Strong Suit, the custom suiting company that launched a little over a year-and-a-half ago, is making the leap onto the racks of Nordstrom’s.
For SS15, they’re offering off-the-rack suits (with made-to-measure set to debut this September) in 27 fabrications. The suits are available in four basic models as well as two tuxedo models. In addition to a canvas front and lapel (which provides structure and shape), they offer two different pic stitches: 5/16 on more casual garments and 1/8 on dressier suits.
Related: Make Your Suits Last With These Cleaning and Storage Tips
This is the second line from Jamie Davidson, who launched his first label, Normandy & Monroe in 2001. “I learned a couple of lessons from the first go-round. The first is that creatively the label needs to be one vision. Too many cooks in the kitchen dilute the message. I take a lot of input from the people I work with but ultimately the decisions need to lay with me. Secondly it’s important to bring your retailers something that can ring their cash registers every day. N&M was primarily an outerwear company so it was very seasonal.”
For Strong Suit, Davidson chose to turn to higher-end fabric sourcing including forging partnerships with Lora Piana, Reda, and Barberis.
Stand-outs from the SS15 collection include the navy suit. “It’s very hot right now. I keep wondering how long that will last and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. I am also very excited about some of our bolder plaids for fall.”
“I would say that guys aren’t paying enough attention to fit,” Davidson surmised when asked what thing guys are doing wrong. “Guys always know when they try something on whether or not it fits their idea of what they want but sometimes communicating that on the front end can be a struggle because they don’t feel like they know all the lingo. I think as a label we need to do a better job of educating our customers about what we do, which is what we seek to do with our in-store experience.”
Strong Suit is available now in select Nordstrom’s locations starting at $595, and will be available online in the coming weeks.
