A Tailor -- For A Connaisseur

[anathan]

Let me add mine to the chorus of voices against Raja's -- and yes, I do mean the real one on Sukhumvit Soi 4.

I visited the shop in April 2008 on the strength of recommendations on forums such as this one. I spoke with the older, shorter, heavier of the two men there. I brought a model shirt with me, and explained that I wanted them to make additional shirts in the same style (spread collar, no pocket, no pleating, etc.) with a similar fit (slim). I picked five fabrics and paid a deposit on five shirts.

When I came back a few days later for a fitting, I was greeted by the younger, taller, thinner man. I found the following problems:

1. The shirts all had point collars rather than spread collars.
2. One of the fabrics was wrong; it was similar to the one I had chosen but not identical.
3. The shirts had a much looser fit than I had requested.

The man was polite and apologetic and told me they could fix the shirts. And indeed, when I came back a few days later, the collars were right.

The problem was still that the fit was just too baggy. This was the point I felt they simply couldn't understand. They have pictures of U.S. presidents on their walls, and U.S. presidents (before the current one, at least) dress a certain way. That is not how I dress; at the time, I was in my late 20s and weighed about 145 pounds. I didn't want to look like George Bush the elder.

When I explained my concerns to the man there, he asked me to bring in a model shirt, apparently unaware that I had already done that. At this point, I had already invested more than two weeks on these shirts. Nevertheless, I obliged; I returned with the same shirt I had brought with me on my first trip there.

When I came back days later for yet another fitting, the size was better. Too tired at that point to worry about perfection, I just paid the balance and took the shirts home. It was only then that I noticed what they had done -- to change the size, they had simply folded some of the fabric on the back over itself and stitched it up. There were prominent stick marks running up both sides of the back of the shirt. It looked awful.

Needless to say, I never went back again.

I tried Rajawongse a couple of years later. I didn't have any real problems, but their shirts were nothing to special either. The biggest problem was that they seemed to put cardboard inside the collar. After one washing, it was impossible to remove the wrinkles.

[richard_smith237]

No Bangkok tailored suit has ever felt more than satisfactory.... Next in the UK makes much better off the rack suits.

If I need a high quality suit in Thailand it's off the rack Paul Smith or Hugo Boss. I gave up on the Thai examples of tailored suits long ago.

That said, I do get some shirts from Raja's, who have made the best bkk tailored suit I've seen, but that was still not up to standard.

[Moonrakers]

Dioni, somewhere near Soi 23

Get all my suits from him. The first one from him I got about 10 years ago and it still looks new.

[richard_smith237]

Mine look like new too... Because I don't like to waer them!

They're ok for regular office use, but so are crappy shoes and a sieko watch....

But a tailor of the quality the OP seeks appears to be too illusive in Bangkok.

[SebD]

I think, whether we know it or not, that many of us are the victims of our fathers' and uncles' ignorance in that we were told by our elders (and betters?) who returned home from their army trips abroad and enthused about the skills of the foreign tailors they'd had hand-made suits from (unheard of for the average person). We find it hard to think beyond that (how can we disagree) so tales of the enchanted East and it's magically cheap tailors endure.

[4.real]

15 years ago i tried a few thai tailors [bKK] recommended by my wife ,a government C.8 official .

One of these was 'Rajas'

None were any good and one shirt I had made to measure did look good..But my wife found hat it was impossible to iron.

Another white shirt quickly 'yellowed' and the collar became limp.

I have never used any since.I brought shirts from England which remain excellent.Some are more than 20 years old-still good though little worn.

I was happy [15 years ago] with GQ shop bought trousers which the staff would shorten/lengthen while I waited.

[DLock]

The lower Sukhumvit Tailors exist primarily to cater the tourist market. The materials are generally lower quality and the suit is poorly cut and put together. The Indian "fronts" don't really know how to fit a decent suit. Just judge them by the fit of the clothes they themselves are wearing.

If you are looking for a sub 10,000 baht suit and sub 1,000 baht shirts that you will only wear a few times, they maybe an option.

I have had many suits and shirts made in Bangkok. The best Tailor that I have found is Perry's on Silom, but he is not cheap, but his choice of cloth is excellent, his fittings (usually 3) make sure the end result is exactly what you want and he really takes pride in what he does. He is an older Thai guy.

[jumbo]

For me it is Narin Couture at Sukhumvit between Soi 8-10

I tried a.o. Rajawongse but never was really satisfied, could be because of my odd figure

could be because they really don't give you the time you need for a good fitting or have

an ear for your opinion.

Later on I used a Hong Kong Tailor and their work was good to perfect..

I decided to try Narin on a recommendation and even the fitting and following discussions

on how and what were refreshing, finally someone that actually ever sat behind a machine...

Their work is done in-house which is great as well.

I prefer fabrics that don't easily wrinkle and sometimes these are the cheaper fabrics

He didn't offer me anything else unless I asked him to show me better or comparable fabrics.

I work for a company that makes apparel so I know my fabrics a little...

They have excellent quality fabrics but limited..

Ordered one pant and five shirts, different fabrics, wore them for a month to see how they

would handle after a few times wearing and yesterday was there for more clothing.

