Collar Gap DESTROYED!! (Sort-Of Bespoke) Gray Flannel Suit by Luxire
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ม.ค. 2025
- I embark on a quest to conquer a common but surprisingly complicated suit fit issue that has plagued me for years… the DREADED COLLAR GAP.
*Not a sponsored video
I’m far from what you might call a men’s style expert or anything like that but, in an effort to become more of a well-rounded person, I’ve tried to build a fair understanding of what to where when and how things should fit. I enjoy throwing on a suit or sport coat when the occasion calls for it. But that said, with coats I’ve always struggled with a fit issue commonly known as “collar gap”. This is where the back of the collar sits away from the shirt collar when it’s supposed to rest clean against the back of the neck, like this. See how these collars lay nice and flat? Now look this. See the difference? To my eye, collar gap is a sloppy look that, once noticed, I can’t un-notice it.
And, while every tailor I’ve consulted in my area has been certain that they could fix it for me… I’ve had no such luck. Even experiments with made-to-measure and entry-level bespoke (Divij Hemrajani, Tam Tailor) have rendered disappointing results. I don’t have particularly terrible posture but there’s just something about the shape of my back and shoulders that causes this issue.
After a lot of trial and error, I nearly resigned to the idea that, unless I shell out thousands for pure bespoke tailoring, I’ll always have poorly fitting coats. And that doesn’t seem right. Right?
So I set my mind on solving this collar gap problem and started to do some research. While searching for some clue that might lead me in the right direction, I stumbled upon a video by British tailor, Redmayne 1860 in which head cutter Tom Mahon explains how a shortness of back balance can cause this issue.
Luxire is a made-to-measure menswear company from India that has been my go-to for shirts and pants for a while but I hadn’t tried any suits or coats. They seem far more flexible than other custom tailors and do a great job of working with customers to get a perfect fit. I already had some grey flannel trousers from Luxire, so I figured I’d order a matching coat and, if it worked out, I’d have a full suit.
Before placing my order, I gathered up all of the measurements that Luxire would need. I decided to use my navy sport coat as a starting point since it fits pretty well and then I made little tweaks accordingly.
This is what the at-home trial coat looked like. It’s a basted garment which is sort-of like a first draft in the tailoring world. After the pattern has been cut, the coat is temporarily stitched together with a loose white basting thread which provides the tailor with an opportunity to check the fit and make critical adjustments before the construction is finalized and the finishing touches are added. Basted fittings are a hallmark of true bespoke tailoring and most bespoke tailors will require two or three fittings before the final garment is delivered. Luxire offers this similar basted fitting step as well.
After another month or so, I received another package from Luxire. That was fast. My finished suit coat was packed with a beefy plastic hangar and a nice breathable cotton garment bag. I like the blue. This was the fully finished coat with lining, pockets, tan horn buttons, hand-sewn button holes, pick stitching and everything you’d expect to see.
I tried it on and, right away I could tell that this was a significant improvement from other suits and coats that I own. The measurements were nearly perfect, at least compared to what I’m used to. The lines looked great and nothing was pulling or too tight. The shoulders and arms looked clean and the sleeve length was great. The back looked very clean as well but I wondered if it could be a bit better. Or maybe it just needed a good press. My trousers are stuck to my socks here so they’re hanging terribly but I also thought they could be let out a bit so they would look better as well.
So, how about that collar? Well, let’s take a look. Ooo yea! Just look at how well that collar sits against my neck. I call this a victory. Nice!
If I were to nit-pick, I’d say that the position of the button is a little high for my taste but it’s fine. Also, I prefer a slightly lower lapel gorge. These are things that can’t be changed on this coat but I could request those tweaks on a future order.
I had a nice wooden hangar from Kirby Allison’s company, The Hangar Project so I hung my new suit on it and put it back in the garment bag.
Next, I took the suit to my local tailor for some adjustments to the trousers and a little bit of clean-up on the back of the coat. The folks at Dugdale Bros in England graciously sent me this fabric label so I could have it sewn into the lining as well.
