Basted Fitting or Muslin Fitting: what’s best for you?

A basted fitting process is when a tailor lets you try on a skeleton jacket, held together by temporary white basting stitches, hence called basted fitting. Basting is a temporary straight stitch used to hold layers together until a final stitch is sewn. Since it’s a long, loose stitch, a basting stitch removes easily after sewing is complete.

When you come in, we take your measurements in twenty different areas from your neck all the way down to your ankle – to ensure a perfect fit!  We will then use these measurements to create this “working” suit. The basted fitting is also your first opportunity to try on your bespoke suit. It might not look so glamour with loose threads here and there, somewhat scratchy fabric, and no buttons yet – but the moment you put it on, you will surely feel that it was made exclusively for you.

Look at the mirror and feel it. Do you think you want a more relaxed or snug fit? Put your hands up and down, bend down or have a seat, feel whether it’s too tight or too loose. Also see if you like where the buttons are, too high or too low.

We will also take note of the jacket’s drape and see if the shoulders warping at all. Do we need to adjust the sleeve pitch? These are all the fine adjustments to ensure a perfect fit, after all that’s what you pay for: your own suit, one that fits you perfectly. These adjustments that need to be made before the final process, therefore eliminating, or mitigating, the potential need for any downstream alterations.

Basted fitting is essential to a true tailoring experience, a true tailor will always try to adopt basted fitting in order to perfect the fit for their customers. However there are cases when a muslin fit is a wiser decision.

A Muslin fit is similar to a basted fitting, with the difference being that while a basted fitting uses the cloth that you chose, a muslin fitting garment is often fashioned out of a cheaper material. Honestly, this is when we need to play it safe and sneak up on the fit with a stand-in cloth before cutting into the real thing. This is also to protect you from an expensive loss. Sometimes we also have fabrics with unusual details or features, it is not wise to cut or stitch it for the fitting as the adjustments might damage the details.

Obviously,  different cloths behave in different ways, and muslin would likely be very different from the cloth you have chosen. We understand this and for our commitment, we try our best to have materials that behave as close as possible to the one you choose. After all it’s for our tailors to see how it hangs on you too, they need to have a good look at how the final piece will look on you.

It is our commitment and pride to deliver a true bespoke experience, a suit that is truly personally yours. So be it basted fitting as usual or muslin fitting, we will always deliver a perfect fit for you!

Fun fact: You will never have basted fitting for leather material since stitching leather leaves permanent holes.