First bespoke experience: Vaish at Rivoli

[David S. Cohen]

Hi all!

Got back Sunday from 24 days in India, centered around my brother’s wedding. I took advantage of the occasion to have a bunch of clothes made by Vaish at Rivoli in New Delhi: a three-piece suit, which I wore to the wedding; a tuxedo with vest; two sport jackets and nine shirts.

Arrived New Delhi on 15 December and made the trek from Gurgaon to Vaish the next day. I spent more than an hour there being measured and picking fabrics for suit, tux and shirts. I’m embarrassed to say that with jet lag and so much going on, I didn’t note the full specs on the suitings. Both are wool; super 110s I think. I looked at a beautiful Super 150s suiting but it was outside my budget for this trip.

For the suit, I picked a dark navy blue with a subtle burgundy stripe. Ordered a single-breasted peak lapel, 2-button jacket, side vents, working buttonholes on lapel and sleeves, stem keeper, pen pockets on both sides (I’m a journalist). For the vest, medium gorge, 5 buttons. Trousers double pleated with cuff, lined to knee, buttons for braces, with side tabs for adjustment. I told them that my current weight is my max (true, for medical reasons) and that they should make the trousers with the current size as the largest and they could make the shirts pretty fitted. Jacket & vest lining: burgundy Bemberg.

For the tux, I went with a midnight blue wool twill with black satin trim. The blue is dark enough that you have to either see it in full sunlight or next to a true black to realize it’s blue. I talked to them about going with black grosgrain on the lapels but they’d never used grosgrain before and I didn’t want to be the guinea pig. I ordered a 1-button peak jacket, side vents, extra pockets again inside (I use it for work). Decided to forego the working buttonholes on the sleeves (an extra $40 and I'd rarely unbutton them anyway). Went for a slightly lower gorge on the waistcoat but not the way-low “white tie� vest. Went with a standard black lining.

We discussed shoulders and marking at the waist. I told the younger Mr. Vaish, Sachin, that I like fairly soft, natural shoulders (I have broad shoulders to begin with and padding makes me look like Frankenstein) and some darting at the waist, but not the extreme hourglass look of some Savile Row shops. He said that they don’t like that silhouette themselves and never use it.

For the shirts, I chose five fabrics from in the shop.

Costs: For suit and tux, around $500 each, fabric and sewing all in. For shirts, most were $45. One, with a high thread count, was $65.

Now, one of the things about a bespoke order is that it’s all up to you what you want, and that means you have to think about a lot of details. I neglected to specify some of the details and got some things I would have ordered different if I’d thought about it. I carry change in my right pocket of my trousers and my wallet in my back left. I found out too late that their standard is change pocket on the left front packet and the button for a wallet on the back right. Oh well. When I order trousers from them this spring I’ll specify that. Also, when I asked for side tabs, I didn’t realize that meant no belt loops. Not a problem, really, especially with buttons for braces in place. But I will order belt loops on future trousers.

On shirts, there are many decisions to make: Placket or no placket? Back pleats? Regular, barrel or French cuffs? Pocket style? What kind of collar (Spread, semi-spread, standard, point or button-down?) Do you want one cuff larger than the other to accommodate a big watch? (Yes, for me, on the one casual shirt I ordered, in a gorgeous seersucker, since I wear a Casio G-Shock for traveling. Wore that shirt to the Taj Mahal.) Their standard cuff has two buttons across but also a second buttonhole, so it can be worn with cufflinks.

Ordered these garments on 16 December and then went to Rajasthan for 11 days, returning on the 28th. When I arrived, the shirts were already complete. I tried one on right away. The feeling of slipping on a custom-tailored shirt is almost indescribable. You put it on and you feel… nothing! Nothing binds. Nothing pinches. Nothing bulges or billows. The neck doesn’t pinch or sag. The shirt’s like a second skin. It flatters without being constricting. The collars are substantial, the cuffs firm, making store-bought shirts feel flimsy and cheap.

In about 5 seconds, I decided I never wanted to wear an off-the-rack shirt again, if I could help it. I’ve heard that once a dog has eaten fresh-killed chicken meat, it gets an insatiable taste for fresh kill and nothing you can do to it will keep a “chicken dog� from killing chickens. I know exactly how those dogs feel.

The suit, which was for my brother’s wedding, was ready for a basted fitting. Now, I have read posts here by someone who ordered a suit from Vaish mail-order and had a mixed result. I can testify that the two fittings they do are absolutely essential for proper fit on suit jackets and waistcoats. They never, never came out of the workshop fitting me right. Mr. Vaish (the elder Mr. Vaish, Ashok, is still in charge of fittings) marks and tweaks relentlessly. On the suit waistcoat, the first version had the gorge too high. We decided to bring that down. Later the waistcoat had to be taken in, too; it was completed just hours before I had to go to the wedding. There was a bulge in the jacket, and they had to take that out. The length was off, and on and on. So while I expect to order trousers and shirts from them over the web, I don’t think I would do a suit, jacket or waistcoat unless I were to budget for significant alterations locally at a very good tailor shop.

