Indochino vs Suitsupply: Custom Made Suiting Battle

If you’re like most guys, you’ve probably picked up a suit off the rack at Kohl’s or gotten a tailored piece from Men’s Wearhouse. 

You’ve also probably had the unfortunate experience of not loving how you look in one of those suits, and wishing for a place to get a custom, tailored suit that won’t cost an entire paycheck. 

Fortunately, brands like that exist and allow you to get a bespoke suit either completely online or with a classic, in-store experience at an affordable price. 

I’ve tried out the in-store experience and tailoring at two of the best brands in this realm, Indochino and Suitsupply, to see what their suits are all about.

At the end of this breakdown, you’ll know which will bring you the best custom suit for your money.

Indochino vs Suitsupply Overview

Indochino

Indochino was founded in 2007 as an exclusively online custom suit shop. The website would walk you through all the design aspects of the suit for you to customize, and also give guidance on how to take your measurements for the custom construction.

The brand didn’t open their first brick-and-mortar showroom until 2014, which allowed customers to get their fitting done by a professional. They now have 88 showrooms globally, and offer a Perfect Fit Promise that entails free alterations until the suit fits exactly how you want.

I had a good experience at my in-person fitting, but my store representative gave some recommendations for my suit’s design details that weren’t the best. This was just one store rep, though, and I’m sure there are others with more experience and better advice.

Also, despite the suit fabric being a blend of wool and cashmere, it felt light and flimsy to me. Indochino offers a large amount of fabrics to choose from, however, so this could have been a poor choice on my part.

I also had some issues with how the suit fit after the first tailoring, but I chalked that up to an inexperienced store rep. Fortunately, I was able to get further alterations done with Indochino’s Perfect Fit Promise. If you’d like more details, I explain my experience in depth below.

If you don’t live near an Indochino storeroom, you can’t take advantage of the Perfect Fit Promise, unfortunately. Indochino offers up to $75 of reimbursement for a local tailor if you’re not happy with the fit, but $75 won’t go too far in most cases.

All that being said, much of this is just my personal experience. There are plenty of guys who have gotten top-notch suits the first time and are perfectly happy with Indochino.

Suitsupply

Suitsupply harks all the way back to 1999, when it was founded by Dutch entrepreneur Fokke de Jong. The brand also started exclusively online, but quickly expanded to brick-and-mortar stores in order to provide in-person tailoring and to get foot traffic. 

It now has over 130 stores worldwide, and has dressed the likes of Bruno Mars, John Travolta, and Macklemore. 

I had a fantastic experience with Suitsupply from start to finish. Their suiting experts have deep knowledge of their work and are able to offer good advice on design details that work best with your body shape, posture, and skin tone. 

Suitsupply sources much of its fabric from the Pontoglio mill in Italy, which has been creating quality fabrics since 1883. I can personally attest to the quality of the fabric—I got a corduroy suit from Suitsupply that is impeccably soft and fine.

The brand creates and ships the suit in 2-3 weeks, and the tailoring was skillful to the extent that I didn’t need alterations. If you’re not happy with the suit, Suitsupply allows you to return it within 30 days free of charge, which won big points in my book.

Although Suitsupply is more expensive than Indochino, the quality of service, craftsmanship, and materials made the extra cost well worth it to me. 

If you’re on a budget and live close to an Indochino store room, give Indochino a shot.

Features Face to Face

Fabric

I got the Harrogate Glen Check Charcoal suit from Indochino, which is made from 95% wool and 5% cashmere. This suit falls into the brand’s Luxury collection, and uses a midweight fabric composition that’s great for the transitional seasons. 

The Harrogate Glen Check suit also has a super count of 140, which implies that the fabric is lighter and more luxurious, rather than heavier and more durable. The super count is a grading system that’s used to denote the fineness of the sheep’s wool fiber. The finer the fibers, the softer and thinner the fabric.

In this case I found the Super 140 fabric to be a little too fine for my liking. The fabric is meant to be midweight, but the fabric fineness makes this material more lightweight. I like when suit fabric has enough heft to drape nicely and not wrinkle easily, but I didn’t get that sense with this suit.

Of course, that’s my personal preference, but it’s something to be aware of. The Harrogate Glen Check fabric from Indochino is nice and feels luxurious overall. 

My suit from Suitsupply, on the other hand, is made from 100% cotton corduroy from the storied Pontoglio mill in Italy. Corduroy is naturally a thicker material, which offers the heft, weight, and drape I was looking for. 

I don’t like to put on a suit and feel like I’m wearing pajama pants, and I don’t get that feeling while wearing Suitsupply. 

The cotton corduroy material is super soft—so much so that I’ve been wearing the suit around the house because it’s so comfortable.

