

I chose the details of a three-piece dark navy suit at their Edinburgh studio. Most of their navy suitings seemed very dark. Their "style advisor", Chris McGowan, talked me through the process and measured me just as a tailor would have done. He seemed to know most of the practical and style details to help with the various options, although I had read up on menswear first, which did help and I'd recommend knowing as much as you can find out about suits when visiting any tailor.

He also stressed to me that they made real bespoke suits and they would consider options not on their website wizard, giving an example of one customer who asked for an 8-button cuff. But I haven't heard of anything ordinary that isn't on their site, and chose to stick to the menu.

The tailoring process wasn't without difficulties and involved many adjustments, each meaning shipping the suit to London; they had to remake my waistcoat twice, once to change the button position by half an inch and then again because they'd made it in the wrong colour! If nothing else, they were happy to fix anything I pointed out to them, and they found more wrong with the suit than I did. I got to keep the black waistcoat for free, partly I think as compensation for the time taken. I didn't notice any difference in quality between their original make and subsequent alterations.

I can't stress this enough: get them to measure you first, and choose the fabrics based on real samples, not their website pictures. The lining of my suit, in particular, looks dark and sombre on the website but bright and vibrant in real life (which is what I want in a lining).

I still can't recommend them for shirts; they are very expensive compared to other made-to-measure places, and don't provide much data on their shirtings. From one shirt, they didn't do a good job, so I now buy shirts elsewhere. But I'm planning to order more suits from them in future; they also make dinner jackets and genuine formal tails (morning and evening).

Don't ask them to work to a deadline for your first suit. All the negative reviews I've seen have had this in common. Let them take their time, and eventually you will have an excellent suit. They claim that subsequent garments are faster; I intend to find out.

Yes, payment up front for a six-month make is a pain, but the finished product was of good quality materials, well sewn, properly canvassed, made to a real pattern, and actually fits, all for less than you'd pay at the end of the process to a local tailor who's never been to Savile Row.

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