The London Lounge

Has anyone tried giving a suit to a bespoke tailor and asking them to duplicate it in a different cloth (with maybe a few odd details changed, like sloping pockets, sleeve buttons, etc), letting them measure the suit instead of your body?

If one is completely satisfied with the fit of one particular suit, but wanted to go to a different tailor for reasons of location or budget, wouldn't this be a safe way of ensuring that you get what you want?

This MIGHT work with trousers and shirts, but never with coats. Also, consider that the tailor whom you ask to COPY another tailor's suit will most probably feel offended. If he doesn't, reconsider your choice of tailors
I wouldn't order a suit from any tailor without at least ONE fitting...
Even if the cutter is very scrupulous about reporting all adjustments to the pattern, no two cloths behave the same way (in terms of drape and how they respond to heat and steam), so at least minor adjustments will be necessary every time. It is only on the second (or, as the case may be, last) fitting that the tailor marks the pitch of your sleeves. So, if you go bespoke, do your part: make yourself available for fittings and give the craftsman a chance to do things right.

Thanks. Now that I think of it, there couldn't be any point in NOT being fitted and measured every time... but it doesn't seem unreasonable to use a previous bespoke suit as a template, to make one's wishes better understood, at least when starting with a new tailor.

Yes, by all means. It would help a tailor who doesn't know your tastes understand what you are after. But as a source of inspiration, as an illustration of what you consider to be a successful commission.

Copying a garment isn't as easy as you think. If you draft a pattern off the finished garment and then make up off that pattern it will come out just a little different due to differences in the method of making up. The same thing will happen when a cutter gives the same pattern to two different tailors.

However, if you have something that you regard as perfect, when you place your order you should take it along. Tell them what you like about it. Allow the tailor to critique it. He may well severely criticise the garment, in which case it will be obvious that you should not ask him to copy it. If they agree that the garment in question is perfection itself then you might like to ask for it to be copied. Be prepared to leave the garment with your tailor.

More likely you will get a lecture on why on earth you wasted your money on such utter rubbish.