Red Flags to Watch Out for While In Search for a Tailor in Hong Kong

Admittedly, tailoring in Hong Kong is perhaps one of the biggest tourists’ attractions in this Chinese territory. But there are some things that every man who is in the hunt for a good tailor in Hong Kong must learn.

So here are some red flags to watch out for while in a quest for a good tailor in Hong Kong. These red flags, however, are just precautions and not automatically a sign that a particular tailor is not trustworthy or reputable. It is just a guide for you to be more observant when choosing and deciding if a particular clothier has what it takes to make quality and decent looking men’s suits.

Too Much Talk, Less Buzzing Activity at the Shop

One must first realize that Hong Kong is a very fast paced metropolitan city. Practically everyone walks and talks at a seemingly fast forward mode. The same case can be applied to many HK tailors. Well, at least only to those who are truly busy and up to their neck in back orders that spending too much time on niceties and pleasantries with one particular client is almost impossible to do so.

The point is that a tailor who is seemingly nothing better else to do but engage you in too much conversation over a cup of tea should be seen as a bit of a red flag. After all, there is a presumption that truly good tailors are too busy turning our back orders to do much talking to just one customer.

Wet Behind the Ears Tailor (Barely Out of their Teens)

While it may be true that there could be young tailor geniuses out there, in general, good master tailors in Hong Kong should be already in their middle age years. After all, tailoring is one of those tradecrafts that can be truly mastered by someone only through long and hard years of hands on experience. It is not something that can be learned just by going to school. The more experience a tailor has, the likelier that he will be good at creating fitted suits and other custom tailoring clothes.

The Promise of a Suit in a Day

If you are given a promise that your custom fitted suit will be ready tomorrow, do not be glad about it. In fact, ask yourself this question, is it really a suit custom tailored to your exact size measurements and body proportions, or merely a ready to wear suit designed to appear as if it were the former?

Bear in mind that a decent quality made to measure suit should require at least one to two more fittings before final stitching could be done, and this takes at least three days or more.

Finding a good and reputable tailor in Hong Kong is actually not that hard for as long as the seeker himself knows and understands how and what it takes to create a good and decent men’s suit.

Getting the Best of Both Worlds with the Personalized Service of Visiting Tailors

Imagine this scenario if you will: you live in your own city while halfway across the world is where your favorite clothier is located. But thanks to some modern business practices that are increasingly becoming indispensable in the continued individualized service of custom tailoring nowadays, you could now have your fitted suits without having to fly out thousands of miles.

And this indispensable personalized custom tailoring service is called the visiting tailors, or also known as the traveling tailors.

Indeed, most if not all tailoring houses nowadays have some kind of affiliated visiting tailors and cutters roaming around the world to cater to the needs of their clients. In general, these traveling tailors schedule a visit in a particular city once or twice a year.

Meetings and measurement fittings with clients are typically held at a five star or business class hotels at the heart of the city. As an added convenience, these traveling tailors usually bring with them sample swatches of the latest and most popular suiting and shirting fabric materials available. This way a client can still experience a complete and personalized custom tailoring service albeit in an improvised setting.

One of the upsides of visiting tailors is that clients need not waste their time and money by travelling far, or out of the country, just to get their made to measure suits done. It is for these reasons clients who do not have the luxury of time or the extra money to spare for airfare and hotel accommodations that the concept of tailors going the distance to accommodate the needs of the clients is quite a remarkable thing nowadays.

Another remarkable thing about it is that clients need not settle for a ready to made suit in a nearby department store or a custom tailoring service from a local house just because his preferred tailor is thousands of miles away.

Regular clients are typically corporate executives who are required, or at least expected, to wear a suit in their daily business and social dealings. Business people, more than any other career men and women, recognize the importance of having impeccable and elegant men’s suits and dress shirts in order to create a good and unforgettable impression on the people they meet.

It is undeniable that clients are truly getting best of both worlds when it comes to having a personalized service from their visiting tailors.

The Indispensable Charcoal Grey Custom Suit

Custom Suits made for men

The early death of some custom suits in a man’s wardrobe is usually not the wear and tear of the threading materials as a result of repeated uses, but rather it is just only one of two things.

And both could have been easily avoided if the man had only exercised good judgment and due diligence right from the beginning.

Simply put, the early death of his supposedly beloved and expensive tailored suits could have been prevented. The suit would have enjoyed a long and distinguished life if not for the wearer’s lapse of judgment.

The first lapse of judgment which may cause the early demise of one fitted suits could be attributed to a combination of a man’s overindulgence in food and a sedentary lifestyle, which simply means that he is not getting enough vigorous physical activity to burn off all those excess calories.

