A Guide to Measuring Yourself
Six measurements, a soft tape, and a friend. What you need before your first virtual consultation.
A jacket lives or dies at the lapel. It is the first two inches of you that enters a room; the sightline for every photograph; the place where structure and softness meet, over and over, for the life of the garment. And yet, when clients come to us for their first commission, it is often the detail they think about least.
There are three lapels worth learning. The notch is the default of the twentieth century — versatile, understated, correct for almost every occasion below black tie. The peak is older and, honestly, better on most men: a lapel that lifts the chest, adds height, and reads as intentional. And the shawl, that soft rounded curve, belongs to the evening — to dinner jackets, to smoking, to rooms lit by candles.
We hand-baste every lapel roll in the atelier. It is a small, slow, unfashionable thing to do. It is also the difference between a jacket that looks like it fits you and one that looks like you fit it.