Great Value Suit Brands

A fantastic ready to wear suit will always be better than a poor made to measure suit. However, this goes without saying that not every made to measure suit is bad. Come with me on this journey we're about to take...

Starting off the sartorial journey, it is important to start with good quality read to wear suits and not very expensive ones. The reason for this is that it will allow you to experiment, have room for mistakes and try out different styles. The double breasted suit, the single breasted, 6 on 1 button configuration or the 6 on 2, shawl collar, notch collar or the peak lapel, there is a lot to choose from. 

Hence, before you will be able to nail your preferences and find out what suits you best (no pun intended there), you will have to try out many suits. Evidently it would be a good idea for one to start with moderately priced suits which are still of good quality as mentioned previously in "the appreciation of craftsmanship" blog post. If you are not sure about what fits you the best, starting out with a couple of ready to wear suits of quality and little price would be the best solution. 

Suitsupply

Starting off with an obvious brand for people well versed in the sartorial community would be Suitsupply. Suitsupply is well known worldwide for a good reason, which is the fact that their products are incredibly good for the price. They have also developed a unique business model over the years that focuses on maximizing value and focusing primarily on the product. Funny story actually is that the first shop they opened was on the side of a highway in Rotterdam which was branded as a destination shop. However, fortunately that was a long time ago and they do now have actual brick and mortar locations as opposed to the destination shops they have before, have a look at their flagship store in Montreal below. 

Considering their success and expansion worldwide, their products consistently hold to the high quality they have been known for. The price-quality ratio is outstanding starting around 350 USD which offers the choice of fantastic fabrics, great cuts, different lines (such as the havana, lazio, washington, sienna and napoli fit). Its just really a beautiful company. Although most of their offerings are ready to wear, they do offer also made to measure and it is a good first step into the sartorial world. One of their main recognitions that cannot be stressed enough is the exceptional quality of service they provide. For example, if your suit arrives at your doorstep and doesn't fit well or there happens to be some issue with it, they guarantee that UPS will be at your door within 24 hours. On top of that, they also guarantee that a new suit without any charge in another 24 hours as well, absolutely MINDBLOWING I know! This stellar customer service is crucial to building not just their brand image but that relationship with their customers because they recognize that the first time they sell a suit to a customer they may lose money; however, since they are able to accept this loss and rather satisfy the needs of the customer completely, they are able to make friend and a customer for life.

Spier & Mackay 

The next company that will be spoken about is a fairly newcomer to the sartorial community which is called Spier & Mackay. It also is in and around the same price as Suitsupply within the 350 USD range. As with Suitsupply too, if you go for better fabrics it will be a bit more expensive. Nevertheless, with their sales you could get their suits starting around 199USD and believe me that the quality they deliver for this kind of money is stellar because they work with the best mills in Italy, England and many others so you can be guaranteed what you're getting are high level fabrics. In looking at the aesthetics of the suits, the lapels are quite proportional in width as opposed to those popular anorexic lapels that are sold by mass manufacturing brands or as we like to call them, capitalists.  The suits also have beautiful shoulders and as mentioned before they offer great fabrics for their suits. So once again watch out for Spier & Mackay from our very own Oh Canada, it will be a name to remember for sure.

Boggi Milano

Lastly, we'll be speaking about Boggi Milano (finally, an Italian brand- yes, I can hear thoughts and read minds) which oddly enough can be found in a lot of airpots around the world. Boggi has been on the market for quite sometime now, and they created quite the buzz in the community when they wrote on their windows "full canvas suits for $700-800" and this was a time when a lot of big brands were selling crap glued canvas suits for the price of gold. The way Boggi have managed to keep the price down is that they place bulk orders for their fabrics far ahead of time because they have special deals or discounts with these reputable fabric mills across the world. They also have fantastic stylists and tailors in house that work on designing the collection and I must say for ready to wear, the suits are extremely well done. Boggi however isn't the hallmark of suits because if you go bespoke with some of the higher level brands...well, let's not go there for now because that is a completely different playing field. Nevertheless, Boggi is a authentic ambassador of the Italian elegance that we so much love. 

Next steps

Well, seeing as my job here for now is done, I look forward to hearing about your experiences with these brands. 

Websites for the brands mentioned above:

https://suitsupply.com/en-ca/men

https://www.spierandmackay.com/

https://www.boggi.com/