#suits #menswear #tailoring #bespoke #madetomeasure
Do you struggle with collar gap or any other annoying suit fit issues? Let’s hear about it!
Great video, i was very surprised when i looked at how many subscribers you have after watching the video, because the quality of the content is outstanding ! Keep it up 👍
Hey thank you for the kind words and thank you for checking out the video. Cheers!
Exactly the same thought here. Keep it up, excellent stuff.
Great improvement. I saw that exact video that helped me understand the fit better. That channel is a gold mine for fine clothing
Agreed. I’ve been working my way through their videos. Good stuff.
I have ordered two ocbd shirts via Luxire, after being fed up with real bespoke tailors because they never got the collar roll right. I send a shirt to be copied, and afterwards for the second shirt we made a couple of small adjustments. I think I'm there now, I would now shorten de sleeves just a tad and they have to look at the shoulder slope again, but that's if I'm very critical. Very happy with the quality and fit for sure!
Nice! The collar roll can be tough to get right. I’m happy to hear it’s working out for you.
Nice suit!! I was going to say abut the button, and you just mentioned, but also needs to reduce a bit the back rise since you have small creases around the inside of the trousers, if you pull up from the back rise you'll see how they disapear, so maybe your local tailor can do it or for the next one
Thanks for the video
Vlad
That is a very nice suit! A perfect fit makes you a) forget you are wearing it and b) flatters any body shape.
Thank you! I agree-a well fitting suit can be the one of the most comfortable and flattering things to wear. Thanks for watching.
I've really enjoyed my shirts from Luxire, they're really right at the boundary between MTM and bespoke because they are extremely accommodating for special requests. You can go very deep with garment customization with them. For example, you can fully customize the construction of your shirt collars, rather than just picking from a selection of presets.
Absolutely. As a shorter guy, I have really appreciated their ability to customize small proportional details like shirt placket width and pocket size/placement. Thanks for watching.
@@the.dirty.pigeon Interesting, I never thought to adjust those details. So I assume you make the placket narrower than standard and the pocket smaller? I'm much taller than average and it might make sense for me to make the opposite adjustments.
@@TRusheeRush That’s right. Not as wide on the placket and the pockets are a bit smaller and placed a little higher since they sit a little low on typical off-the-rack shirts. I’m 5’6” so the difference is very subtle; however, the small details make a big difference, overall.
Man I feel the frustration with jacket fit!! Nothing is worse than paying top dollar and still ending up with a ill fitted garment.
top dollar..? Wot? At Walmart?
Seriously. I guess it’s a learning process, but it would be nice if the lessons weren’t as expensive.
I have a custom tailored pair of jeans and wool trousers from Luxire, and I have to say their quality and customer service is exceptional. Well done!!!
Nice! I’ll have to try their jeans sometime. Thanks for watching.
Thank you for putting me on to Luxire. Like pretty much everything I'm seeing on their site.
Nice. I hope the video helped! If you end up trying them, let me know how it goes.
great story-telling, very enjoyable video.
Hey I appreciate the feedback. Thanks for watching.
I'm waiting on a custom pair of denim jeans from Luxire currently and it's my first order from them, so this video was helpful thank you.
Ah great! I’d like to try some jeans soon. Let me know how yours turn out.
Great video. Just discovered your channel. Seen your comments on the Chaps Guide. I have only experienced collar gap on a few jackets. The company Luxire looks good. I will check them out. Cheers Ron
Thank you, Ron… great to see you here!
This is a NICE suit. I’m impressed considering this was all done “virtually”. Wow. I’ll check Luxire out.
Thanks for the feedback! While my experience was a good one, keep in mind that online custom tailoring can be VERY hit-or-miss. Luxire does a great job but their website isn’t as user friendly as most other companies out there and you need to know exactly what you’re shooting for with them. That said, if you take it slow, make sure you know what you want and communicate it as clearly as possible, it should be a-ok. If you do check them out, let me know how it goes!
Impressive video, thank you for putting me on to Luxire.
Thank you! I hope it was helpful, or at least entertaining.
