Explore the HSS x Michael Andrews Collection

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It’s finally here!

I live in Baltimore and about eight years ago, I got in my car and headed south to Washington, DC. I knew why I was going, but wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to go.  I didn’t realize until many years later just how significant this trip would be.

I was headed down to DC because a custom clothing company from New York I had read about and heard really great things about was setting up shop in DC and was offering a nice discount for first-time DC clients. This was during the very beginning of He Spoke Style and at a time when I really started to get serious about developing my wardrobe and investing in it. It seemed like a good trip to make.

I parked just off Dupont Circle and walked a few blocks to a small townhouse. I rang the doorbell, was buzzed in, and taken upstairs to the second floor. There, I was greeted by a very elegant room. Dark hardwood floors, slate grey walls, a fireplace, a couch, a few perfectly placed rugs, a single table with four chairs around it, a couple tailor busts elegantly styled, a wet bar, and a hutch stocked with fabric books. Next, a gentleman came in, shook my hand, and we sat down together at the table. This was my first time meeting Mike of Michael Andrews.

My First Michael Andrews Bespoke Suit

Now, remember this was kind of the beginning of me seriously getting into men’s style and actually only my second time doing a custom suit. Which is to say I was not prepared at all. I kind of knew what I wanted, but not really, and when it came to all the details I was just overwhelmed. In fact, I’m not ashamed to admit that a lot of things, I didn’t even know what they were. So my appointment took a little bit of time-probably more time than Mike was used to spending with a single client who was going to buy one suit and two shirts.

I finally decided on a brown donegal tweed three-piece suit with a notch lapel, flap pockets, suede elbow patches (something I’d wanted since my undergraduate days), a double vent, and side adjusters on the trousers with a two-inch cuff. For shirts, I did a blue micro-stripe and another with a blue and brown double stripe.

I loved that suit when I got it. I got it just in time for the fall/winter season of that year. We featured it many times on the He Spoke Style website, showing its versatility. It’s a suit still in my rotation; the tweed jacket you’ve seen frequently on the channel is the jacket from that suit.

My Custom Suit Journey

Over the years as I continued growing HSS, I had the opportunity to try many different made-to-measure and custom suit programs. Some were really well known, some were online-only, others were small shops-pretty much the gamut of what was available. But, one constant throughout all that time was I always kept coming back to MAB.

The other products were okay, but usually there was something about the product I just couldn’t get past. It would come in too small or short despite a rigorous measuring process. Some of the programs have a complete lack of control over certain things sort of non-negotiable for me, like lapel width or having a cap on how wide you could make the cuff on the trousers.

And then there was the fact a lot of these companies seemed kind of faceless. Maybe they advertised the “personal attention” you’d get, but part of the joy of the sartorial world is the relationships you create with the people responsible for making your clothing. You don’t want the process to be simply transactional. It should be about sharing a passion for style and the craft of tailored clothing. To be honest, the ‘holy grail’ is getting to a point where you can just tell “your guy” what you want and then expect that, with little to no input from you, he knows exactly what that is and you are completely satisfied when the garment is delivered.

That is why MAB was different for me, and it’s one of the reasons I kept going to them so consistently over the years. Michael Andrews was-and still is-a relatively small team of warm, caring, passionate, and just plain nice people. All my favorite suits were from MAB. I’d never experienced such a personal level of customer attention. They’d remember birthdays, anniversaries, and it wasn’t just like some bot sent me an email-Cory and Mike would literally text me to let me know they had remembered.

Because of the synergy and the way our values aligned-caring about quality, caring about the people we connected with-it was about two years ago we started having conversations about partnering in a more meaningful and lasting way.

Michael Andrews has a great product I personally love, but aside from a few regular trunk shows here and there in a handful of cities and the showroom in New York, they only had an in-person experience. That made it very difficult for the people who followed me and He Spoke Style to see what it was all about. To add to it, they were only offering a bespoke garment, which meant the price was higher than I knew many of you were comfortable with.

My goal has always been to make it easier for you guys to dress well, look your best, feel your best, and in the process, have more confidence in yourself, and to use that confidence to do whatever it is-and achieve whatever it is–you want to. And part of that is to be able to share and give you access to the clothing that had that effect for me, in my life.

That is why we put our heads together to find a way to bring Michael Andrews into the HSS Shop, to give you an online custom clothing experience only they can deliver, at a price point better in terms of the level and quality of what you are getting than the competition.

What Makes MAB Different?

Now, let me talk a little bit about what really differentiates Michael Andrews. They have their own workshop–and they actually own their workshop. They make all their patterns in-house, which is cool because it allows me create some pieces I envision, to give you some more unique options than what you would normally find from similar companies in the custom clothing industry.

Over the years, Michael Andrews has also created a network of partnerships with other top-tier craftsmen, which gives them a much greater depth of knowledge, experience, and ability than any other custom clothier. And because of that, we’re able to offer you a curated selection of not just suits, shirts, and sport coats, but also shoes, knitwear, belts, ties, and accessories.

Of course, when you’re talking about custom clothing, and especially online custom clothing, the most important thing-aside from quality-is the fit of the garment. And here is a place where I know Mike and his team absolutely deliver. As you go through the process, you’ll work closely with them to achieve a fit as close to their in-store bespoke as possible.

We’ve been testing this out well over a year now, and to be completely honest, I was scared in the beginning because I didn’t want *this* service to have any compromises at all. And when we got those first garments back, we were all absolutely blown away by how good they were.

This whole new adventure is all about you guys. This partnership gives us an infrastructure to deliver you an exceptional product with world-class customer service. And because we’ve brought on MAB as our partner for that, it frees me up and gives me a greater ability to product even higher quality content than you’ve become accustomed to.

What Does This Mean For HSS?

I know some of you will have questions about objectivity and so on and so forth going forward. What I can promise you is that nothing on this channel will change. It’s not going to become a huge commercial–I’ve seen other people go down that path and that is not what is going to happen here. I’m going to continue sharing the things I’m passionate about across a variety of categories. And you will continue to get all the knowledge, tips, and inspiration you need to dress well, have more confidence and unlock your potential.

Everything is now live on the site and what I really want to do is to encourage you to check it out, browse the collection, but most importantly, give us some feedback. We want the experience to be the best out there. We want to make the site better every day. And you guys are the ones who can give us the best feedback. So, please, hop on over there, check it out, and let us know what you think.

Thanks for reading.