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My birthday was on October 22nd. It just passed. So this is a recent recollection.
Up until the moment the Studio Suits package arrived at my doorstep, I thought it would be an impossible task to get my hands on my own proper Harris Tweed jacket, that was fitted and tailor-made.
Everyone asked me what I wanted on my birthday, and I knew that they wouldn’t understand. What I truly wanted was to go to Savile Row, with a sizeable amount of savings to spend on Harris Tweed jackets, Anderson & Sheppard dinner coats, and hell, where ever the sartorial rabbit hole took me.
But I was going in January of next year if I played my financial cards right, and I just couldn’t wait. Up until recently, 2019 has been a rough year. A year when I really did realize that ‘Manners Maketh Man’. The hard way.
I have been working, essentially no vacation for nearly 3 years now, and I figured I would give this a shot. I had my tweeds, the ones you can get in America. But I wanted the Harris Tweed Authority. I wanted my own custom Harris Tweed jacket.
When I went to the Harris Tweed website, honestly, it looked like it was made by a drunken Scot who patched it together using some template from the 1990s.
But that’s not what it’s about, is it? It’s about going to visit the Island of Harris. The Royal Warrant. History. The Scotch. The Scottish Highlands. The sole keepers of a secret craft. Making the best tweed in the entire world using wool that can only be found in the upper Hebrides.

I imagine landing in Heathrow, it’ll take you at least 2 weeks to make it to the Harris Tweed Authority, and once you did, you’d need to spend another decent amount of time hanging around Scotland while your Tweed Suits were cut.
A visit I plan on making, but this time, I couldn’t wait. I went to the website and it felt a bit iffy. It then sent me to www.studiosuits.com.
I looked at the website, suspiciously. I was looking at a light green tweed jacket with burnt orange window panes, and it said: “$299.00 starting, customize now”.
I started customizing and I figured making brilliance out of wool is what they do best, not making pretty websites.
It started simply, by selecting your suit size. I did. I selected the seams in the back, the buttons that would go on the front and on the cuff. I selected the custom embroidery that would go on the inside of the jacket and the inside of the collar. I selected the material that would be on the interior. I was essentially building a blazer that they were going to hand stitch for me, all the way from California.
As you went through the process, the price went up, but nothing that was mindblowing. By the end of it, I was looking at a masterpiece, ready to be shipped off.
The only, and likely the largest question still loomed; will it fit?
I waited. They were able to make the jacket in around 2 weeks. By then it was just a matter of shipping.
This is where the highlight reel comes in. While they are semi-digitally tailoring the jacket, they started by sending a confirmation email regarding my height, weight, body structure etc. I filled it out and more, and even sent them pictures of myself in the same size Ralph Lauren blazer so they could really see how it sat on my body and get a better understanding of the shape of my body. If they could get this right, then it meant, at least for me, the flood gates for Harris Tweed blazers had just been broken, and I was about to have loads of fun.
Now, I was not going through all this work so they could send me a Ralph Lauren blazer, sport coat, or suit jacket. These mythical Scottish wool workers were the magicians, and I didn’t want to tamper with their work. I reminded them of that a few times.
I wonder if they rolled their eyes or were actually pleased that a young kid in California knew and loved their work, without ever having touched an actual Harris tweed. Never having felt the elegant, bristly outer layer that was perfect for Scottish weather.

Whatever they thought, in my many email exchanges with them, I let them know. Many of them were unnecessary and comprised of emails of pictures of me in different jackets and suits so they had every bit of information at their fingertips. Or as much as one can have when digitally tailoring a jacket.
I told them I was going to write the article, no matter how it went. Even if it didn’t fit, the silver lining being that I would own a proper Harris Tweed. With the Harris Tweed Authority patch and logo inside and everything. Maybe I’d sell it on eBay, or whatever.
It arrived. On the 30th of October, 2019. On my doorstep. In a box that said Studio Suits. I was gushing. I picked up the package and ran up to my room to find my hunting knife or a pair of scissors, whatever. I needed to open that box.
When I opened it, it was looking into the face of God. There, before my eyes, was what I had been dreaming of. It had the Harris Tweed Tags, my custom embroidery, and most of all, the colour pattern and fabric was simply something I had never seen.
I put it on, over my Vince Camuto cutaway collared button-up, found a full-sized mirror. The pockets, the seams in the back were already cut to my surprise. But it fits so snug, like the baseball glove I’ve had for years. Yet brand new.
I took a hard left turn with my head and looked at the rest of my blazers and thought, “F***”. There was just no comparison. Nill. Especially in the biggest department. Fitting. It fit better than all my other blazers. Well, most. It was definitely up there. Could spar with the best of them.
Thank you, Harris Tweed. Thank you, Studio Suits. I don’t know if you’ve ruined shopping in the States for me, or if you’ve opened the biggest door for great heritage brand suits to open themselves to places never touched.
My house included.

I got a very special pocket square for the jacket that evening. I came home with a bottle of Scotch. It seemed fitting. I sat down with my dog and I wrote this.
Till next time elegant folk,
