I was watching Raiders for the 49 millionth time, and I got to thinking, how about a suit to cover Tokyo winters, in tweed, with some nice 30's features that would cover my need for Indy gear, look good enough to use here without that connection, and be strong enough to last for the rest of my time on this planet...
So, I contacted my tailor, Sajid, the owner of Niven Bespoke suiting, a small operation run out of London, using Sajid to source the fabrics and design and construction, and his tailor to get the suits made and fitted entirely, a long process but one entirely worth the time taken.
I asked him for a suit made along the Raiders lines, similar to what Magnoli offers, but with bespoke entirely, so my choice of fabric, and fitted to me, using the same measurements he'd used last time for my first suit from Niven (a rather wonderful burgundy/purple three piece with peak lapels) and somewhat refined for the new fabric.
He was more than happy to try, and we ran through several basic ideas, using Raiders as a rough guide, and mixing in elements of Sajid's knowledge of Bond suiting especially, and that of a mutual friend of ours, Matt Spaiser, of Bondsuits.com as well, so that the final suit would be something Indy would have used or seen, his father would also have been comfortable with, and Bond also, could have gotten away with in the early 60's...
The details were a fabric of fawn and moss green coloured Donegal Tweed, 500g+ weight, a heavy British wool that would absolutely hold up to pretty much anything I could throw at it here, and would come close to the original suits colour, although his suit is a thinner fabric I think.
Design wise, we went for pleated trousers, although Indy doesn't seem to use pleats in the professor costume in Raiders, his Cairo/Adventure trousers do, and it's a style I rather liked personally, as well as one used commonly by Bond in Connery's films at least, so would fill in those gaps nicely! Again, we chose to use a military hem as a nod to Indy, longer in the back of the foot and higher by a half inch or so at the front, to form a soft, single break.
The waistcoat would be a high gorge, to throwback to the 1920's or 30's somewhat, with six, brown horn buttons and four pockets, and the jacket would have two buttons with the same horn, and a third, "Jigger button" to close the front of the jacket without disrupting the lines created by the lapel sweep.
For the jacket, we went with the three patch pockets of Indy's suit, and a notch lapel, somewhat high on the chest to allow a wide sweep out since I rather like the wider look it adds to the chest appearance.. And for design, we took the half belt look from Raiders, as well as the back, which features an interesting inverted pleat, to add some stretch to the back piece for width. Indy's uses a couple of extra pleats on either side as well to add further width, but with the heavy weight of the fabric we were using, wouldn't be possible, so we decided to use darts instead of the pleats there, and rely on the inverted pleat and Sajid's accuracy in measuring me for all the width I would need. The jacket has no vents, so the size needed to be close, but also allow that spread as well, and the pleat was going to cover that. Four working buttons on the cuff of course, finished the jacket off nicely.
I'll add the photos of the process over the next couple of posts too, but wanted the write up to be in one place here, I hope you'll excuse the disconnection there!
If anyone is interested in a bespoke suit from Niven Tailors I would absolutely recommend Sajid to you, and tell him I sent you over and he'll be happy to work up anything you're interested in trying out. This is my second such suit from Niven, and I have a dinner suit and a white dinner jacket in line, as well as another, greyer fabric tweed three piece coming up sometime too.. Bespoke suiting I know, isn't for everyone, and honestly, with Covid etc, may not even be necessary in work much more either, but, as a suit lover, it DOES make a huge difference to have this attention to details, and involvement all the way through the process too... I would recommend Niven Tailors to anyone who was interested.
Thanks for reading! Photos to follow!
