Matt is a repeat customer of ours who is also a longtime fitness enthusiast. For years he’s been heading up to Tallulah Gorge every other weekend for mountain biking, rock climbing, and trekking. When he’s home in Atlanta, he hits the gym five times per week to lift weights and work on his core. Needless to say, he works hard on keeping his body looking good.
Matt came to us last year with a problem, though. Namely, he wanted to fill his wardrobe with business casual suits for a new sports equipment marketing job he had just been hired for, but he was having trouble finding a suit that could showcase his muscles. The job would involve meeting high-end clients and he knew that presenting himself as both in great shape and also semi-formal would project the perfect image for his new employer.
Extremely fit men like Matt have different body proportions than most menswear customers do. Their shoulders are broader, their waist is slimmer, and their arms have a slightly wider circumference. All this means that off-the-rack suits definitely won’t fit super-fit men in a flattering way.
They could either go with a size that does not accommodate their extra bulk, which will not only be too tight but will also “squeeze down” their muscles. Or they could go with a larger size that fits the extra bulk, but it will fit too loosely in most places and will basically cover up the fruits of all of Matt’s hard work by appearing too baggy to make out the muscular frame.
Even most tailors that make bespoke suits did not know what to do for Matt, since his body type was not exactly common.
“It’s always difficult to shop for clothes that will fit me, especially when it comes to more formal stuff,” Matt told us on record. “There are a lot of options for slim frames and a lot for chunky frames, but I’m sort of working with some of each and that makes finding stuff perfect for my proportions really hard.”
Luckily for Matt, ATL Tailor has worked with bodybuilder-types before and knows how to build suits for men with muscular frames. Hong took one look at him and knew the types of measurements she’d need to take to provide something perfect for him.
Within a week of coming to us, Matt walked out of our shop in a 2-piece suit consisting of a black double-breasted jacket and pants. Both garments were meticulously crafted to fit his frame specifically.
Although this particular job did require more in-depth measurements that most of the bespoke suits we make, it still fell under ATL Tailor’s most popular price tag – a top-quality bespoke suit for $899.
Matt’s case was a bit out of the ordinary, but the master tailors had ATL enjoyed rising to the challenge and working with a new type of client. After working with Matt, we’ve been able to add “suits for athletic builds” to our list of specialties, and we have welcomed muscular clients from bodybuilders to NBA players.
[DISCLAIMER: The images in this post are not of Matt, but of our other athletically-built clients.]