The Bespoke Process - Part Three - Making and Fitting

This stage of the bespoke process would be better described as several different processes combined which take the suit from a series of flat panels of cloth, to the finished constructed garment. The suit's pattern has been cut and struck (as described in the second installment of this series) and has been passed to the Coat Maker to 'make-up' a baste of the suit for the first baste fitting. This is the part of the process where the suit is loosely stitched together for the first time using the iconic white 'baste stitching' that you will doubtless be familiar with.

The inside chest canvass, mid-way through being sewn in by the Coat Maker. This is what the inside of a jacket will look like at the baste fitting, before the lining goes in. The black diagonal lines are hand-stitches which run through the canvass on two planes, holding it gently in tension, giving it a natural curve to allow it to curve around the chest for a faultless finish. 

The baste fittings are the fittings where the suit is very gently tacked together into its basic shape, to allow it to be tried on. This in turn allows for the tailor to begin to properly adjust the suit and ensure that it fits properly. The customer's paper pattern will be adjusted also, to improve the initial make-up of the garment for future orders. Making such structural adjustment is the sole purpose of the baste fittings, and in between each fitting the suit is broken back down into its individual component parts, before being re-stitched together into a slightly different (and hopefully improved) baste, once its been altered and adjusted to fit more closely as required. This will be done as many times as necessary to ensure a proper bespoke fit.

A famous photograph of Sean Connery at a basted fitting in his Mayfair Tailor's Anthony Sinclair, having a suit fitted that is to be worn in his next James Bond film. This is a relatively late baste fitting, but the white baste stitching and lack of a waist button hole are apparent even at this stage.

At this stage, it'll look nothing like the finished product. Pockets and lapel facings won't have been added, the entire garment will be covered in lose white stitching and there will be no button holes or lining in the jacket. Trousers will often come without a waistband for first bastes. Often, the first couple of baste fittings of the jacket will be without sleeves, with sleeves being set and pitched only once enough baste fittings have been passed to make sure that the coat fits appropriately around the torso. It is not uncommon to have two or three baste fittings, with the amount of temporary baste stitching being reduced each time as more and more of the structural elements of the suit are sufficiently tweaked and fitted properly with the passing of each fitting.

After the baste fittings, the forward fittings take place. By now, the suit is largely complete, and structurally intact, fitting more or less as its going to, and most of the fixed elements of the suit will be in their final, permanent position. Sleeves will be fully set, the jacket will be made up and lapel facings and the lining added. Pockets will have also been added to both jacket and trouser. Lapels will have been added to waistcoats which are cut with a separate lapel.

This is an image of a suit of mine at its second forward fitting. As you can see its more or less completed, sleeves are set, pocket jets are added and so are the lapel facings.

These fittings (again there are usually two to three) involve making smaller adjustments to the fit of the garment - not revolving around the suit's major structural elements like the fit of the chest canvass or shoulder, but now focusing on simple cloth seams which won't impact upon the garment's structure. Subtle things that need addressing are focus now, trouser hem length, sleeve length, and the fit of the jacket around the wearer's waist - it is now that the customer's desired shape for the jacket waist is built-in and finished (lose and comfortable, or a highly fitted, suppressed hourglass waist etc). The side and centre back seams of the coat and/or waistcoat will be adjusted by the Coat Maker to give a closer, more flattering fit to achieve this. Excitingly, it is at this stage in the process that the garment becomes recognisably close to its complete state. To get a better sense of what happens at a forward fitting, you can take a look at the last forward fitting I attended here.

A suit during a relatively early baste fitting. The sleeves have been temporarily and losely set and a lot of baste stitching is running through the body of the jacket to tack the canvassing into place. Similarly, the lapel facings have yet to be attached.

The final stage in the bespoke process comes after all structural work and fitting of the suit has been completed, and the fit perfected. Here the completed garment is tried onto the customer, and buttons, buttonholes and topstitching are added by the 'Finisher' ready for the final fitting. Self-evidently, the Finisher specialises adding the final, precise details to tailored garments (such as hand finished stitching, felling linings, attaching buttons and sewing button holes etc.) and pressing and preparing the suit to be worn as a finished garment by the customer for the first time.

I should of course acknowledge that this is only a generic description of the process, every tailor does things differently - some tailors won't set a sleeve until the forward fittings, others will have sleeves included in the first or second baste fittings. I hope however, that this series has provided a clear and engaging illustration of the general process of constructing a bespoke garment, and also that the series will have removed some of the mystique surrounding the delicate art of bespoke tailoring and served to educate and elucidate the process for the curious reader.