SuitSupply vs Proper Cloth 2026: Honest Comparison & Third Option

The honest answer to "SuitSupply or Proper Cloth" is that they are barely competing for the same purchase. SuitSupply is a Dutch retailer that wants you to walk into a beautiful store and leave wearing a suit -- ready-to-wear starts around $599 and Custom Made starts at $773, delivered in two to three weeks.¹ Proper Cloth is a New York online made-to-measure house that started with shirts and got very good at fit algorithms -- custom shirts from $125, custom suits from $645 unstructured, $695 half-canvassed and $845 fully canvassed.²³

Pick SuitSupply if you want a store, a mirror and a suit this month. Pick Proper Cloth if you want shirts that fit properly, a serious remake policy, and you are comfortable buying clothes without touching them first. Both are good companies. Neither is doing anything shady.

And then there is the fact that made me want to write this particular comparison. Proper Cloth's shirts are cut and sewn in Vietnam. They say so themselves, openly, in their own FAQ: "Our shirts are cut and sewn with our production team in Vietnam with fabrics sourced from all over the world (Italy, Japan, Portugal, Czech Republic, etc)."⁴ Their shipping page adds that "Shirts and Casual Pants are made to order and ship from Vietnam."⁵

I am Jay, and I am writing this from Hoi An, Vietnam, where I am a partner in a tailoring shop. So when I tell you a $125 Proper Cloth shirt is made about as far from my desk as Boston is from Washington, I am not making a rhetorical point. I am describing my commute. Our custom shirts start at $39.

I want to be very clear before we go further: I think Proper Cloth publishing their manufacturing country is admirable. Most brands hide it. They do not. That honesty is exactly why this comparison can be useful instead of insinuating.

The Full Comparison Table

Where Each One Is Actually Made

This is the section most comparisons skip, usually because it takes real work to source. Both of these companies deserve credit for making it possible.

SuitSupply: mostly China, with Italy and Portugal

SuitSupply is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation and publishes a Brand Performance Check. That document lists production countries with the number of production locations and share of total volume. For the 2023 financial year:⁶

• China -- 15 production locations, 70.04% of production volume
• Italy -- 9 locations, 14.3%
• Portugal -- 3 locations, 7.91%
• Mauritius -- 2 locations, 3.9%
• Myanmar -- 1 location, 3.19%
• United Kingdom, North Macedonia, India and Indonesia -- 1 location each, all under 0.25%

Its 2024 Responsibility Report describes a supplier base of 41 factories across 13 countries on three continents.¹⁵

Two things follow. First, the common assumption that a SuitSupply suit is an Italian suit is not right -- Italy is largely the fabric story, not the sewing story. Their cloth does come from serious Italian mills including Vitale Barberis Canonico and Reda.⁷ The garment itself is most likely assembled in China. Second, and I want to give real credit here: SuitSupply is rated a "Leader" in that same Fair Wear assessment, scoring 162 out of a possible 208.⁶ Publishing a document that says "70% of our production is in China, and here is our risk assessment for each country" is not what a company hiding something does.

Proper Cloth: shirts in Vietnam, suits unstated

Proper Cloth answers the manufacturing question directly in its FAQ: "Our shirts are cut and sewn with our production team in Vietnam with fabrics sourced from all over the world (Italy, Japan, Portugal, Czech Republic, etc)."⁴ Their shipping page repeats it operationally: "Shirts and Casual Pants are made to order and ship from Vietnam."⁵

The company itself is thoroughly New York. Founded in 2008 by Seph Skerritt, an MIT graduate who started it out of his apartment, with design, business operations and customer support based in NYC.⁸⁴ Four showrooms: SoHo, Fifth Avenue, Chicago and Washington DC.¹²

What they do not publish is where the tailored clothing -- suits and sport coats -- is made. I looked for it and could not verify a country from any primary source, so I am not going to guess at it. Suits ship on a different timeline from shirts (22 days versus 15-18), which suggests a different production route, but that is inference and I will label it as such.⁵

Price: The Real 2026 Numbers

SuitSupply. Their US site currently fronts a ready-to-wear suit at $599 and describes Custom Made as "designed, crafted and delivered within 2-3 weeks, starting at $773."¹ Realistically, once you pick a fabric you actually like and add alterations, a Custom Made SuitSupply lands closer to $800-$1,000. Their upper tiers run past $1,200.

