I have to tell you a great story about style for my son,
fantastic customer service and making lemons out of lemonade.

As you know, my son is graduating from high school in two weeks so we have been perusing the men’s shops for a suit for him. We went last weekend for his final fitting on the grey suit he decided on and unfortunately, there was a major mishap in the tailoring department resulting in the suit now being un-wearable. And unfortunately, there was not another of the same suit available.

After getting over the initial shock and disappointment, my son said to this incredible young man looking after him “ok…so what do you have in a 44 tall that we can work with in two weeks?” The sales assistant Matthew then told us that because the problem was from their end, they would like to make it up to us by allowing Iain to choose another suit at their expense PLUS they would reimburse us the cost of the initial suit and the tailoring. Essentially, they were offering my son a free suit.

So then Iain told Matthew that he actually liked the idea now of not having a full suit but rather a non-matching sport coat and trousers with a dressy shirt, tie and pocket square. Matthew loved the idea and said this choice would be more modern in his opinion, slightly unexpected and the pieces could then be broken up to wear in various ways. Then Matthew excused himself for a few moments and when he came back he positive SHOCKED us by telling us that because Iain’s choices would now be less expensive than the suit, he could choose TWO of everything – two sports coats, two trousers, two dress shirts, two ties, two belts, two pairs of socks and two pocket squares FOR FREE!!! I couldn’t believe it and when I said that was too generous, Matthew mentioned that the tailor and manager felt horrible about what had happened and that this was now adding to our stress due to the short time frame of Iain finding something else.

Matthew and Iain were like kids in a candy store and flitted about trying this, that and the other thing. This Matthew had a great eye and my boy really connected with him. In the end, my son got a gorgeous Calvin Klein grey small herringbone print jacket, a classic black Alfred Sung jacket with a slight sheen to the fabric, slightly darker grey thin pinstripe trouser, classic black trouser (both trousers are flat front and slim leg), a grey-on-grey geometric pattern shirt, a plain white shirt, a grey/black/red striped tie, a navy/white/grey striped tie, a white pocket square, red pocket square, black belt, grey belt and socks. They played with all the items and the mix-and-match possibilities are almost endless. The trousers can be hemmed by grad. The jackets are great fit in the shoulders and arms but are a little larger in the waist and need taking in. This cannot be accommodated by the grad date but they look fine as is and we can take them back in July for free alterations.

My son is so excited about his new clothes and hasn’t yet decided on which combination he’s going to wear – he’s going to wear one of the combinations without a jacket or tie for his convocation (they have their grad gowns over top) and then another combination with a jacket and tie for the dinner/dance.

I asked Matthew if I could take his pic for the blog as I was blown away by how dapper this young man looked (he was probably all of 25) and his fierce color and pattern choices of a pink gingham checked shirt with a purple patterned tie. He was tickled and posed for my quick phone pic.