It’s worth noting that these are individual suits from a vast collection offered by both Indochino and Suitsupply. If you’re worried about the fabric being too light, Indochino has heavier fabrics. Or, if you’re not a fan of corduroy and want a lighter fabric, Suitsupply has those too. 

Based on my experience with individual suits from each brand, I prefer Suitsupply’s fabric offerings. Also, the brand has over 1000 fabrics to choose from. I couldn’t find exactly how many Indochino has, but from browsing through their online catalog it’s clear they offer less.

Tailoring and Fit

One of the main reasons to invest in a custom suit is the tailoring. Having a garment made precisely for your measurements is an incredible feeling, but only if it actually fits. 

So, who offers the better tailoring between Indochino and Suitsupply?

After a single experience with each brand, I had a better experience with Suitsupply. Unfortunately, much of how your tailoring actually turns out depends on the skill and experience of the store representative who takes your measurements. 

The store rep who did my fitting with Indochino seemed young and inexperienced, which could explain some of the less flattering design choices he recommended and some poorly fitting pants. 

The suit was wearable after the first round of tailoring, but didn’t meet the expectations you might have from a quality tailoring experience. 

To be fair, Indochino guarantees a Perfect Fit Promise, which entails free alterations until the suit fits just right. Unfortunately, you can really only take advantage of this if you can go to one of Indochino’s showrooms. 

If you aren’t able to make it to a showroom, the brand offers up to $75 in reimbursement for you to take the suit to a local tailor. 

For custom suits, Indochino doesn’t allow returns since the suit has been made to your specific measurements.

While the store rep who did my fitting at Suitsupply was also young, he brought a lot more expertise and quality advice. 

The fitting was done almost entirely without measuring tape, since the store rep was able to observe the particularities of my posture and take in or let out fabric that would make the suit look best on my frame.

I was initially worried by how little precise measuring was done, but the results were excellent. Both jacket and pants fit perfectly with no need for secondary alterations.

Due to the way I naturally stand, my pants often have a slight crease behind my knees. My Suitsupply store rep recognized this during the fitting, explained what caused it, and made adjustments to the pants so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. That won serious points in my book.

Again, playing devil’s advocate, I could have just as easily had a poor experience with a different Suitsupply store rep. If you’re worried about getting unlucky, Google is your friend. 

Many reviewers for each brand listed the store location and who they worked with if they had a positive experience, and I’d recommend searching through those to find someone who you can trust to do a good fitting.

Stand Out Features

Free Returns

Although Suitsupply doesn’t have a formal Perfect Fit Promise like Indochino, they do provide a complimentary secondary alteration if necessary, and also free returns on suits that didn’t work out within 30 days. 

This return policy applies to custom made suits as well, which is something that Indochino doesn’t offer. I was surprised to learn that Suitsupply will take back a suit even if it’s made to your specific measurements, and it’s a great option to have if you’re worried about the tailoring process.

Customization Options

While Indochino has a good number of customization options, Suitsupply has considerably more. Whether it be the jacket’s style profile, of which there are 11, or the button material, of which there are 39, Suitsupply lets you customize to your heart’s content.

I like that Suitsupply offers all these customization options, as they cater to suiting novices and experts alike. If you know more than you like to admit about suit construction options and details, you’ll feel at home with Suitsupply.

Indochino vs Suitsupply: Which is Best for You?

If budget isn’t a consideration, my pick is Suitsupply.

Their tailoring experience, depth of customization, and quality of materials outshone the suit I got from Indochino, and it was worth the extra money to me. It’s hard to put a price tag on a perfectly tailored suit, so if you have some cash to throw around I’d shop at Suitsupply.

If you need to be more budget conscious but still want a custom suit, go with Indochino. While I didn’t have a great tailoring experience with them and I thought their fabric felt flimsy, you can avoid this by looking at satisfied customer’s reviews and picking the same store rep, if they mention one. 

An experienced and knowledgeable store representative will listen to your concerns and desires and make quality recommendations for your body type. While I can confirm that these skilled store reps exist at Suitsupply, I’m also certain they exist at Indochino, you just have to find one.

When it comes to suit styles offered, there’s a lot of overlap between the two brands. However, I’ll once again give my pick to Suitsupply, as they offer more statement pieces and styles.

If you need to return your custom suit, you can’t do that with Indochino, due to their company policies. However, Suitsupply allows you to return a custom suit within 30 days free of charge if you’re not satisfied. 

At the time of writing, Indochino creates and delivers their suits within 4-6 weeks, while Suitsupply averages 2-3 weeks. 

For all these reasons, my top pick between these two custom suiting giants is Suitsupply.

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