One of the most common concerns we hear from wedding clients is whether a custom suit can really make a significant difference for someone whose proportions don’t fit neatly into conventional ready-to-wear sizing.
Perhaps you’re a larger gentleman with a substantial chest, shoulders or midsection. Maybe you’re shorter and find that jackets always seem too long. You might be extremely tall, very slim, or have an athletic or bodybuilding physique where anything large enough for your chest and shoulders becomes oversized everywhere else.
At Empire Customs, these aren’t unusual fitting challenges.
With almost two decades of experience, we’ve worked with an enormous range of body types. We’ve made clothing for NBA players with exceptional height and athletic proportions, CFL linemen with enormous chests, shoulders and midsections, shorter gentlemen, bodybuilders, extremely slim clients and just about everything in between.
After thousands of fittings, one lesson becomes very clear:
A great fit isn’t simply about making a suit match someone’s measurements. It’s about creating the most flattering silhouette for the individual wearing it.
Why an Individual Pattern Matters
Two men can have exactly the same chest measurement and require completely different jackets.
One might have a highly developed chest and require considerably more room through the front. Another may carry more of his measurement through his back. One may have long legs and a relatively short torso, while another man of exactly the same height may have the opposite proportions.
Shoulder slope, posture, waist position, chest development and the relationship between the upper and lower body all affect how a suit should be cut.
That’s why we create an individual pattern for each client.
The objective isn’t simply to make the garment larger or smaller. It’s to distribute the garment correctly around the body.
Understanding the Balance of a Jacket
A suit jacket is constructed from multiple sections, including its front, side and back panels.
How those sections are proportioned is extremely important.
A chest-dominant gentleman may require additional room through the front panel. Someone with a particularly developed back may require more room distributed toward the back. Simply increasing the overall size to accommodate one large area can create excess fabric everywhere else.
The garment might technically fit, but it won’t necessarily flatter.
Correct pattern balance allows us to put room where the body actually needs it while shaping other areas independently.
This contributes to something much more important than a collection of technically correct measurements: silhouette.
When a suit is properly balanced, the difference can be visible from across the room. You may not immediately know whether it’s the jacket length, shoulder line, waist suppression or front-to-back balance that’s creating the effect.
You simply notice that the person looks good in the suit.
What We’ve Learned From Extremely Tall and Athletic Clients
Working with professional athletes has provided us with considerable experience at the extremes of conventional proportions.
Many NBA players combine exceptional height with long limbs, broad shoulders and athletic builds. Simply lengthening a conventional jacket pattern isn’t enough.
Everything has to remain proportional.
Jacket length, button placement, lapel proportions, pocket position, shoulder construction and trouser proportions all need to work with the client’s height.
The goal isn’t to make an extremely tall gentleman look shorter. His height may be one of his most impressive physical characteristics.
Instead, we want to create balance around that height, so the garment complements his frame rather than looking stretched, undersized or disproportionately long.
Larger and More Powerful Builds
At the other end of the fitting spectrum, we’ve worked with CFL linemen and other clients with exceptionally large chests, shoulders and midsections.
Again, simply sizing up isn’t the answer.
A gentleman who naturally has substantial width through the shoulders may not need additional padding making him appear even broader. Depending on his individual build, we will often favour a softer or more deconstructed shoulder that follows the body’s natural line.
Jacket length is another useful tool.
A slightly longer, properly proportioned jacket can create a cleaner vertical line and better balance a substantial upper body.
For some larger clients, a three-piece suit is also extremely flattering.
The vest creates visual continuity through the point where the shirt, stomach and trouser waistband otherwise meet. This can produce a cleaner line through the midsection while also adding an appropriate level of wedding-day formality.
Fabric Can Help Create the Silhouette
Fabric selection isn’t just about choosing the right colour.
Weight, structure, texture and drape influence how the garment sits over the body.
For some larger builds, a wool with a little more substance can provide a cleaner, more structured drape through the chest and midsection than an extremely light cloth.
That doesn’t mean automatically choosing a heavy fabric. Season, venue and comfort still matter.
Our job is to balance those practical considerations with the way the fabric will perform on the client’s particular frame.
Fitting a Shorter Gentleman
For a shorter client, relatively small proportional adjustments can create an enormous difference.
Jacket length is particularly important.
We generally want the jacket to just cover the seat without extending unnecessarily below it. This preserves more visible trouser length and can make the legs appear longer relative to the torso.
Sometimes even half an inch can noticeably change the overall proportions.
Shoulder construction matters as well.
A softer shoulder with less unnecessary padding can reduce excessive horizontal width and create a cleaner line. Depending on the client’s individual proportions, a carefully considered buttoning position can help lengthen the visual line of the torso.
A clean, slightly tapered trouser can then continue that line through the lower body.
None of these techniques is intended to make someone appear to be a completely different height.
The goal is simply to use proportion intelligently.
Athletic and Bodybuilding Physiques
Athletic clients often experience a different ready-to-wear problem.
A bodybuilder may have an exceptionally developed chest and shoulders combined with a comparatively narrow waist. His thighs and seat may also require significantly more room than his waist measurement would normally suggest.
If he buys a ready-to-wear suit large enough for his chest, everything below it may become unnecessarily oversized.
An individual pattern allows us to approach those areas independently.
We can provide room where the physique requires it while still creating shape through the waist and maintaining appropriate proportions throughout the garment.
For naturally developed shoulders, we often prefer softer construction rather than adding excessive padding to an area that already has significant structure.
Comfort is also important. Our Tasmanian performance-stretch wool collections can work particularly well for athletic clients by providing additional flexibility across areas such as the shoulders, chest, seat and thighs while maintaining a refined tailored appearance.
Drawing Attention to Your Strongest Features
This is one of the most important things we’ve learned after almost two decades of fitting different body types.
Our objective isn’t merely to make a suit that fits.
We want to determine which proportions should be emphasized and which areas should be visually softened.
A broad-shouldered client may have an impressive upper body that we want the suit to complement. Another gentleman may have long legs that can be emphasized through jacket proportion. Someone else may prefer that less attention be drawn to his midsection.
These considerations influence decisions about jacket length, shoulder structure, waist shaping, button position, lapel proportions, trouser cut and fabric.
The goal isn’t to hide someone’s body.
It’s to control the visual balance of the garment so attention naturally moves toward the client’s strongest features.
There Is No Universal Formula
Terms like big, tall, short and athletic are useful descriptions, but they aren’t patterns.
Two men who are both 5’7″ may have entirely different leg-to-torso ratios. Two men with a 48-inch chest may distribute that measurement completely differently. Two professional athletes can require radically different patterns.
That’s why we don’t believe in a single “athletic fit,” “big and tall fit” or “short fit.”
We believe in fitting the individual.
After almost two decades, thousands of clients and experience ranging from professional basketball players to football linemen and virtually every build in between, we’ve learned that almost every body presents its own combination of proportions.
The purpose of custom tailoring is to respond to those proportions.
The Goal: Your Most Flattering Silhouette
Your wedding isn’t the day to spend worrying about whether your jacket makes you look too broad, too short, too slim or too large.
The suit should be doing the work for you.
A carefully created pattern allows us to use front-to-back balance, jacket length, shoulder construction, button position, lapel proportion, trouser shape and fabric selection to influence the overall silhouette.
The result shouldn’t look like a collection of tailoring tricks.
It should simply look right.
For us, that’s the difference between a suit that merely fits and a suit that genuinely flatters.
The goal is to emphasize your strongest features, soften the areas you may be less confident about and create a balanced silhouette that makes you look and feel like an enhanced version of yourself on one of the most photographed days of your life.
