How to Buy a Bespoke Suit Online

Two Net-savvy upstarts take aim at the bespoke tailoring industry

November afternoon, 5 p.m. The first pop-up store for online retailer Indochino Apparel-a large, open room on West Georgia-is packed with fresh-faced executives booking off early. The Black Swan soundtrack plays as guests mingle and inspect men’s shirts, suits, and accessories.The stars tonight are a dozen mannequins clothed in sharp jackets and pants. Huge boards lay out the many customizable features included in the standard prices ($400-$700): peaked or notched lapels, kissing or working sleeve buttons, etc. Nearby: rows of suiting fabrics-Italian or Chinese-in three price ranges; shirt cottons; tables of accessories (ties, cuff links, pocket squares, tie pins) and outerwear.”The pop-up more than met our expectations,” says startlingly youthful-looking CEO Kyle Vucko, 26, a few weeks later. He’s sitting in Indochino.com’s Landing Building HQ, clad in a company pinstripe. “We’ll definitely be doing more, though first we have to work out fulfillment.” The four-year-old firm, with offices here and in Shanghai, occupies a growing niche. Traditional clothiers (the Harry Rosens and Tip Tops) offer limited choice to maximum customers; online custom retailers like Indochino, by contrast, build products from the ground up-no warehouse inventory, no leases, and a marketing strategy worlds apart from that of the big-box stores Vucko and business partner Heikal Gani encountered when buying their first suits. Indochino was born of that frustration: “The options weren’t great,” Vucko says. “Service was poor, product selection was poor. I couldn’t ID with the sales guy.”So the two, who met at UVic (Vucko was studying business, Heikal psychology and poli sci), found themselves in the apparel trade. Business plan led to proof-of-concept to rounds of venture-capital raising (facilitated by UVic business mentors headed by former Yahoo! president Jeff Mallett). Four years later, Indochino has sold about 25,000 pieces (up from a reported 16,000 in April 2011) to customers who have each logged on, typed in their measurements, and modified one of the three dozen or so suits on offer. The core buyer is the kind of professional who visited the four-day pop-up in November, plus those younger men buying a grad suit and “even some guys north of 40 who used to buy one high-end suit a year, but with us they can buy three times a year and personalize.” Online makes the entry-level prices possible. (Thirty staff in Shanghai look after garment design, sourcing fabrics, inventory, and shipping; here, 20 manage marketing, business development, HR, and customer service-the actual cutting and sewing are contracted out in China.) But there are still barriers to the online experience.“Offline presentation is more important in apparel than you might think,” Vucko cautions. “With other products-say, books-you don’t so much care about the finish, about how the light bounces off the surface, about the feel. But apparel is tactile, and online lacks that.” He pegs the online sector of apparel shopping at a mere five percent overall but points to Amazon’s recent acquisition of Zappos shoes as proof of the coming wave. “We’re a good five years behind where, say, books are. But hey, if we’re on the same path as Amazon, we’re doing okay.”The pop-up was Indochino’s attempt to build face-time trust for repeat customers-like me. My numbers are already in the company’s database, but I made some blunders, so I ask to be re-measured by Heikal, the chief creative officer who oversees the Shanghai operations. And hey, since the customization board is right there and it’s all so easy…I go ahead and order the same Steve Nash-designed merino-wool nailhead suit Vucko’s wearing. (Nash, an investor, stars in Indochino’s online ad campaign.) It should be made within 48 hours, at my house in two weeks.Well, no. When we meet in mid December, the order’s still under way. (The pop-up shop was perhaps too successful.) And when it arrives two days before Christmas, the jacket doesn’t fit-I’ll be test-driving the “100% Perfect Fit Promise.” Speed bumps are to be expected. Vucko is sorry about the delays, and sheepish about the delays in his own life. Dropping out of business school to run an online suit company wasn’t the plan. And Vucko’s adamant that, once the bugs are fixed, the staff’s in place, the territories are expanded, and fulfillment (the big hump) ironed out, he’ll go back and complete his degree. “I like to finish things.”