Not cheap, but than you get what you pay for...

I am not a true connaisseur but over the years I have been in the region had a few experiences..

One of the better experiences and for me the best tailor in Bangkok...

[Trembly]

Marco Tailor in Siam Square.

Hopefully the old boy is still there. He is Hong Kong Chinese (or at least that's where he learnt his trade) and he has a very canny eye / decent set of algorithms for proportions. If you know the result that you're after he will pay attention and is technically competent enough to achieve them. For example, if you don't like to have visible stitching on your collars and cuffs he knows how to do French stitching.

I've never had a suit with floating canvas and never thought to ask him about it. His fused suits were good quality though; they lasted the best part of a decade before showing bubbles on the back.

Being from HK the default cut is trim, old-school English without any Bollywood shoulder rocking.

I haven't set foot in there for nearly a decade myself, however, and I fear that he may be too old and hasn't found a worthy apprentice/cutter judging from the slightly botched pleats on a shirt that I telephoned up from the UK - although to be fair, it was me who couldn't be bothered to the shirt back and if I was actually in Thailand I'm sure they would have been fixed without a problem.

If memory serves it was 2000 baht for a shirt more than a few years ago, and I can't remember the prices for anything else.

[fletchsmile]

I like Inter Collection in the Ploenchit Centre. They used to be on the ground floor, but a few years back they moved up to second floor (up 2 flights escalators if I remember - G,1,2). Basically leases were up for renewal, and prices had gone up significantly with the unfortunate likes of MacDonald's etc taking over the prime rents.

It's run by a Chinese guy, called Mr.Tommy. He takes a real pride in his work, and has a sort of class about him you don't often see in some of the Indian tailors. He's also not a hard sell like many of the other Sukhumvit tailors, and more interested in you getting you what you want, a pleasant change from many of the "you buy suit, I give you 3 shirts, one tie free etc..." on Sukhumvit who make you want to just leave ASAP. Sure he'll also politely ask if you would like a shirt or two made up as well, but he doesn't "cheapen up the quality of one item" by throwing tat in for free. Each item is quality in itself.

Comfortingly not the cheapest either, but nor in my view overpriced, and worth paying a little more for your own particular whims. Not to say you can't ask for a discount though, as with any good Chinese tradesman.

There's a younger guy with him now, but I prefer Mr.Tommy, probably as we've always dealt with him and as he's been around for ages and knows his stuff - always comforting to have someone with experience. If he thinks something doesn't look right he sends it back again. As a minimum there's an initial measure up, then an "interim fitting" a few days later to ensure it sits right, with the jacket only partially made, and any adjustments are then made to finalise the fitting and you come back in a few days. So altogether usually 3 visits - so by no means a 24 hour turnaround of cheap cr*p.

He's a nice professional. Used to keep letters and pictures of/from his customers on the wall, including one from my brother back home, who usually gets an Xmas card from him. So again someone who takes an interest in longer term relationships.

[Arkady]

I had my first Bangkok suit made by an Indian tailor near Nana in Sukhumvit in the early 80s when I was a wide eyed tourist fresh off the plane, wandering around in daze caused by my rose tinted spectacles. The lighting in the shop did a good job of flattering the material offered by the silvery tongued salesman, who plied me with beer, and I had never been to a tailor shop anywhere or bought fabric. When I got my "pure English wool cloth" suit home, it didn't look quite so good under the natural light but still wanting to feel proud of my first ever tailor made suit and also being rather impoverished at the time I decided to overlook this and wore it to work. My boss was very polite about it but my brother didn't pull his punches when I met him in the pub after work. "Why the hell is Arkady wearing a bus conductor's suit?", he boomed in a loud voice to the mirth of the assembled crowd of drinkers. Mortified I went home and tearfully consigned the polyester abomination to the trash. Worse than that, my boss's wife had asked me to have one of her designer blouses copies in Chinese silk. She was not convinced by what I brought back and decided to try it out with a match, whereupon the "silk" blouse promptly melted leaving me red faced and wishing the floor would swallow me up.

Fast forward 30 years and I now know that old Bangkok hands never recommend their tailor to anyone. Only tourists and business visitors, anxious to impress with their inside track on Bangkok do that, while the old Bangkok hands have usually tried at least a dozen tailors and never been particularly satisfied with any of them.

I used Perry on Silom for years but they jacked up their prices a lot and the two Chinese brothers are getting old now and are not quite as good as they used to be. The quality of some of their cotton trouser fabric has also declined markedly and they have started making exaggerated claims that it is imported from Italy or that stuff that is clearly mixed with synthetics is pure cotton. Their suit and shirt fabrics are still good though. They do have their own tailor sewing upstairs can still make you a good suit for a price, if you are prepared to really badger them to do what you want, not what they want, and keep on rejecting stuff until they have got it right. Also, as with all tailors, always try on everything and don't fall the line that they have made all trousers and jackets identical, so only try on one of each. There is sometimes substantial variation between them.

