Some of life’s hidden processes are better left shrouded in mys-tery. A step by step explanation of the Swedish voting system is of no interest to me; the ques-tion of how a turkey twizzler reaches my plate remains appro-priately abstruse. But the mak-ing of a suit – now that’s a dif-ferent matter. A suit is a strange object; it’s capable of conferring an instant gloss of style and sophistication on its owner, and yet in the wrong hands it can also transform even the most charming of individuals into a sartorial tragedy. It’s the com-muter version of kryptonite – pretty cool and powerful, but so often the visual downfall of those who embrace it.

In common with most people who don’t have their own hedge fund, I’ve always fallen into the latter category: that army of men who rely on a couple of ill-fitting and crumpled specimens at the back of the wardrobe when the next job interview/funeral/court case rolls around. We are vaguely aware that suits can be different, and that the ultra-rich get to flit up and down Saville Row looking all gentlemanly and debonair, but since our off-the-peg garments make us feel about as sharp as a marble the idea that formal wear could be a source of pleasure, never mind pride, is a pretty for-eign one. Like death and taxes,

bad suits are just one of life’s inevitabilities.

Except there’s one young com-pany who disagrees, and in an effort to win me over they’ve promised to show me, step by painstaking step, exactly how a suit is created. And not just any old suit, but rather a bespoke number tailored personally to me – and yet which doesn’t require the GDP of a small country to purchase. It was to be a journey of 9,000 miles, dozens of cups of sweet masala tea and at least one hair-raising brush with a baby monkey. But could it succeed where the high street had failed, and make me dapper?

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It’s just turned nine o’ clock on a crisp London morning, and Johnny – a tall, slim, stylish kind of guy who looks like he came out of the womb wearing Armani– is studying me with a friendly but critical eye. As someone who has been tasked with transforming me into style personified, I don’t envy the poor man. Slumped in a corner chair, I must look like Jabba the Hut after a heavy night out on the tiles. But if Johnny’s wor-ried he’s certainly hiding it well; with a reassuring smile he offers me some water and gently steers me over to a computer.

‘Suits you, sir...’ A Day In The Life Of A Bespoke Suit

Words Les SinclairPhotography Joseph Smith

This is the nerve centre of ‘A Suit That Fits’, a new concept in tailoring that has its roots in Nepal, where a fresh-faced Englishman called Warren Bennett wound up as a teacher a few years back. “In sixth form I’d always plumped for outlandish suits, and dreamed of one day going bespoke, though I could never afford it” says War-ren. “I eventually shelled out for one whilst travelling in Africa but it was baggy and awful; only when I went to Nepal and was introduced to the school tailor did I realise that inexpensive but stylishly tailored suits were actually possible.”

The suit that tailor crafted for him was olive green and flared. For some reason his friends back home in Lon-don seemed to like it, and before long Warren had set up a stall at Hampstead market with an old schoolmate promoting their design for an affordable, web-based bespoke suit company. “We sold our first two suits in twenty minutes,” recalls the 28 year old. One credit card loan and some rented office space later, A Suit That Fits was born. Today the firm has an annual turnover of £2m and kits out 600 people every month.

It all starts when customers turn up to one of A Suit That Fits’s three London offices to get measured up by a professional stylist. Some people choose to measure themselves at home and enter their details online, but most want a bit of expert advice to help them navigate through the mind-boggling 40 billion different suit and fabric combinations that A Suit That Fits offers. And that’s where Johnny comes in. Unfazed by even the most criminal ignorance of formal wear (apparently you’re not supposed to put suits in the wash, who would have thought?), this is a man who knows his fashion: expe-rienced enough to steer clueless customers in the right direction, flexible enough to allow the knowledgeable customers to take the lead. He helpfully gives me some pointers about where to start – my skin type suits greys and navies, not blacks, and pinstripes will flatter my body shape. “It’s all about framing yourself, drawing attention to your best features and the point of com-munication – your face,” he explains as we leaf through various fabric swatches to pick out my material.

