“When you bought a designer suit — you were buying ‘luxury as status’, not pure craftsmanship.”
That’s a quote I once read from one of the most famous menswear blogs a very long time ago, when I had fully adopted tailoring as part of my everyday wardrobe. In that early period, the idea stuck with me like a cardinal rule that must never be broken. Always look for full canvas. Always look for a high armhole. Always seek the signs of “hand-finished” work or “stitch density” detailed on the garment…
Now, those things matter less — probably less than the feeling the garment itself gives me.
The one thing I still deeply believe in is craftsmanship — that a garment must not be fabricated purely from the mindset of consumption and compromise. I still favor bespoke pieces from ateliers like Cifonelli, Rubinacci, or Anderson & Sheppard. Even RTW sartorial brands that stand as the pinnacle of tailoring, like Cesare Attolini…
However, the other thing I now consider — and add to the equation — is artistic design injected into the garment. Something that influences the silhouette and the emotion of the wearer in the way that the designer as an individual has envisioned.
This can be seen in this editorial piece — in my love for a black jacket from Prada from the early 2000s.
On paper, it rejects almost everything that should make a jacket great: black, half-canvassed, low armholes, fine worsted fabric worn as an odd jacket rather than part of a full suit.
But all of that was intentional.
They are the byproduct of how Miuccia Prada envisioned a man — how he should look and feel. A man who knows how to navigate elite social spaces with emotional detachment, wearing tailoring that reflects discipline, austerity, and quiet authority. Someone associated with 1960s European modernism.
And that narrative is tied to an identity — or fantasy — I would love to step into. Even though, on the traditional sartorial “checklist,” it is far from the best garment I own. (If you wonder why that’s the case, this editorial will clarify everything.)
At first, I believed the appreciation mainly came from the fact that I acquired these vintage pieces from 90s–2000s designer labels like Prada, Giorgio Armani, and Gucci (pre-Tom Ford era) for less than $30.
And I thought I would never buy a piece where artistry and silhouette led the design more than craftsmanship — at least not at full retail price.
Again, I was wrong.
Because the main acquisition on my wardrobe list this year will be a suit from Husbands — now widely recognized in both the classic menswear world and the fashion-forward scene.
What impressed me is that many sartorial connoisseurs — people who obsess over terminology and hail craftsmanship as the ultimate virtue — have completely surrendered to the alluring sexual tension and cinematic aesthetic of Husbands. They became customers of the atelier, even though what they receive is a machine-finished suit for $2,500.
Now, here comes the interesting part…
When you learn to look at garments through this lens — one that doesn’t entirely reject the quality and substance of making, while also allowing artistic design into the equation — you begin to see clothes as a form of dream, life, and art.
Except this form of art can actually be equipped into the physical realm — worn on your body, every single day.
And that… is what makes life so much more interesting to live.
Because it makes you understand the strange creature called human a little more.