I have used Raja and Rajawongse in recent years for trousers and shirts. Both are significantly cheaper than Perry's, since they quite obviously subcontract all their work to sweatshops. Raja was quite good but not fantastic. When I first made contact I enquired about using my own fabric and he said it was no problem. I decided to try him on a blazer and later went back with my own fabric. He suddenly became unfriendly and said they didn't normally use customers' own fabric but, if I was prepared to order a suit or two with his fabric, he could do it. First, he said he would ask his "tailor" to measure up my fabric to confirm it was sufficient for a jacket. A few minutes later he came back from his conversation with his imaginary tailor in the back of the shop and said that unfortunately the fabric was not enough for a jacket but he happened to have some very nice blazer material. This very obvious and stupid lie meant I never went there but got Perry to make the jacket with enough cloth left over for a waistecoat, if I had wanted one. I can understand that they don't make so much margin on the subcontracted sweatshop work as on the material but lying to me to get me to throw out my good quality London bought cloth was too much. Rajawongse produces similar OK standard work, probably from the same sweatshop, but I decided not to go back there because they insisted in making me some trousers that were so tight I couldn't put my hands in the pockets. They argued with me saying that everyone wears trousers like that nowadays and eventually agreed to fix the problem. When I got them back they had cut down the pockets which meant I could put my hands in them but they were no longer deep enough to safely hold a wallet. They also called repeatedly to try to get me to pick up and pay for the goods, although I had truthfully informed them that I had suddenly fallen ill and couldn't go out for two weeks. Both Raja and Rajawongse are sometimes so full of customers, mainly tourists with beers in their hands, that you feel like you are trying to get the barmaid's attention in a popular London pub.

I once went to Smile Tailor in Silom on a friend's warm recommendation. They turned out to be another Indian salesman/measurement taker outfit and absolutely insisted on making a jacket too small for me until I couldn't stand going back and arguing with them any longer. Another Indian tailor shop in the small mall opposite the Oriental once made me a couple of reasonable but expensive suits but I decided not to go back there because I couldn't put up with the salesman asking me for free professional advice when he found out what I did for a living. It would have been better, I thought, if I had told him I was undertaker.

A friend tried Narin and fell for the line that he only needed to try on one of the four suits he ordered. Three of them were pretty good but the fourth felt rather uncomfortable which puzzled him. He eventually pulled out a tape measure and found that one half of the back had been cut an inch shorter on the horizontal than the other.

So now I need a new suit again and don't know where to go after 30 years. Any suggestions?

[JRinger]

Here is another one of those recomendations for you: Raja's Tailor, Sukhumvit Road, soi 4 opp. Nana Hotel. just in case you dont find what you're looking for give them a try.

Raja's? surely you're joking....I had a few suits made there plus a half-a-dozen extra trousers and shirts. When they were finished I got a call to come and pick them up (after the trial fitting of course)....all the pants were way to big, told me it would take about a week to fix. Well, got the call, went to pick them up and now they were too small, all of them....they had the nerve to tell me I gained a lot of wait in a week and refused to do anything about them....and of course I'd already paid in full....they can kiss my hairy arse.....could never wear any of the trousers.....don't say you haven't been warned.

...(I'm referring to Raja's at Nana - Soi 4)

[Arkady]

The lower Sukhumvit Tailors exist primarily to cater the tourist market. The materials are generally lower quality and the suit is poorly cut and put together. The Indian "fronts" don't really know how to fit a decent suit. Just judge them by the fit of the clothes they themselves are wearing.

Very funny but true. Most wear hideous, ill fitting outfits, including shiny polyester shirts.

[catmac]

Too true, guys. Reminds me of when I met an old friend in a "Genltleman's Club" once. I was suited (nice suit, too - but off-the-peg) and he left no time in telling me that his was a mohair hand-cut saville row jobbie. He then showed me his watch. "How much do you think I paid for that?" he asked. "No idea" I replied. "Two and a half grand" (Sterling, fifteen years ago) he said. "What time you got?" I asked. ""11:20" he said. I looked at my £70 wrist-band and said "Funny that. So do I".

Conversation pretty much over. Nothing left to talk about except comparing underwear, so I made my excuses.

Nice one, SebD.

Read this thread out of curiousity, hardly in the market for hand-stitched suits myself, but what really astounded me was the arrogant snobery of a few of the posters. Utterly ghastly people.

[hughben]

A friend tried Narin and fell for the line that he only needed to try on one of the four suits he ordered. Three of them were pretty good but the fourth felt rather uncomfortable which puzzled him. He eventually pulled out a tape measure and found that one half of the back had been cut an inch shorter on the horizontal than the other.

So now I need a new suit again and don't know where to go after 30 years. Any suggestions?

I've had 4 suits made here and have never had such an issue. One was with my own fabric from the UK.

I have even returned 6 months later with a jacket that needed a slight alteration that I missed on one of the original fittings and there was no problem or excuses made that you get with the usual tailors on suk.

So it sounds surprising.

[Heimdallr]

Not your usual tailor that use the same crappy factory that produces lesser than Tesco Lotus quality or the kind that tries to sell you expensive fake fabrics.

Pinky Tailor

[thaimate]

What's a suite?