With that out the way, we go through all the cut and style options on the website: number of pieces, vents, buttons, extra hand stitching or not, type of lapel, angle of the pockets – darn it, you can ever have gills stitched in if you so desire. Johnny knows what’s in and what’s out, and the computer lends a hand by flagging up any suggested tweaks or possible anomalies along the way. This is the moment to let your creative spirit run riot and Johnny regales me with tales of previous customers who pushed the boat out: a Welsh undertaker who wanted a green suit to match his new Porsche (presumably not to be used for professional duties) and a pub owner who decided to get married in orange velvet. By comparison I’m a paragon of conservatism, plumping for a simple but sleek ashy pinstripe outfit. The next thing I know, Johnny’s pressed a button and all my details fly away into the ether.

They land about five thousand miles away in the tiny Himalayan paradise of Nepal. This is the part which most customers don’t get to see – the behind the scenes operation which improbably transforms all those num-

Above & above right; Les Sinclair is measured by Johnny the stylist at A Suit That Fits central London branch .

bers and menu choices into an actual pair of trousers and jacket. Orders arrive at the A Suit That Fits workshop in the city of Kathmandu and immediately get assigned to a master tailor who will oversee the creation of the suit; at any one time there are about fifty orders moving through the various stages of production, so it’s a big job just to keep on top of everything. My master tailor is a softly-spoken, moustachioed man called Shyam, and I can’t help but feel slightly overawed when I meet him in the cutting room; Shyam and his three colleagues have 40 years experience as master tailors between them, and 97 years in the industry. He gets straight down to business, studying my details carefully and copying the myriad measurements out into an easy to follow set of numbers and sketches that everyone, from the stitchers to the pressers, can understand later down the line.

It’s a little disconcerting seeing your body shape being reduced to a series of digits and pencil strokes, and I can’t help feeling self-conscious as the order sheet fills

up with scribbles. But Shyam has quickly moved on to the templates, rolling out some huge pieces of paper and tracing out the many different panels and shapes which will eventually comprise my bespoke suit. Be-fore using the scissors for the first time Shyam blesses them – we’re only a few kilometres away from one of the holiest temples in the country, and Hindu tradition is strong. The patterns are laid out by piece and the first to go under the blade is the ‘pint’ – the front panel of the jacket.

The templates alone will take Shyam three hours to complete, but it’s worth it not only because accurate templates ensure that the final suit will fit me perfectly, but also because they will all be stored in Kathmandu after my order is completed, allowing me to reorder new suits or shirts on the web at any time without having to go in for another fitting. Once the templates are finished the material I chose back in London is rolled out and checked for loose threads; Shyam nods approvingly at

my choice, though I’m not sure how keen he is on my admittedly rather dazzling silvery-blue lining. After drawing round the templates with a wax chalk, the real cutting begins. This will take another three hours, which is small fry compared to the time Shyam has had to put in for some of A Suit That Fits’s other recent custom-ers: the previous month he was responsible for knocking together a suit for the world’s tallest man, and he’s also kitted out the entire QPR football team and the members of Boyzone for an international tour. Brushes with fame are nothing new for the 35 year old though; as the fabric pieces for my suit pile up in the late afternoon sunshine, he tells me how he started out making dresses for film units when he was 18, and even tailored a suit for the Nepalese movie mega-star Saroj Khanal. I offer my commiserations: my order is certainly lacking celebrity stardust.

The fabric cuts are eventually carried downstairs to the stitching room, looking more like an abstract contender

Above; Les Sinclair looks through the hundreds of fabrics on offer for his bespoke suit at A Suit That Fits central London branch.

Above; Hundreds of rolls of material are stored in A Suit That Fits headquarters in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Above; Shyam rolls out and prepares the material chosen by Sinclair in London.

Above; Master tailor Shyam produces paper templates from the measurements taken in London

for the Turner Prize than the building blocks for a piece of clothing. But with an impish grin Upendra – known as the fastest jacket man in Nepal – holds up a few of the panels to illustrate how they will fit togeth-er. “Will it be a difficult jacket to make?” I enquire anxiously as the graceful pedal-powered ‘parti’ sew-ing machine hums into action. Upendra winks at me: “This will be easy,” he replies. “Last month we had an order for a body builder – you’re only a 36”!” I mut-ter something about a long-term gym plan and head over to Prabhu, who is delicately threading together the trousers and getting everything ready for fusing and pressing. Amidst all the technical wizardry, some time-honoured methods remain; Prabhu does all the ironing on a dumfrag cushion balanced on his thigh.

