On my vacations here I used to go to the well-known tailor shops along Sukhumvit and some other area’s around Bangkok.  As far as the major shops go you will find my opinions on the tailor page of this web site.

The wool cashmere suits never felt right, yes they fit alright, except the shoulder in them felt like I was suiting up to play in the super bowl.  The material felt OK in the shops but there was something just a little off about them.  As I am retired and living in Bangkok, I was always keeping my eye open to learn what I could about the whole tailor industry.  I knew there had to be a better and cheaper way then to go to the Indian store fronts on Sukhumvit.

One day I walked into Hieng Yoo Huat, a large fabric store in lower Sukhumvit, wearing a shirt I had made from one of the tailor shops on Sukhumvit.  I asked the lady in the shop if she had 100% cotton like the shirt I was wearing.  She asked if I wanted 100% cotton or the same material as the shirt I was wearing?  I told her the material in the shirt I was wearing was 100% cotton at least that is what the tailor told me that made the shirt.  She took me to where the 100% cotton was and explained the differences in how to tell a 100% cotton and a blend.  Mine was a blend that explains why the 100% cotton shirts I got from the tailor always felt so hot when I wore them.  Just another confirmation that the tailor shops lie lie lie.

I started asking some of the professional Thai’s I knew where they had their shirts and suits made?  I then went to the local Thai tailors, like Forchang’s and received good workmanship but not a great selection on material.  Also they would fit my shirts and jackets on the tight and short side.

So one day while having lunch across a small soi (street) from a Sukhumvit tailor I saw a man and his wife pull up on a scooter, the man went into the tailor shop with suit that needed to be fit for a customer and the wife went to have lunch.  I watched as the customer put on the suit and the man from the scooter made all the adjustments to the suit, the shop owner just stood and watched.  Having experienced this first hand at different tailor shop on several occasions this just reconfirmed that the shop owners were just middle men.

I asked my girlfriend to go speak to the wife of the man fitting the suit and ask her for her number as her boyfriend wanted to get some suits made but did not want to go through the tailor shops.  After a little bit of time the lady gave my girlfriend her phone number.  We later called the number and made an appointment to go see them at their shop/factory.

We went back to Hieng Yoo Huat, the fabric shop that had taught us about the cotton for shirts and picked up some material for a sport coat.  We then went down to the shop of the tailor and his wife that we had met.  It was a small Soi about 5 or 7 kilometers from Sukhumvit.  The Soi like most in Thailand had small workshops on the ground floor and living above.  As we walked down the soi there was shop after shop all filled with sewing machines and people working away.  One shop did shirts, another trouser and yet another did jackets.  Not one shop did more than one type of item.

After a few minutes we found the shop we were looking for.  I was measured by the same man that was doing all of the work in the Sukhumvit store front.  He told me to come back in a couple of days for a fitting.  On my return he fitted the sleeves and made some adjustments to the body.  He then told me to come back in a few more days.  On my return he fitted me one more time and although he said it fit perfect I thought it to be to tight so I asked him to make it a bit bigger.  Returning in another couple of days he had done as I had asked.  Now the problem with going to the factory where they make the clothes for the Sukhumvitt tailors is that they do not have mirrors.  So it is hard to get a good look at what you’re getting made.  I knew the jacket was a bit to big but I wasn’t worried that much about it.  I paid the man and departed a happy customer.  I had just left with a 100% linen sport coat that was a very good, but not perfect, fit made from scratch for under 2,100.00 Baht, approx. $70.00 USD all in including material.  I then took the jacket to seamstress, with mirrors in her shop, and had a few minor adjustments made for an additional 200 Baht.  The Sport Coat is a much much better quality fabric than I can get from the tailor shops all over Bangkok, but the same fit except I got the shoulder pads at the thickness I like and not what the Indian tailors like.  So the sport coat is much more comfortable to wear than ones I had made at the shops.  All for about a half to a third of the price.

On another trip down to this district to get a couple of more sport jackets made, I took some 100% cotton shirt material with me to get a couple of shirts made.  I popped my head into a shop I had previously asked prices at.  I ended up speaking the man that runs the shop.  His initial quote was the same as what I had previously been told.  Always a better sign than being quoted something completely different as it shows that it’s not completely decided upon what they think you can afford.  After talking to the man for a while and joking around with him he offered me 20% off what he first quoted me.  As he was measuring me for the shirts I asked him if he was going to add a couple of inches to his measurements for comfort and he assured me he would.  He didn’t  but this the way with the first time you get shirts made, it is a trial and error process at first, but once you have an excellent fit with one shirt that is when you take in lots of material to have multiple shirts made and they will all come out identical.  The funniest part of my experience with this shop was when he was all done measuring me he asked when I wanted to pick them up.  He then answered his own question and suggested I come back in 3 hours to pick up the 2 shirts.  Not to bad of a turnaround time if you ask me.