I've used Luxire for a few shirts and a pair of trousers so far, but I anticipate more from them in the future to be sure.
Excellent! Thank you for checking out the video.
Great video! What are those nice oxfords? They look like shell cordovan.
The shoes in the first part of the video are Allen Edmonds Strand in burgundy calf.
The wine colored wingtip shoes at the end: Funny enough, I think they are corrected grain leather… sort-of an oddball vintage Allen Edmonds McAllister model that is on a different last than the usual AEs. They are unlike more recent McAllister versions in calf-the shape is more sleek, similar to my Carmina shoes. They’re the only corrected grain shoes I own but I like how they look and they fit the best out of all my shoes.
Both thrifted on ebay for about fifty each.
"i like the blue"
Should be in a silver screen quotation
Ha you know, sadly, the zipper on that bag failed the other day and I replaced the whole thing with another one. No more blue, unfortunately.
great and fun video to watch! thank you for showing us your journey! i do have a question if you mind... did you simply ask Dugdale Bros to get one of the fabric labels via email?
Hey thank you for watching, and happy new year. Yes, I emailed Dugdale and sent a link to the Luxire page of the fabric I purchased. They asked me to purchase a random fabric sample swatch to cover the shipping and they added the labels in the package.
Great video 📹 👍
Hey thank you and thanks for watching!
There are fit issues even in full bespoke especially the first commission; my main issue is slight bowing of the lapels as I'm barrel chested. But what about your fender amp stack at 2:15???
Very true. Yeah, lapels can be a tricky situation-maybe even harder to nail than the collar fit in many cases? As for the ol’ Bassman, she’s a beauty. I think there’s a little bit of magic in those old simple hand-wired amps. Incredible sound!
I am confused, why the Dugdale label?
Ahh I probably should have explained that a bit more-it’s a Dugdale fabric. Luxire doesn’t add a fabric label the way that many other suit makers normally do. It’s not necessary but I thought it would be a nice touch.
У вас качественный контент, отличное видео. Молодец!!!
Thank you for watching!
The suit looks awesome but i'm not a fan of how it looks in the outfit you have at the end of the video, pure matter of taste I know. After this video i've checked if i had the same struggle without noticing but not at all even with unajusted vintage suits and shirts so its your video gave me the smile ty ! Great content keep it up
Good to hear that you’re gap free! Thank you for watching.
@@the.dirty.pigeon I think its because i have falling shoulders so I've built muscles in this area it must help for clothes with gravity to not have gap. But i have many others issues with my morphology and my lower back problem teached me to keep inner muscles fortifying stature most of the time. Seems your tall and square so it must be overrall better when it comes to clothes
YOU JUST HAVE TO GET A BIGGER NECK
how did you have the confidence to buy that suit from luxire with how awful and fundamentally horrid it looked on the model?
Ha… very reasonable question. I had seen several real-world examples on a couple of internet forums so I knew what they were capable of, given very specific measurements and direction. The home trial fitting definitely helped and was worth the extra money. I would never go blind by plugging a few measurements into a website and hoping for the best-too many fails in the past.
@ gotcha. so would you say you have to be careful with luxire? because the one you got, minus the nitpicks you have, looks amazing
Yeah if you decide to try them, go very slowly by making sure you know what you want, what measurements you need that are different from other suits you own, and take advantage of their willingness to look at photos and answer questions through the process. Of course, it’s much easier to walk into a place like Suit Supply, Indichino, etc and work with someone in person-especially if you don’t have any odd fit issues. But I see Luxire as being a few steps above those types of companies.
@got it, thank you!
you are creating imaginary problems in your head... i work in an environment where everyone wears a suit or sports coat but let me tell you that NO ONE will ever notice this collar gap "problem" at all. And 1:00 sport coats are by their nature more casual and are not meant to fit like a bespoke tailor-made suit. If you take them off the rack and they fit it's good. No additionally meticulous detail work needed.
I hear ya and appreciate the feedback. My preferences are probably way more specific than the average office suit wearer… and I’m ok with that. Thanks for watching!