A three-piece suit, a buoyant overcoat, bespoke Italian shoes and a pocket square—they’re not things you’d immediately associate with the wardrobe of a hip twenty- or thirty-something. Yet given the looks being sported by men on the catwalks, red carpets and pavements around the world, it’s clearly time for a rethink. When it comes to fashion for today’s modern gentleman, complete custom wardrobe and all-round snappy dressing is having a massive moment.

It’s about an art form vs. factory efciency.  It’s about something being hand-made and uniquely designed, being a piece of crafted men’s clothing and 100% unique vs another piece of clothing being uniform, mass produced, and economically affordable for even the poorest student.

It’s a sea change that has been happening for a while. For about 15 odd years, we’ve had resurgence in tailored men’s clothes. We’ve seen young guys wearing three-piece and double-breasted suits, and a huge resurgence in things like bow ties and pocket handkerchiefs.

Clothes are all about making one feel good and that’s why we end up spending a lot of money on them. The feel-good factor comes along with a fell tted custom suit; there is nothing that can top that. Natty dressing has come back in a big way. And tailored made suits in India always make people look as good as they can.

Initially all clothing was handmade – wealthy men had a complete custom wardrobe made by tailors and the rest of us made it within the family unit.  The industrial revolution changed this and made mass manufactured clothing affordable, but the distinction between the two was clear cut as professional handmade clothing had high quality of construction, fabric quality, and fit.

Thanks to popular TV shows like Suits, Mad Men and Homeland,etc. tailoring has made a comeback, so for India, a country where tailors have always dominated due to the absence of international retail brands in the corporate sector, this is a great time of resurgence. Moreover, brands like Woolmark have introduced technology-driven cool-wool fabric blends comprising silk, linen, knit and wool that can be worn year-round.

Another multi-million dollar story comes from the co-founder of a bespoke brand based out of Bangalore called Tailorman—Vidya Natraj. An online customer service for bespoke clothing she co-founded when there were not very many options to choose from for a high quality construction suit. She cashed on the opportunity of not many big retail stores not catering to tted garments. Men’s style (http://www.hufngtonpost.in/2015/08/11/the-simplest-stylishtips_n_7931838.html) tends to be an important discussion point among urban millenials in India, and the company plans to match that through offering both western and ethnic garments. Offering Italian patterns, known for better t, the company stores each cut ordered by an individual, making it easier to push a button and make repeat orders online. Cut to today, this company undoubtedly faces varying forms of competition – a couple of players offer bespoke shirts online; the closest competitor in terms of offering an entire wardrobe for men are the Raymonds stores, part of the Raymond Group managed by Mumbai-based billionaire Gautam Singhania.

The exploding number of new blogs, forums, magazines that ourish on social media, with diverse quality of arguing, but all focused on menswear and/or tailoring. In India the number of companies specializing in either suits, shirts, or just cufinks etc. are fastly raising. There is a true revival based on knowledge, know-how, and a mix between tradition and innovation. The most-famous tailors are currently drowning with orders, whereas they used to sell their products to a restricted number of customers.

But if you want to know why all this happening is, here is the answer. In a nutshell, men are/were tired of buying poor-quality suits from expensive luxury brand that sacriced the quality of manufacturing in order to be able to pour more money into expensive marketing campaigns. Hence, these people started educating themselves, found how to buy better suits/shoes etc. often for less money, and went back to the tailors, good shoe-makers, etc., while discussing online, creating networks, blogs, forums, etc.