As a result, his expensive investment of a custom suit, which he had initially thought would be worth its exorbitant price since it would serve him elegantly well for many years, will have to retire early simply because it does not fit him anymore. The extra poundage is simply too much that no amount of tailoring alterations could salvage the suit.

A quality made fitted suit jacket or trousers can be usually let out or can be tucked in just few inches, perhaps maximum of 2 inches along the waist area or the sleeves. In some areas of a suit jacket like the shoulder yoke, it can be quite difficult to make even some minor adjustments without compromising the overall fit.

The second lapse of judgment that could be attributed to the early death of a man’s custom suit is merely a matter of fashion preference. Preference, that is, for being too caught up in fashion trend that one tends to forget that trends come and go. What might be in and hot right now may just as suddenly become outdated and passé a few months down the road.

And indeed, what would a man do if he finds himself with a tailored suit in a loud designs or colored patterns that was all the rage a season ago but is suddenly not ‘too cool’ to wear anymore. That is one of the dilemmas of having a too conspicuous design or too an avant garde style in one’s suits instead of opting for classic and timeless design and in solid staple colors.

 

Certainly, there is nothing wrong when a cosmopolitan man would sometimes go with an avant garde suiting style for as long as he understands that he may have to put to an early death, so to speak, this particular custom suit –no matter how much it had cost him to have it made.

Indeed, the often cited causes of the early demise of some custom suits in a man’s wardrobe are easily avoidable if the man wanted to. Both were just a matter of choice right from the start.

Good Custom Tailors Spell the Difference

There is a fine line that a man threads upon between exuding stylish confidence and being dull and uninteresting especially in the way he dresses himself up. And the fine line is all about having a bit of a help from custom tailors as opposed to merely walking to the nearest department store and randomly selecting one’s clothing attire.

A good custom tailor in your area, or trusted and proven visiting tailors from another city or country, whom you can rely upon to fill up your wardrobe closet with men’s suits; suits that are not only handcrafted excellently with good quality suiting and shirting material but, more importantly, would fit your body like a glove.

Only when these two criteria are basically satisfied can a man truly exude stylish confidence, which essentially comes from knowing and ‘feeling’ that he looks darn good in his choice of clothing attire. The admiring glances from onlookers and compliments from work colleagues can only add more boost in one’s self esteem.

The reason why a good custom tailor can spell difference between a good fit of suit and a suit that is maybe a designer brand, but nonetheless an off the peg one (read: mass manufactured by machines) is that a good custom tailor would be able to tweak the fit and shape of the suit according to the exact and precise size measurements and figurations of the wearer’s body. Read: tailored fit to your body.

And that small tweaks to your custom suits do make the difference in having that stylish confidence and to being dull and lackluster because of a shabbily made suit and dress shirt.

On the other hand, it is not uncommon practice for a man to buy a ready to wear suit, which is in some cases like branded ones can cost almost as much as the custom tailored ones, only to realize a little too late that they needed to take it to a local alteration shop to get that decent enough fit.

In certain cases, an alteration job does the trick especially if the pants are just an inch or two too wide or too tight. But more than one and a half inch adjustment jobs can already get a little tricky, if not unlikely already.

Indeed, sometimes ready to wear suits may be cheaper and easy to acquire –one just goes to the nearest department store-, but in the long run off the rack suits are actually expensive and more stressful because of all the needed alterations and the workmanship quality.

In the end, good custom tailors is the fine line between a good suit and bad one, a man who exudes stylish confidence and one who is looks dull and uninteresting.

The Affordable Elegance of Hong Kong Tailors

In many major financial districts and metropolitan cities around the world, men wear fitted suits. Some do so by personal preference, while others do so because they have no other say on the matter.

But whatever the case, this means that many men have no choice but to be in the constant lookout for great tailors who can deliver quality custom tailoring clothes and other services.

And Hong Kong, being a city at a unique position between the Western and Eastern cultures is leading the way in meeting and supplying that rising demand all over the world.

Nowadays, there are Hong Kong tailors that number by the hundreds, if not thousands, in this metropolitan Chinese territory. Obviously, this was brought about by the increasing need of men to find not only a good quality and a fit of a suit but also that which may not strain the pockets too much.

These are, perhaps, the driving forces that have made Hong Kong tailors quite popular around the world. It has been estimated that there are more or less 42 million tourists that pass through this city annually. And it cannot be denied that aside from the usual sightseeing attractions and numerous business opportunities that this metropolitan Chinese city has to offer, tailoring tourism likewise plays a big part on the city’s allure.

Hong Kong tailors have built up a reputation for themselves for what might be called as affordable elegance. The phrase may sound incongruent at first encounter. After all, elegance has always been expected and associated with extravagance and luxury.

Affordable is just not usually said at the same breath as elegance.

