Final review: A Suit That Fits

When you collect your new suit from A Suit That Fits, five to six weeks after the fitting, the staff suggests a thorough examination of the fit. But I have always found that impossible to know until it has been worn on three or four different occasions.

Yes, you can immediately if the jacket is tight across the chest, the trousers feel uncomfortably snug or there is an alarming amount of air circulating about your ankles. But it is hard to remember everything else to check.

The staff itself can help a little here – suggesting sitting down in the trousers, for example, to make sure there is enough give in the crotch and thighs. But I always forget something that won’t come up until the third time I wear the suit: how secure the side-tabs on the trousers are or the narrowness of the ends of the sleeves.

So, I waited until now to give a decent review of my new suit. Broadly, the experience was positive. So many of my old suits are a little roomy in the waist (as I have lost weight in the past year) or never had their sleeves altered and are therefore a little long. Getting a new suit, therefore, that fits perfectly on the sleeves, the waist of the jacket and of the trousers is a pleasure.

The neck and shoulders fit well, as does the waistcoat – which is the hardest item to tailor. Unfortunately, the picture does not illustrate any of this particularly well as it is a stock image for the ASTF website. But one point is shown here: the collar of the jacket is forced away from the neck slightly by the collar of the waistcoat.

I enquired about this and was told that it is very tough to avoid when there is a collar on both the jacket and waistcoat. But then, my other waistcoats have a collar that stops short of the silk back, avoiding this problem. Perhaps a suggestion for collared waistcoats at ASTF in the future.

As mentioned previously, the material for ASTF suits is not amazing – roughly equivalent to a £250 or £300 suit on the high street. But then ASTF is great value that way, fitting much better for around the same price. And the company has started to introduce some more luxurious fabrics and one-offs.

I’m pretty satisfied with my suit, and I have two colleagues that are pretty happy with theirs – indeed, who are returning for second orders. If you’re looking to spend around that amount of money on the high street, don’t – go here instead.

**UPDATE**
Many customers of A Suit That Fits had a worse experience than me, as the comments to this post indicate. I recommend that readers look through those and consider my experience as just one of a range of experiences.
***