I’m a really odd shape – 48/50 chest, 34/36 waist – and can never find a suit that fits nicely. M & S Sartorial range is nice as you can chop and change to suit, so I tend to use these for day-to-day school duties.

For nice stuff I have a couple of handmade suits, and they really are better in every way.

I’m sure you’ll look lovely Phil. A fascinator will set it all off nicely…

Forgot to mention Paul Smith do a 3 day warehouse clearance sale near the Aldwych around May/June, suits for £120 the past 2 years, also Hugo Boss clearance/sample sale at their offices in Camden around June or July.

Only thing with these sales – no changing rooms so just hope the trousers are proper fit, not some strange skinny hip, drainpipe affair.

If you can get to a large city fairly easily, flick through the city papers or look online, a few of the Hong Kong firms like Raja Fashions mentioned earlier in the thread do UK tours where they will measure you up at a hotel room and make a suit for you.

I’ve been into Raja’s shop in HK and they are often recommended – i’ve never used them though. Not as cheap as it used to be, when I first started going out to HK regularly about 5-6 years ago you used to be able to get tailored shirts for £22 a pop and a good suit for £3-400, it’s easily 50% more now.

I’ve been very impressed with Brook Taverner – free returns, no quibble exchange, and often 50% off if you hunt around for a voucher. http://www.brooktaverner.co.uk/?source=iups&kwd=smart

Hugo Boss Black

As for the King and Allen recommendation – I was fully prepared to go down that route and went to one of their fitting sessions in the city. The suit the assistant was wearing was so poorly fitted I immediately

AND DONT FORGET THE SHOES!
a nice suit is pointless without impeccable choice of footwear (grenson/cheaney/barker/sanders/trickers etc etc)

Very true, crockett and jones for me – had more subsequent use out of the shoes than the suit… ebay can find you some deals on nice shoes, mine were less than half the in store price.

I’m very tall, so M&S mixed and matched to get close, then off to my tailor to tweak it until it fitted the way I like it. And you can buy two pairs of trousers if you use the suit a lot to avoid any nasty shiny-ness in the seat area. In my opinion, a well cut suit of a reasonable fabric outdoes a reasonably cut suit in a great fabric. Unless you wear it inside out so that people can see the label…

Go to Boundary Mill Stores in Colne and you’ll get THREE suits for £350.

No good if you don’t live in Lancashire or West Yorkshire though.

Paul Smith – very sexy suits.

Mrsconsequence going barefoot is sooo cool

I wasn’t barefoot for the ‘i dos’ but I was barefoot an hour later for the rest of the day/night 🙂 I must be very cool 🙂

If less than 300GBP its best just to get off the peg unless you happen to be in Hong Kong or Thailand, even then some of the more western based tailors (such as Raja Fashions) are getting more expensive than say 2-3 years ago.
Most of my work gear is bespoke, both Saville Row and local Hong Kong shops, and I have to admit it is difficult to tell the difference as most cloths made on ‘the row’ are in fact put together in China!