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Bespoke - Made To Measure - Off The Rack - What's The Difference Menswear Terminology Help
Hi! I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style. Today, I'm going to be talking
about menswear terminology, the difference between bespoke, made-to-measure, and ready-to-wear.
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Okay, let me jump right into it. This is a question that comes up. As a custom clothier,
it's something that I've heard many times. Occasionally, I get emails and people will
ask me, "Are you bespoke?" or "Are you made-to-measure?" or "Do you have anything ready-to-wear?" So
what are these terms and what do they mean?
Well, maybe I should just talk about first off why is this important and why should you
even care. Well, let me use the analogy of beef. Yes, beef. Being from Texas, it's something
I understand. There are three classifications of beef -- well, actually there are more,
but three common ones, and they're going to be prime, choice, and select.
Now, whenever you go to the grocery store and you want a steak, you're looking for either
a prime or select. Most places are going to have select. You may be able to find prime
in a butcher shop. In any case, when you are looking at different grades of meat, when
you're expecting to eat a steak, you know that this is going to cost you more. You're
expecting a higher level of quality as defined as a meat-eater. I apologize to the vegetarians
out there, but I'm a meat-eater.
The point I'm getting though is that you are conditioned to pay a certain amount for this
type of beef and you assume that it is higher quality, whatever those standards may be.
Now, there's the lower end stuff. I mean, it goes all the way down to canned beef that
is only good for canning. So if you're going to look at a can of corned beef or a prime
steak, you expect that there'd be a price difference. They both come from the same animal
and they're maybe the same exact amount, but one of them has positioned itself as this
is luxury and this other one is not; the same with menswear.
Bespoke is the higher end of the market. This is the art. This is individually handmade.
This is the craft that's been passed on from tailor to tailor to tailor. Made-to-measure
is more in the middle. Ready-to-wear is where we now are using technology and you're just
producing tons -- this is whenever you walk in to Walmart, Target, or most off-the-rack,
anything off-the-rack and which is already pre-made. That is ready-to-wear.
So like with the meat analogy though, it's not necessarily one is better than the other
because at the end of the day, you could live off of either of those meals, and the same
with the clothing. You could wear any of that and probably get by. And there are men actually
who it's better to go with ready-to-wear because they fit the actual model and the exact design.
And for those men, this is perfect because they get the best of both worlds.
They get a great price and they get something that actually fits them, but for most men,
they're not going to exactly fit in the ready-to-wear or off-the-rack, so they're going to want
to take that to get it altered and adjusted. And depending on how much they need done and
depending on how their body is shaped, it may come to a point that this is just not
going to work for them. This suit is never going to look as great.
And so, the options moving up are made-to-measure. Now, made-to-measure is different in the sense
that you have more control, so that's a keyword with custom clothing or ready-to-wear. Ready-to-wear,
you really don't have much control. You're given something and you've got to work with
it. With made-to-measure, which is more in the middle, you do have some control.
Think of it as Legos in a sense that you can attach different arms. They can take different
bodies. The jacket is broken apart. The designs are already pre-made and simply based off
of your measurements, nowadays they can run it with an algorithm and they can determine,
okay, let's throw these pieces together and boom! So it's oftentimes a perfectly -- I
mean, it is a unique piece, but the pattern and everything, it wasn't made exactly for
the individual, so you have a lot of control, but not full control.
When we go to bespoke, which technically the word means "to be spoken for", all of a sudden,
we have full control. And with bespoke, the individual pattern is created for the gentleman.
I know with my company, we take over 50 measurements. We do make an individual paper pattern for
every single individual. And also, I consider this part of bespoke, but I take into consideration
the contrast of the hair with the skin. I look at their eye color. I look at their body
build, so all of this, basically we have full control.
And with that full control, you do oftentimes get better results, although it's not guaranteed
because like I said, there are many men who made-to-measure or off-the-rack would suit
them better because they're going to save more money and it's going to be a very minute
difference. And you can get bespoke tailors who call themselves bespoke and they're really
not that good and can make mistakes. At the end of the day, remember bespoke is full control,
made-to-measure is partial control, and ready-to-wear is not really too much control and depending
on how good your tailor is.
Now, let's talk a little bit more about these terms. The reason this is a big deal is money
because like with the meat, men throughout the world are conditioned to pay a different
amount for each level. So if you are a made-to-measure tailor and you're calling yourself bespoke,
in a way that enables you to charge more. However, the bespoke tailors hate this. In
fact, over in England, there's been a lot of stuff drawn up with the laws trying to
protect the word. Now, this is going to be something that's going to be ongoing. The
precedent was set by France. They protect the word "couture" over in France. It has
to meet certain specifications. They haven't had as much luck over in the UK, but it really
again comes down to money and trust.
So if a tailor is calling himself bespoke, he needs to have full control. And if he's
not and he's calling himself bespoke, then he's kind of misusing the term. If it's made-to-measure
-- and a lot of places actually -- made-to-measure, again, it's good, but it's the partial control,
and the last one, off-the-rack or ready-to-wear.
Hopefully I didn’t confuse you. Hopefully I clarified the situation. I'd love to hear
from you guys in the comments so if you've got something to add, let me see you down
there. And last but not least, don't forget to go to Real Men Real Style and check out
my new e-book. I'm pretty proud about that. I've got 14 hours of audio, over 600 pages,
and it's pretty darn good.
I'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.