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Denim Suit

22K views 61 replies 48 participants last post by  WA  
#1 · (Edited)
By request of a member at SF, I am posting this here. He is interested in what the members of AAAC think.

After four months of working on putting this thing together and getting countless
requests for photos, here it is..
The story goes..
I'm getting married this weekend, for my wedding i'm wearing a custom made
denim suit made from Flat Head's 3XXX denim.
The denim was brought back to San Francisco four months ago from Japan and was given
to a local tailor known for making suits to turn the denim into a 40's style
suit but slightly slimmed down.

The specs:
-Flat Head 3XXX Raw Selvedge Denim Two Piece Suit (French Seams + Silk Japanese Lining + Arcuate Shaped Pocket Flaps)
-Custom Tailored Japanese Cotton Button Down Shirt
-Al's Italian Silk Tie
-Christian Dior Gold Vintage Cuff Links (1974)
-Flat Head Argyle Socks
-Flat Head Cordovan Clipper Shoes

Photos by Andrew Ng

























 
#2 ·
I understand that you own Self Edge and are thus, naturally inclined towards wearing denim. But, this is your wedding. Quite honestly, a denim suit at a wedding (on the groom no less) is inappropriate and unflattering. The cut doesn't seem to favor you either, though this could be more a function of the fabric than your tailor's skill. I'll refrain from commenting on the shoes and shirt.

I apologize if I am being overly critical but you did welcome all comments.

Congratulations.
 
#3 ·
I'm speechless...and not in a good way.
 
#6 ·
I say this as someone who wears denim jeans almost every day, including with a blazer or sport coat on a regular basis. A denim suit is a little much for me. I personally don't like to wear more than one piece of denim clothing at a time, meaning I don't wear a denim jacket with jeans. Not a rule or anything, just a matter of personal taste.

But like the prior poster said, it's his wedding and other than the bride it's no one else's business. I went to a wedding once where the groom wore an all white tuxedo with tennis shoes and the bride was barefoot. That was almost 40 years ago and they are still happily married.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Little confused about Kiya wondering what Ask Andy thinks, he wrote (on Superfuture), this quote is from 3 different posts combined:

Kiya said:
I like denim. I'm getting married. I wanted to do something fun, so i spent some time putting together a denim suit complete with appropriate shoes, etc...
That's it. I thought it came out well, so i thought we'd share the photos with a group of people that would also appreciate it, the ONLY group of people in the world that would even begin to understand why i did this.
It's as simple as that.
I'm not saying you should go make your own denim suit.
This was an experiment of sorts, in the end, we weren't completely sure how it was all going to look, and i had a backup suit just in case it didn't come out as planned.

The construction of this suit was definitely a hassle.
As you can imagine, 14.5 ounce raw denim doesn't exactly fall like lightweight wool. It was a nightmare getting the jacket to sit right, and even now i'll admit that in no way does it sit like a wool suit. But it's also insane to attempt to make a suit, which is such an intricate garment, out of something so difficult to work with as denim this stiff and heavy.

In the end it came out well, and initially i thought i'd only be wearing the suit complete after the wedding was over. But now i'm thinking the pants might be nice to wear on their own, they've got a very 40's style to them and the rise isn't as high because it was tailored for me, and i'm only 5'7".

The denim was NOT soaked before construction, and i've been told by a couple of others that gentle dry cleaning will not affect the cut, but also if i ever spill something serious on the suit, it's over.
edit, oh, yeah, guess he did ask:

kiya said:
Oh wow.. somebody copy my post into a new thread there. let's see their reaction.
 
#11 ·
I posted something along this vein on Superfuture, but here goes: I LOVE that he is wearing a denim suit, given who he is, and what he does. He's a man who travels to Japan to work with some of the most amazing denim companies in the world, and clearly loves everything about denim.

That being said, it's clearly not as flattering as a well made wool suit (which probably would not have cost more), and from that perspective it is inferior.

But, a wedding is about love and celebration, not decorum and tradition (to my mind) and nothing seems more appropriate than this suit.
 
#13 ·
I was rather shocked by the amount of favorable comment that appallingly ill-fitting suit got on SF until I saw that it was in the Streetwear & Denim subforum. Although I visit SF daily, I hardly ever have visited Streetwear & Denim.

Brings to mind a thread I launched here awhile back: "If you could abolish one item of clothing...." Unsurprisingly, my choice was blue jeans, in which many forumites concurred. Somebody on Style Forum cited that thread as defining the essential difference between AAAC and SF, much to my amusement.

A good many of us are regulars on both fora, but others seem to limit themselves to one forum or the other. Some SFers have an antipathy to Andyland, but I have never heard any Andyites speak ill of SF.
 
#21 ·
The biggest problem is that it doesn't sit very well in the jacket, possibly due to the thickness/heaviness of the denim. I'm glad he chose a very dark denim, although denim's fading and aging properties may not be kind to the appearance of the suit.

I guess if you lined it in flannel you could probably use it in the same situations you'd use a tweed suit - cold and not that dressy.

I really do not care for the shoes; I think some kind of ankle boot would have been appropriate here. (Or western/cowboy boots, although probably not at a wedding).

All in all, much better than I expected, although not really to my personal preference.
 
#24 ·
The left shoulder looks odd to me. I am guessing that wasn't cheap to make , and it just doesn't look elegant to me. It seems an interesting item but if it was my wedding , I would run to Mr. Despos to get something elegant I could reuse every anniversary and special occasion.

Isaia had a nice Denim suit in some very interesting fabric that was a denim wool mix and had a soft shoulder and a light sheen.