Maybe you — myself included — have a slightly rounded midsection or sloping shoulders. Or, you are a man with a trimmed and broad torso with square shoulders. Or, you may have the perfect body that can wear all styles, you being the individual between the extremes.
Beautiful and stylish pieces of clothing from renowned brands turned out not to be really in line with my body's morphology. Ready-to-wear garments are in fact manufactured using the average standard patterns. With my long torso, most jackets, suit vests and shirts turned out to be too short. I wanted to wear clothes that match my physique and went looking for an affordable solution.
Made-to-measure tailoring — jacket, blazer, suit made from an existing pattern and modified to meet your exact measurements and provide a better fit — brought relief. The fit, fabric and individual details must all come together to compliment a man’s morphology, sync with modern life and reflect your distinctive personal style. For example, you need a wider shoulder or a shorter length than the ready-to-wear jackets you see in the shop, that is wat made-to-measure and bespoke tailoring can offer.
Let's have a closer look, starting with the description of some shoulder styles of a jacket, blazer or suit.
With a normal jacket, it looks like the shoulder is under the sleeve. The sleeve comes on top and the shoulder goes underneath.
The shoulder roping — roping means that the sleeve fastening rises slightly from the shoulder and forms a ride — of a jacket is the most defining feature or characteristic that distinguishes the masterpiece. It sets the tone of the jackets countenance, defines the silhouette and the drape, and is therefore one of the most defining elements of a jacket.
On a Neapolitan jacket it's the other way around, the sleeve looks like it's running underneath the shoulder of the jacket. So the sleeve is coming up aside the jackets shoulders. It is called the shirt sleeve — The Spalla Camicia — because that is what a shirt looks like as well. On a shirt it looks exactly the same, like the sleeve is running underneath the shoulder.
With either style, each sleeve worked into the armhole is larger than the entire armhole. Most tailors will work this in evenly distributed over the entire sleeve. Neapolitan tailors, some of them, push more of that access to the top of the shoulder so that nipples form, a distinctive feature of unique smocking along the shoulder line that gives it a specific distinction that places it in a category of its own.
The question is, should you buy a Neapolitan jacket with almost no shoulder padding or a constructed suit jacket with a fair amount of shoulder padding to create a more powerful silhouette? The chosen shoulder style is in relation to the environment or event you are in. A natural shoulder is sporty and casual, a more structured shoulder provides a distinctive raised silhouette and is labeled as more formal.
On your next visit to your favorite tailor's house, take a closer look at what shoulder style or styles they suggest, or ask them the question. Visit different tailors, compare the different styles and try them on if possible. Also ask yourself: which shoulder style best suits my body and physique and for what occasion, in what situation should I wear this jacket, blazer or tailored suit?
Also keep in mind that the shoulder style goes hand in hand with the type and weight of the chest used in the jacket. A shoulder with little padding is more likely to coexist with a light chest canvas, for a long time a more padding shoulder will need a canvas to support the structure.
A made-to-measure and bespoke jacket has several elements that you can adjust and change to perfectly match your physique and your personal preferences.
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