Value is a tricky word to define these days. For many, the word quite simply means inexpensive. For others, it takes on a different meaning, as in what do you value? What is it you appreciate? What matters to you? In the clothing industry, we see globally what we refer to as a race to
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CUSTOM JOB: A suit jacket under construction at Marc Allen Fine Clothiers.
COURTESY MARC A. STREISAND[/caption]
If being fully canvassed is the marker of a quality jacket, what is the alternative? For all other jackets, we enter the territory of “half canvassed, fused garments.” What does half canvassed, fused mean? Fused suits represent a relatively low tailoring standard. These have a mesh material placed between the two layers of the jacket. The exterior cloth lies on this fused mesh. When pressed, it gets glued between the two layers of the fabric. So fusing is a fancy word for glued together. Unfortunately, a fused jacket represents about 90% of jackets on the market. If you’ve ever taken a jacket in for cleaning and it came back warped and with wrinkles, this was the glue melting from the cleaning process. Once this occurs, you can toss it in the trash. There is no fixing this.
Even today, many well-known suit and jacket makers utilize the half canvassed, fused construction, suits that run $1,000 or more. So you’re likely paying for a better fabric on an inferior construction that just won’t last. The best advice we can give is to ask when you’re purchasing your garments whether it is fully handmade, fully canvased or a fused garment. If the salesperson doesn’t know the answer, it’s likely fused.
Whether it be from a large, well-known menswear mall store or “custom-made” garments sold by on-the-road salespeople, the overwhelming majority of those garments are fused. But you don’t need to take our word for it, you can ask them yourself.
So circling back to the question of value. In our estimation, the word has become distorted. Value has gone from something you appreciate to something that is just plain cheap – cheap in price, cheap in fabric and cheap in construction. This is a situation in which we believe, very strongly, that less is more. Fewer garments of high quality will always trump a large assortment of poorly made garments.
Marc A. Streisand is the owner of Marc Allen Fine Clothiers in Providence.