Custom Suits for Marina del Rey
Mr James is the nearest bespoke tailoring house to Marina del Rey — a few minutes along Culver Boulevard, at 221 Culver Blvd in Playa del Rey. We make fully canvassed, fully bespoke suits from $1,795, cut from a pattern drawn for one man and made by our own atelier in Southern Brittany, France.
If you live in the Marina, this is your local tailor in the literal sense. Most clients from there walk out of a first consultation having spent less time travelling than parking at a mall.
Waterfront weddings
A good deal of our Marina work is grooms. The hotels and the yacht clubs along the water host weddings most weekends of the year, and a waterfront wedding has its own requirements.
Wind is the first. A jacket that hangs correctly indoors can look unsettled on an exposed deck, and that is a cutting question — how the skirt of the jacket is shaped and how the trouser is weighted. Light is the second. Photographs taken off the water carry a great deal of reflected brightness, which flattens a very dark cloth and shows every flaw in a shiny one. A mid-grey or a soft navy in a cloth with some texture photographs far better than a flat black.
We will talk all of this through at the consultation. Wedding parties are discounted twenty per cent, which covers groomsmen, fathers and brothers commissioned alongside the groom. There is more on our wedding suits page, and on black tie on the tuxedo page.
What it costs
| Two-piece suit | from $1,795 |
| Three-piece suit | from $2,045 |
| Tuxedo | from $1,795 |
| Custom shirt | $295 |
| Odd trousers | $450 |
| Overcoat | from $1,200 |
Finer mills from Drago at $2,995 to Loro Piana at $3,995. Unlimited fittings and a year of complimentary alterations are included in every price. Full detail on the cost page.
Cloth near the water
One practical note for anyone living on or near the marina: salt air is unkind to tailoring, and so is the habit of leaving a jacket in a car. Cloth with a firmer twist holds up better, and a suit that is aired properly between wearings will outlast one that lives in a garment bag.
We will say which cloths we would and would not recommend for the way you actually live, rather than the way a catalogue imagines you do. That conversation is part of the consultation and costs nothing.
How a commission runs
The first meeting is an hour and free. You meet Robb or Ben — one of them is there at every fitting. Cloth is chosen with the prices shown, then around thirty measurements are taken along with three photographs, which record posture.
The pattern is drawn for you alone and kept on file, so a second commission is simpler than the first. Four to six weeks in domestic cloth, six to eight in imported. Shirts two to four weeks. Fittings are unlimited.
Monday to Sunday by appointment, roughly nine until six, forty-eight hours' notice. Free parking front and back.
Come and see us
221 Culver Blvd, Playa del Rey.
Book a private consultation — or telephone 310-503-3592, or write to mrjames@bespokemrjames.com.
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