California Apparel News

Alton Lane has a tech angle on a luxe category with a long history: the made-to-measure suit.

The New York–headquartered brand opened the latest of its retail locations, which are called “showrooms,” Nov. 13 at 499 Jackson St. in San Francisco. It is the company’s seventh location. Colin Hunter, Alton Lane co-founder and chief executive officer, promised that a body-scanning machine in each of the company’s showrooms has the right stuff to create a better suit.

Made by Size Stream, the body-measurement machine will take precise calculations of a consumer’s body in 30 seconds at Alton Lane’s gentleman’s club–style showrooms. Each is outfitted with a wet bar. After the scan is taken, an Alton Lane salesman will help the consumer pick fabrics made in Italy and the U.K. for suits, shirts and trousers, which Hunter contends are 40 percent to 50 percent cheaper than other made-to-measure companies.

“We decided to take slightly lower margins on products,” Hunter said of the choice, which he hopes will popularize the made-to-measure category. “A lot of men never tried custom because it wasn’t accessible to them.”

Within 24 hours, fabric is shipped to production facilities in New York, Thailand or China. In four to six weeks the suit is shipped to the consumer. The precise measurements are kept on file. The consumer can reorder suits or blazers online. The company is considering offering jeans and cashmere soon.

Lane forecasts that the new showroom will make more than $1 million in its first year of doing business. The company plans to open more than 40 showroom locations in the next five years.

While men’s styles have become more casual in the past decade, Hunter contends that business is good because men are not merely going to Alton Lane to get a suit tailored, but they are going to get blazers and dress shirts. They also get a lot of traffic from wedding parties, Wall Street types and lawyers as well as athletes who may not fit in ready-to-wear suits.