On the other hand, that is what these ingenuous Hong Kong tailors have amazingly accomplished with their impeccably made custom suits and other men’s clothing apparels.

And despite what skeptics may say, tailoring tourism, which is already a billion dollar business in this city, will not have continued to thrive and flourish if it were just riding solely on its being cheap or affordable. Nonetheless, there is some truth to it that the cost of fitted suits and shirts here (even at many well established tailoring houses in the city) is only about a quarter of the price in other leading cities in the world, including London and New York.

It is undeniable though that many tourists continue to patronize Hong Kong tailors because of their excellent craftsmanship and skillful handiwork. Being affordable is just a bonus.

In other words, affordable elegance is possible.

Why Bespoke Tailors Deserve the Respect of Men

In a world dominated by artificial intelligent and modern technological innovations that were truly unthinkable even a few decades ago, much less at the start of the last century, why then artisans like bespoke tailors who work slowly and meticulously purely and solely with their skillful hands are so greatly admired by many men and women?

So what are bespoke tailors anyways?

Bespoke tailors belong to that special breed of men that first flourished in an era when English tradesmen take great pride in their crafts; a time when these master artisans work meticulously using their hands to create a custom suit that is designed perfectly to fit the wearer’s body like a glove.

To say that a work of something is bespoke in the fashion industry is to strictly and customarily mean that individually cut paper pattern and clothing garment was sewn together sans the aid of machines such as sewing and cutting machines.

And to construct a thing of beauty solely by hand all the more sets apart these master custom clothiers, who truly deserve the respect and admiration of men.

No wonder then that bespoke tailors are regarded highly not only for their long and storied history, but more importantly, for their passionate dedication and unyielding pursuit of perfection for their craft.

And in the world of bespoke tailoring, this means that the craftsmanship of both the tailors and master cutters on all garments, including the individual cut of a paper pattern, have been done entirely by hand.

And considering all the modern technological advancement being used in the mass production of clothes nowadays, the endeavor of bespoke tailoring may initially seem unwise and unproductive.

But the finished product of impeccable bespoke suits would attest otherwise. The use of the finest threads and meticulous handiwork of up to the minutest details of the custom suit makes every penny that a man pays for it worth it.

This is in stark contrast with mass manufactured ready to wear clothes that were created generically for anyone. These off the peg clothes have become the default preferred clothing of the common people, primarily because it is cheaper and easily available compared with custom tailored clothes. However, these mass produced clothes are usually considered substandard in quality in the materials used and in the process it was made.

Indeed, bespoke tailors deserve the respect and admiration of men because in the end these master artisans likewise help pave the way for a man to make good impression on the people that he encounters.

Top 4 Reasons Why Dressing Sharply in Custom Suits Should Matter

Any sensible man should be able to find many sensible reasons to dress up sharply in custom suits. And as if not looking sloppy and shabby are not incentives enough, here are some points to ponder on why every man should give a damn on their everyday appearance and not just occasionally on special events.


Creating that Positive First Impressions

People are generally superficial. And it should not necessarily be a bad thing actually, it is just a human instinct or nature to make split seconds decisions and judgment calls. In the first 30 seconds of meeting someone, that person has already sized you up and formed an opinion of your status and position in the society’s food chain. The better dressed and impeccable looking you are in your custom suit, the higher you must be in the societal hierarchy, and therefore a force to be reckoned with.

Increasing Your Stature in the Eyes of Your Colleagues

So creating a remarkable first impression is something that every man, especially in the business world, should aspire for, but what about your appearance every single day? After all, an impeccable and well polished appearance day in and day out serves as a constant reminder to your colleagues and to your bosses as well how you want to be treated.

It is a fact that a man in an elegant men’s suit and fashionable custom suit routinely experience better treatment and service than their shabbily-dressed counterparts.

Dressing Sharp Can Help Boost Your Self-Esteem

So people you meet react and treat you with a high regard than many people. You can probably even get a table at a swanky restaurant without prior reservation just on the strength of your great looking and expensive custom suit. The receptionist probably thinks you are a high roller. Certainly, being treated like a royalty everywhere you go does give you that bit of a good feeling to your well being.

Looking Sharp Sharpens the Mind

Believe it or not, once your mind becomes accustomed to planning every detail of your custom suit ensemble, you become more keenly aware of the things and the people around you.

This would probably translate also to developing an ability to have deeper insight on the people that you meet, including just by looking at how they treat themselves and how they present themselves to the world.

After all, a sensible and rational man must realize that no man is an island. He cannot just dismiss another man’s opinion on himself. At some point, a man has to care also on how he comes across to others.

Indeed, if you are a sensible and rational man, you would realize that dressing sharply in custom suit matters.