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470 entries across tailoring, shoemaking, cloth and craft Reference publication: we sell nothing and rank nobody for payment Every figure carries its source and the date it was checked

Country · Americas

United States

The United States gave the world the soft, straight-hanging sack suit behind Ivy style and the off-the-rack clothing industry, though it now makes little tailoring itself.

American tailoring produced one genuinely original idea, the soft, straight-hanging sack suit that became Ivy style, and one enormous industry, ready-to-wear, which changed how the whole world buys clothes. Very little tailoring is still made in the United States; New York remains an important market, visited constantly by European houses.

The United States, which industrialised the suit and invented the sack
The former Brooks Brothers Store at Broadway and Bond Streets in New York City, designed by George E. Harney and constructed from 1873–1874.

The sack suit

The American contribution to cut is the sack: an undarted jacket hanging straight from a natural shoulder, with a soft chest, a three-button front rolled to the middle button, and no waist suppression to speak of. Brooks Brothers popularised it, the Ivy League adopted it, and by the 1950s it was what an educated American man wore to work.

It is easy to be condescending about the sack (it flatters almost nobody's figure in the way a shaped coat does), but it was a deliberate and coherent answer to a different question. It fits a range of bodies acceptably rather than one body perfectly, which is exactly what a garment sold off a rack needs to do. Ivy style is the sack suit's aesthetic afterlife, and it remains more influential in Japan than in America.

Ready-to-wear, and what it cost

American manufacturers industrialised clothing earlier and more completely than anyone else, driven first by Civil War uniform contracts, which produced the first systematic body-measurement data, and then by sizing systems, standardised patterns and fusible interlinings. The consequence was that ordinary people could buy a suit that fitted approximately, cheaply, immediately.

The consequence for craft was severe. Domestic tailoring shrank to a handful of firms; the great American makers (Oxxford in Chicago, Hickey Freeman in Rochester, Martin Greenfield in Brooklyn) became exceptions rather than a trade. Most tailoring bought in the United States today is made in Italy, or made abroad to American brands' specifications.

New York as a market

The country's importance now is as a customer. New York is the single most-visited city on the international trunk-show circuit: Neapolitan, Roman, Parisian, London and Japanese houses all travel there, some several times a year, to measure clients and hold fittings in hotel suites and borrowed showrooms.

For a buyer this is genuinely useful: a great deal of the world's best tailoring can be commissioned without leaving Manhattan, and genuinely awkward: fittings are compressed into a house's visit schedule, so a commission that would take three fittings over four months in Naples may take a year in New York.

Images

Licensing →
The United States, which industrialised the suit and invented the sack
* Title from Calendar of Emmet Collection. EM11717

At a glance

Native silhouette
The sack suit: undarted, natural-shouldered, straight-hanging
Principal market
New York
Domestic tailoring
Much reducedA handful of firms remain; most American-branded tailoring is made abroad.

Bespoke tailors in United States

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  1. An illustration of the house's recorded cut: soft shoulder, full canvas chest, american, moderately structured. Not a photograph of the house's own work. Martin Greenfield Clothiers New York

    Martin Greenfield Clothiers is a Brooklyn suit factory, run by a Holocaust survivor, that makes custom suits and produces for several American brands.
  2. An illustration of the house's recorded cut: soft shoulder, full canvas chest, american, softly structured. Not a photograph of the house's own work. Oxxford Clothes 1916

    Oxxford Clothes is a Chicago suit maker, around since 1916, whose factory suits involve so much hand sewing they get compared with European custom tailoring.

Shoemakers in United States

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  1. An illustration of a welted shoe of the kind the house makes. Not a photograph of the house's own work. Alden 1884

    New England's surviving welted shoemaker, and the house most associated with shell cordovan.

Cloth makers and merchants in United States

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  1. Horween Leather Company 1905

    Horween is a Chicago tannery, working since 1905, famous for shell cordovan and Chromexcel leathers, and rare in being named on other brands' shoes.

Brands in United States

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Tom Ford at the Venice Film Festival, 2009 01

Tom Ford

A designer's idea of a suit (wide lapel, strong shoulder, high armhole) made in Italy at a very high price.

 The Rhinelander Mansion, New York, which houses a Ralph Lauren store 02

Ralph Lauren Purple Label

Ralph Lauren Purple Label is the top line of Ralph Lauren menswear, with high-quality suits mostly made in Italy in an English and Italian style.

 938 Broadway, New York, built in 1883–84 as a Brooks Brothers store 03

Brooks Brothers

Brooks Brothers is America's oldest clothing retailer, which popularised ready-made suits in standard sizes, the button-down collar and the American Ivy look.

Tailoring styles

All styles →
  1. A natural-shoulder sack jacket The American sack suit

    Straight, soft and undarted: a coat designed to fit many bodies acceptably rather than one perfectly.
  2. Oxford shirt, repp tie, shetland and loafers Ivy style

    A campus uniform that became a national one, and is now better preserved in Tokyo than in Boston.

Cities

  1. New York, the world's largest market for visiting bespoke tailors New York

    New York has little custom tailoring of its own, but more foreign tailors visit for trunk shows there than anywhere, so you can order without travelling.
Last reviewed: September 2026 Report an error on this page

Sources

  1. Costume Institute: American menswear collection , The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Where a figure is disputed or a house has not published it, the page says so rather than choosing a number.

Related

Tailoring styleThe American sack suit CityNew York Tailoring styleIvy style HistoryThe rise of ready-to-wear BrandBrooks Brothers ShoemakerAlden Historical figureRalph Lauren Bespoke tailorOxxford Clothes Cloth makerHorween Leather Company
Picture credits 11
  1. Brooks Brothers Store: Photograph · Gloucester1692 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
  2. In Lexington Avenue; The riot in New York - The clothing store of Messrs. Brooks Bros., Catharine Street, pillaged by the mob; Women…: Photograph · Scan by NYPL · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
  3. An illustration of the house's recorded cut: soft shoulder, full canvas chest, american, moderately structured. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
  4. An illustration of the house's recorded cut: soft shoulder, full canvas chest, american, softly structured. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
  5. An illustration of a welted shoe of the kind the house makes. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
  6. Tom Ford 2009: Photograph · Nicogenin · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  7. Rhinelander Mansion: Photograph · Beyond My Ken · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
  8. Brooks Brothers 938 Broadway: Photograph · Beyond My Ken · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
  9. A natural-shoulder sack jacket: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
  10. Oxford shirt, repp tie, shetland and loafers: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
  11. 400 Madison Avenue Mar 2021 15: Photograph · Epicgenius · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

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