Double Breasted Dogstooth with Cad & the Dandy II: The Basted Fitting

Post-festivities last week, I managed to squeeze in the time to schedule an appointment with The Cad & the Dandy for a first basted fitting on my new double breasted dogstooth wool lounge suit, the conception of which you can read about here.

Personally, I always find this the most exciting, and simultaneously nerve-racking part of the bespoke tailoring experience. At the basted fitting, the customer sees the garment in its rough 'basted' form for the first time, held together as it is with white baste stitching. At this point, it is only the basic, skeletal structure of the garment which is present; no lining, no pockets, no buttons, no lapel facings or collar, and no trouser waistband. The trousers and jacket are fastened with pins, so that button positions can be set and adjusted by the tailor as required during the fitting. Once the garment has been fitted to the customer and tweaked, it is broken down again into its individual panels, the pattern is adjusted and the suit re-cut to improve the fit, before being re-sewn together for the next fitting, where the process is repeated.

Tapering the waist and slimming down the sleeves on the coat.

I must say that at this part of the tailoring process at least, the service of The Cad & the Dandy has been exceptional, and I am very pleased with how the suit is looking. I arrived only to discover that the City Shop was opened solely for me (as there were no other appointments scheduled that day) and my suit brought over from the finisher at Savile Row by the Director Mr. James Sleater himself. I had booked my fitting with the eminently capable Mr. John Baker (pictured) whom works with me regularly on my Cad & the Dandy orders. This suit itself was a bit of a risk on my part; I came up with the design very quickly, and the choice of cloth and lining I also made on the spot in the shop, having originally intended to go for either a grey chalkstripe or windowpane check. Consequently I was rather nervous to see this suit made-up and I couldn't really visualise how it would look, whereas normally I have quite a good set of designs and ideas to work with in my head.

Here you can see the basted trousers, lacking in any pockets or the waistband. Turn-ups will be added later too.

Fortunately, the dogstooth has achieved the precise effect I was hoping for, a sharp, yet subtle salt and pepper contrast in the weave (dark and light in tailor's speak) which comes out as a soft blue-grey from a distance. Having had two suits made, my pattern has reached the point where its been refined so much that its pretty much spot-on, so the adjustments we had to make were relatively simple. The trousers fit and hang like a dream, and the tiny bit of excess in the seat will be taken-up by the waistband and lining once they are fitted. The jacket sleeve setting and pitch, and the coat's balance were all perfect. Fortunately, John knows what I like and did a marvellous job (as ever) of reading my mind; he slimmed down the sleeves a little (you can see the row of pins in the rear of the sleeve) and put a good deal more suppression into the waist for a stronger hourglass shape without my even asking. Some more flare was pinned into the skirt for the same reason. We also set the lapel gorge to best balance the coat's very broad peaked lapels. Interestingly, The Cad & the Dandy's double-breasted house cut turns out to place the coat buttons with a half-wrap, very close together on the front of the jacket, producing a double-breasted suit with a small box of close set, fastening buttons. Again, this worked in our favour, given that I had wanted a suit with a relatively small wrap, saving us the job of setting the wrap at the fitting.

The garment at the basted stage, this gives only a rough guide to what will be its eventual shape. As you can see, the lapels have not been faced or shaped at this stage, and the padding beneath is visible.

This is also the part of the process where, by getting to see the inside of the garment, mid-construction, the degree of work required to produce the suit is most apparent. In these two photographs below and above, you can see how skeletal the suit looks at this stage in the process. The coat is fastened with pins, the suit's shape has yet to be finalised and the suit jacket pockets haven't been fitted yet. The lapels have no facings, and the peaks have not been cut or shaped. The ochre and cream panels you can see, held-in with white basted stitching are the layers of canvass that pad (shape) the lapels, and give them a gentle, natural roll as they sit around the chest. On an off-the-peg, mass produced suit, the lapels are not padded at all, but fused together by machine and have no interlining to help them sit around the chest. 

Below, you can see the canvassing that goes into the suit (again, off-the-peg suits are not made in this way), with different layers of canvass, hessian and horsehair lining the chest and skirt of the jacket's fore-parts to give it body. The two planes of white diagonal stitching are perhaps the most important aspect of the entire suit, having been sewn in by an expert hand (no machine currently exists that can stitch jacket canvasses on two planes) hold tension in the jacket, creating curvature in the chest, providing a fuller, closer and more natural shape, which sits around the curvature of the wearer's rib-cage.

By the next fitting, the 'forward fitting' the suit will be far closer to its finished state; the lining will be present, as will jacket pockets, buttons, cuffs and the trouser waistband, turn-ups and hand-finished top-stitching sewn in by the finisher. That fitting will take place at some point in late January, so there will be more to come on this project then and excitingly, the transformation from cloth to finished garment will be far closer to completion.

The inside of the suit coat. Here you can see the shoulder pads, as well as the black canvassing cloth, interlaced with the different planes of white basted stitching, the pale hessian canvas that runs right through into the jacket skirt to help the cloth's drape, and the machined seams that make-up the body of the jacket. The overlay to cover the under-side of the jacket vent can also be seen.