As for schedule, they’re very quick on shirts but for the rest of my orders, they began to remind me of the old joke about the guy who finds a 20-year-old shoe repair claim check in an old suit. He goes in to the shop and asks for the shoes. The guy behind the counter looks at the ticket and says “They’ll be ready a week from Tuesday.� Don’t get me wrong, I love those guys at Vaish, but no matter how many phone calls I made, no matter how many emails I sent, or how many times we went over my (frantic) schedule, every single time I arrived at the shop they needed another 20 minutes to half an hour. Sometimes more. Without fail. To some degree, that’s India, and to some degree, that’s what happens in December, when vast numbers of visitors descend on India and Indians come home from the diaspora for a visit. But that said, I spent a lot of time in that tailor shop over 3 weeks. They ordered me a lot of tea. And I drank it.

The work on the shirts was so good, though, that I decided to have a couple of jackets made. I bought some summer-weight wool fabrics at a shop in Khan Market (a brown Prince of Wales with a blue overcheck and a simple tan, almost a tweed, with subtle blue slubs) and brought the fabric in to Vaish. No problem. For the Prince of Wales I asked for a three-button notch with fob pocket, side vents. For the tweedy thing I asked for a two-button notch with side vents.

Here's the one place where I think they bobbled my order. I recall asking for working buttonholes on the Prince of Wales sleeves. Didn't get them. They said they discussed it with me and I canceled that. I recall opting out of the working buttonholes on the tux jacket but not the sport jacket. I think they just forgot. But they didn't charge me for them and the jacket came out looking great, so I can't complain too much. If I'd had more time there, I'd have asked them to fix it.

They had the tweedy thing ready for me to try on in just a few days, nearly complete -- not a basted fitting. I thought it had too much shoulder padding and in general the silhouette seemed boxier than I expected. Ashok marked up the jacket and talked it over with another man, who presumably oversees cutting and sewing. I also felt that the extra padding made my head look small, that Frankenstein thing, but without the flattop. The padding was later reduced. It came out looking pretty much as I'd hoped.

Costs for jackets: About $35 each for fabrics, $200 or so for sewing.

The three-piece suit for the wedding came out brilliant. It couldn’t be more comfortable and it looked great.

Also did some last minute shopping for shirtings and brought them three bolts of shirt fabric on 3 Jan. before I left Delhi for Jaipur, expecting to have them sent to relatives who’d be returning later. Also picked out one bolt from their shelves. To my surprise, the four shirts were done when I returned to New Delhi on the evening of 7 Jan. So far I’ve worn two of them and they’ve been as comfortable and gorgeous as the first five.

The jackets were finished on Jan. 3 and the tux was done on Jan. 7, just hours before I returned to the USA. All came out looking splendid. I’ll wear the tux to the Golden Globes on Monday. A nice detail they offer: On the single-button peak, there are actually two buttons. One in the normal place on the front of the jacket, where you’d use it to button the jacket closed, but there’s another on a longer loop of thread inside the jacket, so you can “button� the jacket with the two front edges just touching each other, not overlapping.

Don’t have pictures yet (no digital camera) but will arrange some and post at a future date.

Conclusions:

• 1) I’m hooked on bespoke clothes and will have a hard time going back to off-the-rack. They look great and are cheaper, from Vaish, than buying off the rack at Banana Republic..
• 2) Once Vaish has your measurements, they can turn around shirts mighty fast and the quality is excellent. Shipping to the USA is around $35 for one and not much more for several, so it pays to order several at once to save on shipping.
• 3) The fittings invariably reveal problems in jacket and waistcoat, so it’s far better to go to their shop in person for those. If, failing a trip to India, you order by web or mail, plan on having vital and significant work done by a local tailor to make the whole thing perfect. .
• 4) No one's perfect, so make very sure to give your specs in writing and repeat them often. They give you an order card; make sure their notes in the order book are correct, too.

My friends here at work are very impressed with the shirts and jackets, and everyone’s looking forward to seeing the tux.

David

[Vik]

Hi Dave

My grandfather used to have his suits made by Vaish. Ashok Vaish used to work for the venerable firm of Dege and Skinner in Savile Row and is very exacting about the work he does. They are generally considered to be India's foremost bespoke tailors. You do have to specify working buttonholes, flaps on pockets etc. as these are usually built for the Indian Market, but they have no problem in doing this tyoe of work.

I have just (yesterday) come back from my first fitting of a D-B charcoal pinstripe suit - very good cut, and only a little tweking required...glad you too enjoyed your experience with them!


Vik

[GBR]

Could you not get him to at least add the button to the left back pocket on the spot?

[ashie259]

I'd be interested in pics...

[maxnharry]

David,

Thanks for the excellent report. I am looking forward to making it to India and to Vaish. Your experience with the cuff buttons is similar to an experience I had with a tailor in Bangkok. Same deal and they claimed I told them I wanted it that way. I think it adds alot of work for them and will only do it if they know you'll throw a hissy fit if you don't get it your way.

[chorse123]

Thanks for the informative post. I'm a Vaish customer, and have been trying to convince them to make a US tour. You should do the same!

[chorse123]

David, Any chance you can post pictures of the jackets?

[uppercase]

I'm never ceased to be amazed at the differences in price of bespoke suits and shirts.

The ideal would be to find a talented, low cost producer of bespoke and go with him. Tailoring can be very inexpensive in the emerging economies.

There's no reason why a tailor there cannot produce a suit every bit as good as SR, NYC or Milan.

Congratulations.