Bespoke Apparel

Written by James Matthews

We find the word “bespoke” by luxury apparel and often wonder what does it mean? We find it in two locations 1. Custom Suits 2. Luxury Watches

Now on focus of Custom Suits.

The word bespoke itself is derived from the the verb to bespeak, to “speak for something”, in the specialized meaning “to give order for it to be made”.

The term bespoke is reserved for men’s clothing, whereas the antonym of ready-to-wear for women’s is called haute couture. This is protected by law in France, but by contrast, the British Advertising Standards Authority has ruled it is a fair practice to use the term bespoke for products which do not fully incorporate traditional construction methods. This position is opposed by the Savile Row Bespoke Association, a trade group of traditional tailors.

Between the extremes of bespoke and ready-to-wear has existed, since the end of the nineteenth century, a “gray area of garments for which the customer was measured, but that were then made up to the closest standard size, often, but by no means always, in a factory.”. The distinction made here is between bespoke , created without use of a pre-existing pattern, and made to measure, which alters a standard-sized pattern to fit the customer. Technological change makes this distinction more subtle, since “fittings are increasingly required for both bespoke and made-to-measure; a bespoke service may require an individually-cut pattern, which is then kept should further custom suits be required, and now made-to-measure measurements are often stored too, on a computer. Even hand-work, often cited as a benchmark of bespoke, is now increasingly found in made-to-measure garments, while machine-making plays some part in the creation of most bespoke suits”

In regard to watches we see many independent Luxury watch makers. They make fine luxury watches and there is a special TimeZone forum dedicated to them. Some people like them and others prefer a brand name for obvious reasons.

This post was written by James Matthews. If you have any questions or comments you may contact him at james@jewelerslounge.com