My first problem is that I prefer wearing 3-piece and double-breasted suits. Maybe I'm weirdly neurotic, but when I wear a 2-piece, single-breasted suit, I feel like my belly is vulnerable and exposed. So that eliminates most off-the-rack options.
My second problem is that I wear my pants on my waist, which goes against the recent trend. So even when the jacket fits, the pants usually don't. For example, for an off-the-rack Joseph Abboud, I have to pair a Slim Fit 38S with the pants that come with a Slim Fit 40L jacket. Theoretically, I could just buy separates, but I haven't found separates in my size. So to wear Joseph Abboud, I have to buy two suits, one for the jacket and one for the pants. (The Joseph Abboud suit was on clearance, marked down from $1,000 to only $100, so I could afford to buy two suits and junk half the pieces.)
I had a similar problem with a Kenneth Cole Awearness Slim Fit at Men's Wearhouse: the jacket fit, but the pants were too short in the rise. And they didn't have separates for me, and I couldn't afford to buy two suits.
I tried MTM Joseph Abboud at Men's Wearhouse, but the shoulders rumple and divot - even though they used the same slim fit 38S as the template. (I haven't yet tried the Men's Wearhouse MTM Kenneth Cole Awearness.)
As for Jos. A. Bank's MTM, the Slim Fit and Tailored Fit both divot in the shoulders. So I have to stick with the looser Traditional Fit. Now, once you take the traditional fit in, it basically fits, but the shoulders are heavily padded, and it almost looks like I'm trying to be a football player. Now, the shoulders *do* fit - they don't extend past my natural shoulder, and they don't rumple or divot - but it's just not my preferred style.
J. Crew's Ludlow fits me if I buy the pants over-sized. Nominally, my pants are a 32x30, but I buy a 34x34 so that the rise is longer, and I have the tailor take everything else in. But J. Crew's selection is quite limited. I own their double-breasted grey houndstooth suit and their 3-piece solid navy suit, and that's everything they offer.
Finally, the Brooks Brothers 38S Regent Fit fits me, but it's hard to find very many 3-piece and double-breasted suits from them.
Ironically, all the suit separates at Macy's fit me fine. It's funny that Macy's does a better job of offering a wide variety of suit separates than stores like Men's Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank, and Brooks Brothers do. The problem is that they're mostly wool-polyester blends. So I have the best success fitting in the cheapest suits. I generally pair a 38S jacket with 34x34 pants, and then tailor the pants down to 32x30 while keeping the longer rise.
So basically, I can find jackets that fit me, but the pants they come with usually don't fit me because the rise is too short. And fabric selections are often limited, and they're even more limited by the constraint that I want a vest or double-breasted jacket.
