As I described in an earlier posting, many men decide to move from RTW to MTM. I myself recently made that transition to MTM. Last year around Thanksgiving, I ordered my first MTM garment – a sports jacket – through the Brooks Brothers store in Beverly Hills. In addition, in mid-March, I decided I would also order a MTM suit and scheduled an appointment with Martin Greenfield at the Brooks Brothers.
The appointment involved getting measured by Mr. Greenfield, selecting a fabric and specifying certain features of the sports jacket I was about to order. Mr. Greenfield makes biannual trips in November and March to various flagship Brooks Bros stores around the country to greet and measure customers. Greenfield’s cut-make-trim factory handles the made-to-measure business for Brooks Bros. Accompanying the Greenfield entourage were representatives of Loro Piana, a well-known Italian mill.
Today I had my first fitting of the sports jacket I had ordered back in November. Due to a mistake by the factory, the jacket was mistakenly cut with straight rather than slant pockets as I had requested (resulting in what is known as a “pig” or spoiled garment). Normally, it would take 8 weeks but it took nearly five months to recut the jacket. Nonetheless, the jacket turned out beautifully – the fabric, feel and fit. The only quibbles I have are the gorge (a tad bit low) and the lack of pattern matching around the sleeves. But these require the adjustments of a full bespoke process.