Think Your Favorite Vintage Piece Is One-in-a-Million? Think Again.
What I learned from creating a custom suit inspired by pieces I already owned.
There are a few pieces in my wardrobe, collected over time from church basement sales and risky eBay bids, that are perfect. I’m thinking of the Marni pants I bought on Poshmark for $12 while I waited for the delayed G train five years ago. Or the Frame flares from a collaboration with Karlie Kloss that blissfully reach the ground despite my thirty-six-inch inseam. I’ve always wondered how I could clone these pieces into perfect versions of themselves. The answer, it turns out, was as simple as calling my favorite tailor.
Ramon’s shop is a hotspot for in-the-know fashion types and Lower East Side residents. There’s almost always someone way cooler than me exiting when I walk in and the work is consistently excellent. I discovered Ramon's via Instagram success stories of custom pieces he’d created for clients. I filed the idea away, somewhere between wedding dress alterations and an impending closet clean-out.
In the meantime, I accumulated what can only be described as a number of not-quite-right suiting separates. There were pants that cropped just a little too far above the ankle, a blazer I could never button, and even a suit I had cleaned and let out, only to decide I hated the way it looked. My misses were starting to add up and I knew I needed a new approach. “Can I make a suit with you?” I asked Ramon as I picked up some pants he let out. “Of course,” he laughed as if he’d been waiting for my request.
Scouring my Pinterst boards for chic women in menswear was hardly what I’d call research. I spent an hour looking for common threads between looks. I liked the idea of something black, easy to break up with a silk slip or form-fitting top. I searched my favorite suiting brands, just a touch out of my budget, for inspiration. From my own closet, I grabbed my favorite pants—vintage from the 40s that I discovered at a Parisian thrift store—and a lucky blazer I’d scored on eBay. Armed with screenshots and two of my wardrobe’s greatest hits, I took the train to Ramon’s shop.
I tried on both pieces for him, noting what I liked and what I wanted to be different, where I wanted to let things out, and other details. His daughter texted my inspiration pictures to his phone. And then it was time to select a fabric. We scanned Ramon’s offerings, unable to find anything in black. There were countless pinstripes, which I considered, but remembered the vintage Dior pinstripe suit already hanging in my closet. “Let’s try next door,” his daughter urged, leading me to a fabric shop just around the corner.
It was easy to select four yards of 100% black wool. Waiting for the shop owner to painstakingly copy down all my credit card information was the hard part. We walked back to Ramon with our fabric. He told me to give him three weeks. I left, full of hope, a little queasy about the $750 I would be spending on the project, but excited.
A few weeks later, I stopped by Ramon’s to check on the progress. I was giddy watching him pull my suit from his sea of creations, stopping to show me a custom cowboy jacket and pair of pink flares. Laid out on the counter, the trousers and blazers were identical copies of the inspiration pieces I brought in. I tried them on. We argued about adding another inch to the leg. Ramon encouraged me to keep the suit in its original oversized silhouette. “It’s sexy,” he offered, in the sweetest way possible.
A month passed, things got busy, but with a shoot coming up in LA, I knew having my suit as a packing option would ease my nerves. I set off to Ramon’s on a humid Monday morning, only to discover he’d yet to sew the second button of the jacket. “Give me twenty minutes,” he said. Back at home, I tried on my new suit, this thing that represented the luck of two of my favorite vintage finds, but more than that, the certainty of getting older. I know what I like. I don’t care if it’s boring. And I can save up to invest in the best version of it. Nothing beats the thrill of secondhand shopping, except maybe hanging a new custom suit in your closet. Oversized in the right spots, cut just to the floor, my new suit feels like the best parts of the years I’ve spent collecting menswear, all wrapped into one ensemble.