Proper Cloth. Their custom suits page is refreshingly explicit, listing prices by construction: unstructured suits from $645, half-canvassed from $695, half-canvassed tuxedos from $730, fully canvassed from $845.² Shirts start at $125,³ with premium fabrics climbing well above that. Note that ordering through a showroom carries different headline pricing -- their NYC showroom page lists custom suits from $795 and custom pants from $185.¹²

I want to flag something in Proper Cloth's favour that most buyers miss: pricing a suit by construction level is an unusually honest way to sell. Most brands make you guess whether you are getting fused, half-canvas or full canvas. Proper Cloth puts it in the price ladder. That is a company confident about what it is selling.

Nathan Tailors. A two-piece custom suit runs $149 to $309 depending on cloth tier. Custom shirts start at $39. Full pricing is on our pricing page.

So on a like-for-like custom suit: roughly $773-$1,000 at SuitSupply, $645-$845 at Proper Cloth, $149-$309 with us. On shirts: $125 and up at Proper Cloth, $39 and up with us -- both cut and sewn in the same country.

The Fit Process: Store, Algorithm, or Conversation

Three genuinely different philosophies here, and the right one depends entirely on what kind of person you are.

SuitSupply solves fit with a room. You walk in, staff who are usually very well trained put things on you, you look in a mirror, and the feedback loop is instant. For Custom Made they take you through it in store or via their Size Passport online. If you live near one of their stores, this is the lowest-anxiety way to buy a suit that exists. There is no substitute for trying on four jackets and knowing.

Proper Cloth solves fit with mathematics. Their Smart Size system asks you about your body and fit preferences and generates a starting size profile you can then adjust, rather than making you measure yourself with a tape and hope. Reddit reviewers who have used it consistently report it works better than self-measurement -- and, tellingly, the threads where people struggled are usually the ones where they skipped Smart Size and entered their own numbers.¹⁶ Their most-cited complaint is price, not fit.

We solve fit with a conversation and a safety margin. You do a WhatsApp consultation, use our guided measurement app, and send photos of yourself in fitted clothing so our tailors can cross-check the numbers against what your body is actually doing. Then every garment is cut with generous seam allowances and ships with a piece of the same cloth, so a local tailor can adjust it if something needs moving.

Is that as good as standing in a SuitSupply in Chicago? For a first-time suit buyer, honestly, no. A mirror is a powerful instrument. Our method leans on our tailors' experience reading measurements -- Linda has been doing it for 25 years and the shop works with international clients daily -- and on giving you material to work with if it needs a tweak. It works, and 510+ Google reviews at 5.0 stars say so, many from people who have never been to Vietnam. But it asks more of you than walking into a store.

Return and Remake Policies: Where Proper Cloth Wins

I will say this plainly because it is true: Proper Cloth has the best published fit policy of any brand in this comparison, including us.

On shirts: "If your first shirt isn't perfect, we'll remake it -- free of charge." They guarantee up to two complimentary remakes, with a 60-day window from purchase to request one, and 60 days to return for a full refund or store credit. The guarantee still applies even if you have laundered the shirt once or twice.⁹

On tailored clothing they give you three routes: have your own local tailor adjust it and send them the receipt for store credit -- up to $125 for a suit, $75 for a jacket, $50 for dress pants; or have Proper Cloth alter or remake it in a new size; or return it for a full refund. The one restriction is that they will not accept returns on clothing that has already been altered.⁹

That is a genuinely excellent policy and it is a real reason to choose them.

SuitSupply is also strong here in a different way: free returns within 30 days on unworn, unaltered items, and their own FAQ confirms "our return policy extends to Custom Made."¹¹⁰ A returnable custom garment is rare in this industry. Credit where it is due.

We do not offer cash refunds, and I am not going to dress that up. Our garments are made individually for one person. What we actually do is stay reachable: send us photos when the box arrives, we talk through what needs moving, and we figure out the right step together -- usually a quick local alteration using the seam allowance and spare cloth we shipped with it, which is faster and cheaper for you than posting a jacket across the Pacific. We do not reimburse that alteration. If a written guarantee with dollar figures attached is what makes you comfortable spending money, Proper Cloth has one and we do not.

What Customers Actually Say

Both brands are well liked. This is not a comparison where one of them is quietly terrible.

SuitSupply holds roughly 4.9 on Trustpilot across about 12,000 reviews.¹³ The praise is consistent: in-store experience, knowledgeable staff, quality relative to price. Complaints cluster on customer service during returns and occasional inconsistency on specific items. For a company operating at this scale, that is a strong record.