When I did go back to pick up the shirts I ended up paying a bit more than I was quoted as he told me that there was an extra charge for the monogramming  as they had to send them to get monogrammed by Motorcye.  It was not a lot of money and the overall price of the shirts was still less than I had been paying at any other Sukhumvit shop I had ever been to.  Total cost for 100% cotton, not the poly blend you get at the tailor shops for about the same price, was under 1,200 Baht.

I have not had trousers made down in the factory district as of yet, so I cannot give you any details about that.  Although there are several shops in the area that make trousers I cannot speak about them first hand.

You may have noticed the prices I am giving you are the final price I paid with material.  Well when you are getting your shirts and sport coats made at the Sukhumvit tailor shops in the tourist area’s they are not breaking down the price for you either.  Because if they did they would just have to lie to you more than they already are.

I have been researching the amount of time that it actually takes to cut and stich different garments.  What I have found out is that it takes less than 1 hour to cut and stitch a sport coat in a factory setting, more like 45 minutes.  In large factory they have to account for moving time from one station to another but in the small shops like you find in Bangkok the shops are so small that the different stitching stations are actually right next to each other.  I have not gotten any information on the exact time it takes to make a shirt, but as the man I spoke with told me that he could have both shirts done in 3 hours and that was with sending them out to be monogrammed.  I believe I am still paying way to much.  But as I am not having hundreds of garments made at a time and I am a farang that speaks little Thai I will always be paying more than the real price.  But right now I am paying much less than the tailor shops are charging and ending up with garments made of much better material.

Material, where do you get material in Bangkok to take to get stitched into your favorite shirt or suit?  There is a large material shop Hieng Yoo Huat, on the corner of Sukhumvit and Asoke,  across Sukhumvit from the MRT station.  They have a decent selection of linens, poly mixes for dresses, some poly cotton mix for dress shirts and a bit of 100% cotton for pants and limited 100% cotton for dress shirts.  But there price on Linen’s is very good.  They also have some very nice 100% pure Italian wool’s   Now how do you tell the difference between the 100% Italian wool’s that the tailor shops are selling and the 100% Italian wool’s the material shops are selling.  Easy, the tailor shops are not selling 100% Italian wool’s  it’s that simple.

The fabric that the tailor shops are selling as 100% Italian wool is actually a poly blend material that is made in Thailand.  You can find both the material that is stocked in the tailor shops and real Italian wool’s in Hieng Yoo Huat.

When you walk into Hieng Yoo Huat the fabric shop on Sukhumvit at Asoke walk into the store from the Sukhumvit entrance and not the Asoke entrance as soon as you walk in the door, stop and look down to your right, you will see bolts of nice “Wool Poly Blend” material.  It feels good to the touch and comes in some nice colors for suits.  Even the labeling strip along the edge of the material says it’s a good material.  This is what you will find in the tailor shops all around the area.  Ask the sales people and they will be honest with you tell you it is poly blend.  What else could it be for around 200 Baht a meter.  Now walk to the back left corner of the store.  Behind the row with all the linen you will find the real 100% Italian Wool.  This material cost 2000 -2,500 Baht per meter.  This is the real thing.  Feel the difference in the two materials and you know right away that the material is much different.  But when you’re in the tailor shops you have nothing to compare it to, so it is hard to tell.

So if a Sport Coat takes about 2.5 meters of material and a pair of trousers takes another 2.5 meters of material to make 5 meters in total.  The real 100% Italian Wool will cost you 10,000 – 12,500 Baht, ($325.00 – $400.00 USD) just for material at a retail price.  But the imitation cheap material that the tailor shops are passing off as real 100% Italian wool is costing 1,000 – 1,100 Baht ($30.00 – $35.00 USD) for 5 meters.  As the Sukhumvit tailors have a steady flow of business for the factories you know that they are getting a better price than I do.  So you can figure all said and done the Sukhumvit Tailor shops are working on a margin of around 400% mark up.  That may answer why there are so many tailor shops all around Bangkok.

If you want a 100% cotton material for shirts or a larger selection for pants or even 100% cotton suits for summer in your home country or here in Thailand then you will need to go to “Chumpagne” (sp) in China town.  It is considered the fabric district of Bangkok.  Here you will find 100’s of different fabric stores all right next to each other.  Some selling overpriced low quality materials and some are selling good material for a fair price.  But for a good 100% cotton you can expect to pay about 180 – 200 Baht per meter.  Good Linen will run from 220 – 400 Baht per meter.  I actually found that the price for linen is much more reasonable at the fabric store on Sukhumvit and Asoke.

I hope this helps you to understand what is really going on in the tailor industry in Thailand.