Back upstairs and we’re in the checking room; despite being located in one of the most chaotic cities on earth the A Suit That Fits workshop is an oasis of tranquil-lity, and this corner of it looks out over a pomegran-ate and jasmine garden. The last suit I bought was in Burton Menswear on a wet Thursday evening; going

on location alone, my sartorial prospects are definitely getting a lot classier. Raju gets the jacket onto a dum-my and begins the first of no less than forty checks to ensure that it matches my order sheet in every way, from the overall shape and size to the width of the col-lar and the length of the vent.

Like the rest of the A Suit That Fits staff in Nepal, Raju’s salary is 50% above the market average, ensuring that the company attracts the very best in the industry and makes a positive contribution to the local community. 5% of A Suit That Fits profits are also plunged back into the school where Warren got that olive-green two-piece and where the whole idea had its genesis. “It’s important for us to really sup-port the area,” he stresses as we watch Raju go about his business with amazing diligence. “I love Nepal: the people, the smells, but most of all the approach to craftwork. It’s not about mass production; every shop is a little specialised cottage industry, and that wealth of experience is an amazing resource.”

Now the suit is packaged up and taken back to the office, where it will be picked up by DHL and flown home to London. There are shipments out of the workshop every single day, and over a tonne of A Suit That Fits suits soars through the clouds each month. I follow in my new suit’s footsteps and wind up back in Johnny’s fitting room in Piccadilly; one glance at his face as we prise it out from its careful wrapping, and I can tell he’s as excited as I am about the moment of truth. And what a moment it is; between two conti-nents, 17 people have been directly involved with the making of this garment and 135 separate pieces of ma-terial have been traced, cut, stitched, ironed, pressed and checked all in an effort to do what no piece of formal clothing has ever done for me before – feel comfortable, and look great. And they’ve succeeded; whilst Johnny merrily checks to see if any minor alter-ations are needed, I just want to bowl down the street with my new found sense of traffic-stopping style.

“I get a lot of satisfaction out of this whole process because we’re creating this thing from scratch and I

Above; Upendra sews together the lining and trim edges of the jacket

Above; Upendra checks measurements from sections of the trouser before sewing together.

Above; Upendra stitches the arm section to the suit jacket by hand. This is one of the most difficult stages in the jackets tailoring

Above; Upendra stitches the various layers of material together for the suit jacket.

Above; Sinclair has his final fitting with the stylist off his new suit at the central London branch

Above; All suits are measured and checked twice before being shipped back to the UK.

really get mentally invested in it all,” re-flects Johnny as we take a final smug stare at the mirror. “It’s a team effort and when we’ve got it right it shows; people look so sharp and confident when they leave.” Apparently some have tears in their eyes, although Johnny insists he’s yet to well up with emotion.

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And so there you have it; the life path of a fully-customisable, bespoke 2-piece suit from a tape measure in central London via movie-star-cladding tailors in Nepal and back again – and all without burn-ing too big a hole in the pocket. “We’re at the forefront of a changing market,” insists Warren, “and I think eventually the big stores will have to start moving in our direction. In Saville Row you’ll pay between £1,500 and £15,000 for a bespoke suit, but here we start from £150,

and the average spend is £300. People always want to dress up and look unique, but they don’t want to pay crazy money, and we’re in a great position to offer them that choice.”

A Suit That Fits has plans to double its turnover in the coming year and build a whole community of suit-lovers on the web who can share ideas, generate their own content using A Suit That Fits’s soft-ware and collaborate on new designs. It’s a long way from the olive-green flares on a trestle table at Hampstead market, but – rather like my suit – it’s a journey that has ended well. As for me, I’ll be leav-ing those off-the-peg jackets outside the charity shop from now on and working on my next suit design; it might just involve orange velvet.

Left; Warren Bennett, center left and Om Yogi, center right, with the A Suit That Fits master tailors in the new premises in Kathmandu, Nepal.