A Suit of One's Own

With these forward-thinking tailors breaking up the bespoke boys’ club, women no longer have to settle for off the rack.

- KRISTEN BELLSTROM

LUXURY IS NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL. One person’s lifetime dream of an Antarctic cruise is another’s frozen nightmare. Your storybook The 18th-century villa is my creaky old dump. So while some fashionistas thrill to personal shoppers’ ferrying flutes of Veuve Clicquot, my most indulgent shopping experience involves the revelation that my left leg is almost an inch—an inch!—shorter than my right.

That news, delivered by New York City-based designer Shao Yang, is followed by a running commentary on my apparent grab bag of a physique: shoulders (right about a quarter-inch higher than left), hips (slightly askew), and posture (the word “concave” was used). A bit disconcerting, yes, but there is a luxury in being so precisely seen after years of frustration about why I could never find pants or jackets that fit just so. And the real delight was still to come: Yang’s assessment is a first step in building a luxurious scaffolding designed to bring symmetry to my stubbornly asymmetric frame— a custom-made suit.

Men have known the airbrushing power of custom tailoring for centuries. But there was something new about what was transpiring in Yang’s Flatiron studio that afternoon: She and I—as well as the vast majority of her clients— are women. Yang’s business, The Tailory, is part of a small but growing cadre of tailors and custom suiting companies catering to women who want their own spin on what has long been the official uniform of the old boys’ club.