Right after I posted the “Capital Investments” article below, my musings on the economy pushing men toward the classics as long-term wardrobe investments were proved right – buy Brooks Brothers, no less.
Almost the very next day I received a Brooks Brothers e-mail, in which a vintage World War II era Brooks ad played center stage:
Extolling the value of investing in a Brooks suit, this historic piece plays right into today’s headlines. “Brooks Brothers is still the investment you can trust.” It’s true, of course; if you are going to pick up a new interview suit or freshen up your shirt drawer or tie rack, Brooks is about the safest sartorial bet you can make.
If off the rack is not your thing, stroll on over to Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks just inaugurated a new private label made-to-measure service at 12 stores across the country. Be warned though, made-to-measure is not bespoke. Your suit is based on a pre-existing pattern and then tailored to your body, and Saks has made it very clear that these suits fall into an accessible cost bracket – around US$1,200-1,400. That’s much less them true custom, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.
If you re in D.C., there are numerous excellent tailors, several of whom provide bespoke services to the president and other White House bigwigs. If that kind of pedigree is a little out of your price range, check out VM Clothiers.
Owned by Vishal Mirpuri, a fellow who’s family has more than 40 years in the tailoring business, his company provides true custom tailoring at very reasonable prices. Mirpuri specifically targets younger professionals who may not be familiar with custom tailoring – or maybe familiar enough to be put off by the cost and complexity. Based out of D.C., he can take measurements and review fabrics from the comfort of your office and ship the details off to his tailors in Hong Kong. In a few weeks, you meet up again for a fitting and touch up work.
I’ll be writing a bit more about Mr. Mirpuri in the near future. I spent some time speaking with him about the tailoring business and put in an order for a couple of shirts too. I’ll let you know a bit more about him and tell you how the shirts worked out.
All of this reinforces what’s happening in the real world right now – people are looking to everything on which they spend money and asking themselves whether it’s an investment worth making.
In this particular case, the answer is a solid “yes”.