More expensive things

David Colman has an article in The New York Times about the future of custom-made:

When you think of the man who buys custom-made clothing, you might think of the kind of guy embodied by James Spader in David Mamet’s new play, Race; that is, a silver-templed lawyer who goes to a custom tailor once a year and buys a couple of new suits, a half-dozen shirts, and calls it a day. You might not think of Mr. Spader himself. So it is a surprise to hear Mr. Spader say he had bonded with Mr. Mamet over custom clothing of a different stripe; specifically, the leather jackets Mr. Mamet had made for the cast and crew of Race by the storied Langlitz Leathers Inc. of Portland, Ore.
“David’s a big fan of bohemian bespoke, and so am I,” Mr. Spader said. He discovered Langlitz decades ago when, as a young and struggling actor, he found one of its classic motorcycle jackets in a vintage shop, and had secretly wanted to have one made ever since. He was so delighted with the new jacket that he ordered two more and had one custom-made for each of his two sons for Christmas.
If this sounds like typical Hollywood extravagance, it is not. Mr. Spader may tread a bit on the fancy side of things— he has had shoes made at John Lobb, hats made at Worth & Worth, and has even had a boat builder make a custom wooden sailboat— but he is hardly alone in wanting something special made by someone who knows his craft. This is clearly true for custom-made suits. At Michael Andrews Bespoke, a haberdasher on the Lower East Side that opened in 2006 to make custom suits and shirts with a modern flair, sales in 2009 were up forty percent over 2008.
It was, in fact, clothes from Michael Andrews that helped Dan Trepanier become Esquire’s Best Dressed Real Man in America last year. “I sent in two different shots, and I was in a three-piece pinstripe suit in one and a tweed vest in another,” said Mr. Trepanier, a junior buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue, style blogger and maybe the first man to use the words “totally awesome” to describe a custom-made suit. “A lot of men don’t want to wear something everyone else has. I’m tall and lean, so it’s hard to buy suits off the rack anyway. With alterations, it’s more expensive than getting something made that fits you like a glove.”
While custom-designed attire has the Edwardian appeal so in vogue with the young beards, Mr. Trepanier, a college basketball player, was introduced to the concept through pop customization programs like Nikeid and mi adidas, which are about as 21st century as it gets. It is that convergence of yesterday and tomorrow that is driving the new wave of customania, which is seemingly affecting everything money can buy.
There are fancy-chap things like blended-to-order fragrances from Le Labo and pick-your-own-complication watches from Vacheron Constantin. There are high-tech websites like ShirtsMyWay, at which you can design a dress shirt right down to the style and color of the collar, cuffs and placket. And there are refreshingly low-tech sites, like Birdwell Beach Britches, where you scroll down one very long page to decide just how you want your old-school surf trunks made, from a wide variety of colors, fabrics and other options.
Part of the appeal of custom culture is that it taps into the connoisseurship and one-upmanship that has long been central to guy culture. But whereas this was once the province of a certain tax bracket and its implicit fixations— Savile Row suits, golf clubs, cigars and single-malt Scotch— it now includes youthful fetishes with the coolest surfboards, sneakers and skateboards. (Johnny Depp, a style maker if ever there was one, has bought and customized three skateboards from Bustin Boards in Brooklyn.) It is one thing, after all, to know about and sport the coolest and most esoteric brands. Having something custom-made ups the ante.
Moreover, a custom-made item is often cheaper than a designer version. A big, beautiful long board, custom-made by a talented shaper in great 1960s colors, is $1,250 through Mollusk Surf Shop in Brooklyn. The SoHo boutique Kirna Zabête sells a limited-edition Proenza Schouler surfboard for $2,995. Which would you rather show up with at the pipeline?
Sometimes the designer item can be a safer bet. The very growth of customization has eroded several terms crucial to knowing what you are getting. “Customized” and “made to order” refer to a stock item ordered in a different color or with, say, a different finish. “Made to measure” means making something new from a stock pattern in a stock fabric, but altered to a man’s measurements; a “custom-made” item is designed to one’s measurements and specifications from the ground up. But the terms are often used indiscriminately, leading to confusion.
There are other sticking points, too. Some men are in denial over, say, their actual waist size. “It’s all the vanity sizing now. Everyone wants to be skinny, and a whole lot of people can’t get any skinnier,” said Evelyn McGee, a manager at Birdwell, which has elaborate self-measuring instructions on its Web site. “A guy’ll say, ‘I’ve been a 32 all my life.’ But if he wears a 32 Levi’s, he’s going to wear a 34 Birdwell’s.” If he insists on a 32, as some guys do, she said, it invariably means the special order will not fit.
While many men are style-savvy enough to play designer, overconfidence can be a problem. The order form at Langlitz (which also has painstaking self-measuring instructions) now includes a box to check if the garment is not going to be worn on a motorcycle. “A lot of the fashion people don’t understand that these jackets are designed to protect you when you’re riding, then they get it and complain how heavy and stiff it is,” said Dave Hansen, the general manager, who counsels style seekers to order garments in softer, lighter goatskin rather than cowhide. And, he added, there are limits to what customization can achieve. “We can duplicate things, and we have,” he said. “But if you don’t look like Brad Pitt before you get it, you’re not going to look like Brad Pitt after you get it.”

Rico says he looks like the box that Brad Pitt came in, so that part doesn't matter. But he does have a fully-bespoke jacket from a tailor in Dublin, so there...