Happy Easter! I have a wedding to attend in about two weeks and the attire calls for a black suit. The thing is, I have a beautiful Hugo Boss suit I bought two years back on sale at a price I couldn't resist. The problem is, that suit is dark gray and I am part of the entourage for this wedding so the slightest deviation in color might be terribly obvious. I weighed my options and made a few inquiries. I even looked at this interesting post on Manila Tailors by men who are far more fashionable than me. Thing is I had my head fixed on a budget on P7,000 max. I have a reasonably good build so some off the rack looks good on me. But I did want a custom suit, tapered, like the ones Daniel Craig wears on the Bond movies so off I went.
Bergamo
Posh stores in classy malls, their minimum for a suit is 25k, way too high for my budget. They also said "three fittings" or three test fits for adjustment. I feel that is crazy inconvenient and perhaps a way to make you feel like you are getting your money's worth.
King Phillip
I once asked how much for a suit and they quoted me P7,000 to which I thought "not bad". Then I realized that it was for labor alone. Their tela begins at P3,600 per meter! To make a pair of pants would cost 6k!
A lot of people say going to Divisoria and choosing your own cloth is the way to go. I heard wool is 900 per square and from my trips there before I saw "Armani" cloth and what not. Now I really don't know if Giorgio really sells his cloth but my better judgement tells me no.
Off the rack will go back about 6k for Onessimus and you can get great finds at Zara and Marks and Spencer but they still wouldn't be custom. Last Sunday I was in the new Glorietta One with what I thought was the most cost economical way to get a suit, I had a blazer from Zara bought on sale for 1800 and I was going to match cloth to it and have pants made. After all a suit is nothing but a blazer or jacket with matching pants. As King Phillip quoted me 6k for the pants to match a 2k blazer I trooped over to Fabric Warehouse. And guess what? I found cloth similar to my blazer so I trooped over the Ogie Q, a long standing establishment in the recently closed Park Square. I told the proprietor (found out because I asked "ikaw ba si Ogie Q?" turns out this was the son. Aside from having the pants made I decided to have my blazer tapered. He explained there was only so much he could do because of the cut (side bend vs center bend whatever that is). He then went off saying I could look like Bond in a tapered and slim suit. I was hesitant, he had packages 12k, 15k and 18k all of which I didn't feel like spending for. After all I went to the mall just to have pants made.
Well, the girl and I had been fighting badly and I needed something to make myself feel better so I asked for a deal on the suit. Ogie Jr gave me the cloth of 15k at 12k I dunno really as I don't know anything about cloth. Since I had bought the cloth already and I could use a tapered blazer anyway I had those done too. Wish me luck, I will post pics when I get the suit this Friday.
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