Logsdail Classic Hacking Jacket

I mentioned way back in August that I had ordered a jacket from New York bespoke tailor Leonard Logdail’s made to order program, Logsdail Classic.  This week I finally picked the jacket up from Len and couldn’t be happier with it.  One of the best values out there right now.

Len’s bespoke work, unsurprisingly, starts at a couple thousand dollars for a sport coat, but in 2010 he decided to launch a line of country clothes at a more accessible price point.  They are made to order, not full made to measure, but with a classic sculpted shape – close to the body, but not tight like some of the less-structured coats on the market these days.

Like all non-custom-sized clothes, the Logsdail Classic jackets will likely need a few final tweaks to make them fit perfectly.  Nature of the beast.  I had my initial make-up sent to Len and thought I would do the alterations with the master himself.  In the fall but we decided to do an alteration or two, but because my trips to New York have been erratic it has taken months for me to pick it up.  I could have had it mailed, but Len wanted to make sure everything was spick and span.

Logsdail Classic is all made in China, and is a perfect example of why that needn’t carry the negative connotations it usually does.  I’ve seen sport coats, twill trousers, breeks, and field coats from the line, and the workmanship on all of them is great.  I have seen much lesser-made garments come out of better-regarded countries, I promise.  Len told me he worked really hard to find a factory that could make at the level he required, and wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfection.

For the sportcoats you get to choose one of three basic silhouettes and then select your cloth, pockets, number of buttons, vents, gun or elbow patches (should you want them), and size.  It’s almost like bespoke baby steps.  I went with two slanted pockets, three-roll-two button stance, two vents, and no patches – traditional hacking jacket configuration.  From there the coat is made up in 6-8 weeks and then mailed off to you.

The coats themselves range from just under $800 to just under $1000, depending on cloth and which types of pockets you want.  Materials are all tweeds from well-known mills, horn buttons, and quality canvasing.  You would be hard-pressed to find traditional English-style country clothes of equal quality anywhere near this price.

But, the biggest advantage of all is that you’re getting a tailor like Len’s expertise for far below what getting a suit made by him would cost.  Len designed all the Logsdail Classic blocks and engineered them to be as close to what he would make as possible, but obviously not specifically fitted to each person’s body.  The attention to detail is there though, as is the particular shape and line of Len’s clothes.

This might sound like a trivial point, but there is a huge difference between how a designer constructs and block and how a tailor does it.  The latter tends to be much more concerned with how the thing actually sits on your body, and due to working with a more niche set of materials and basic styles can really nail those little things that make at jacket fit outstandingly instead of adequately.

I will obviously have to report back further after beating my tweed up a bit and taking some better photos, but for now it’s love at first wear.

Logsdail Classics’ Tweeds and Tales tumblr is also worth following if you don’t already.