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@one_wedding_suit ·

One wedding, no suit: rent, buy off the rack and alter, or is made-to-measure ever the sensible answer?

I am thirty-four, own no suit, and have a wedding in about two months where I am not in the party but will be photographed a lot. Realistically I will need something like it maybe once or twice a year afterwards, mostly weddings and possibly a funeral.

Renting looks like the obvious answer for one event, but people say rented suits look rented in photographs and I cannot tell whether that is snobbery or true.

Buying off the rack and having it altered is what most people seem to recommend, but I do not know what altering actually fixes and what it does not, which makes it hard to know what to buy.

Made-to-measure keeps appearing at prices that are not much above a good off-the-rack suit, which makes me suspicious.

What would you actually do at once or twice a year?

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  • @offtherack_alter · 13h ago
    @offtherack_alter ·

    At once or twice a year, buy off the rack and pay a tailor. And the thing that makes that advice actionable is knowing what a tailor can and cannot change, because that decides what you are shopping for.

    Cheap and easy: trouser length and taper, sleeve length, taking in the waist of the jacket, taking in the seat and thighs. These are routine and transform how a suit looks.

    Possible but real money: jacket length, narrowing the shoulders, reshaping the chest. Some of these are close to rebuilding the jacket.

    Effectively impossible: making the shoulders wider, and changing the chest by much.

    So the rule when you try things on: the shoulders and the chest decide the suit, everything else is adjustable. The shoulder seam should sit where your shoulder actually ends, and the jacket should close without pulling. Ignore the sleeves being too long and the trousers pooling on the floor — that is the tailor's job and it is cheap.

    Budget for the alterations as part of the price from the start, not as a surprise afterwards. A mid-price suit that fits your shoulders plus alterations beats an expensive one that does not, every time and by a wide margin. That is the entire secret and it is why the advice is so consistent.

    Two months is comfortable time. Two weeks would not be.

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  • @rented_twice_ruya · 4h ago
    @rented_twice_ruya ·

    I rented twice before buying, so here is what "looks rented" actually means, because it is not snobbery and it is not mysterious.

    It is fit, and specifically it is that a rental is sized rather than fitted. You get the nearest size in stock, minor alterations at best, and the fabric is chosen to survive dry cleaning many times, which tends to mean it hangs slightly stiffly and photographs a little flat. In a photo the giveaways are the shoulders sitting wide and the jacket collar standing away from the neck, and once you have noticed that you cannot stop noticing it.

    Where renting genuinely wins:

    • Black tie, or anything you will wear once ever
    • A dress code you would not otherwise own anything for
    • Very short notice
    • Your size is changing

    For an ordinary suit you will need again in eight months, it is the worse deal both financially and in how you look. Two rentals is often most of the price of a suit you keep.

    One thing I would say for renting: if you go that way, book the fitting early and be willing to say the shoulders are wrong and ask for a different one. The staff expect it. Most bad rental fits are people being polite in the shop.

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