Proper Cloth holds around 4.9 on Trustpilot from several hundred reviews,¹⁴ and publishes its own rolling average of 4.88 across its last 1,000 verified reviews.¹⁷ On Reddit the sentiment among menswear people is warm: praise for fabric quality, construction, the Smart Size system and the Perfect Fit Guarantee, with price named as the main drawback. There is a real recurring complaint worth knowing -- some customers report finished garments measuring one to three centimetres larger than the dimensions shown online.¹⁶ If you are ordering to a precise spec, factor that in and use the remake policy you are paying for.

One caveat that applies to everybody, us included: a five-star review from a first-time suit buyer tells you they had a good afternoon, not how the jacket looks in year three. Read all of these accordingly.

The Third Option: Buying the Tailoring Without the Address

Here is my bias in the open. I am a partner at Nathan Tailors in Hoi An. I arrived as a customer, liked the shop enough to buy in, and now I write the pages that explain why the prices look the way they do.

The shop is a partnership. Linda was born and raised in Hoi An and has 25 years of cutting and fitting behind her -- she runs the craft. I came out of a decade in finance in the US and handle systems, remote orders, and arguing with numbers on the internet. She will ask you "Why are you so handsome?!" before you have finished saying hello, and then she will tell you truthfully that the fabric you picked is too heavy for a summer wedding in Texas.

The pitch is not that we are better tailors than Proper Cloth's production team in Vietnam. It is simpler than that. They are a New York company with New York salaries, four showrooms, a design team, a software team and a marketing budget, having shirts made in Vietnam and shipped to you. We are a workshop in Vietnam selling straight to you -- a different shop, a different team, no connection to theirs. Same country, dramatically shorter chain.

• Custom suits $149-$309, cut from a pattern drafted to your measurements -- not a base pattern adjusted
• Custom shirts from $39
• Typically 2-3 weeks door-to-door including express shipping
• Unlimited customisation -- any lapel, gorge, pocket, lining, working cuffs, or a photo of something you saw and want reproduced
• Seam allowances and spare cloth in every garment so a local tailor can fine-tune it

On cloth, the honest version: ours comes from established mill suppliers and spans wool blends through wool-cashmere and merino depending on tier. We do not name-drop mills, because for a Vietnam workshop that game is usually fiction and we would rather tell you the truth than make a claim we cannot back. SuitSupply can name Vitale Barberis Canonico and Reda because they buy at a scale where the mill knows their name.⁷ That is a real advantage they have and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

The Honest Case Against Ordering From Us

• No showroom. You cannot try it on first. SuitSupply's entire value proposition is the opposite of ours.
• No published fit guarantee with dollar figures. Proper Cloth's two-free-remakes and $125 alteration credit are better on paper than anything we offer, full stop.
• No cash refunds.
• Two to three weeks and a timezone gap. Messages get answered on Vietnam hours.
• You do the measuring. With help, with an app, with photo cross-checks -- but you hold the tape, not a trained fitter in a store.

If any of those is a dealbreaker, the right answer is one of the other two brands, and I would rather you buy the right thing than the cheap thing.

Who Should Buy From Whom

Choose SuitSupply if:

• You live near a store and want to try things on -- this is the single strongest argument in menswear retail
• You need a suit soon; ready-to-wear walks out the door and Custom Made is 2-3 weeks¹
• You want the security of free 30-day returns that extend even to Custom Made¹¹⁰
• Italian cloth from named mills matters to you and you want it verifiable⁷
• Your body is close to standard sizing, in which case their ready-to-wear at $599 with light alterations is genuinely good value

Choose Proper Cloth if:

• You primarily want shirts -- this is what they are best at and it is not close
• You want the strongest fit guarantee available: two free remakes and a real refund window⁹
• You want to buy construction transparently, priced by unstructured / half-canvas / full canvas²
• You are comfortable online and would rather let an algorithm size you than wrestle a tape measure
• You want a US-based company with US customer support and four showrooms you can visit

Choose Nathan Tailors if:

• You can plan 2-3 weeks ahead and would rather spend the difference on cloth, or on a second suit
• You are buying several pieces -- three of our suits cost less than one SuitSupply Custom Made
• You want true custom: a pattern drafted for your body and any detail you can describe
• You want custom shirts at $39 rather than $125, made in the same country
• You are coming to Hoi An, in which case come in, meet Linda, and get measured properly in person
• You are outfitting a wedding party and the per-person number is the whole decision

The Economics, In One Paragraph

A custom garment costs three things: cloth, skilled labour, and the overhead of whoever sold it to you. Cloth is broadly priced globally. Skilled labour is not correlated with geography -- there is no reason a tailor in Hoi An is less capable than one anywhere else, and Hoi An has been a tailoring town for centuries. Overhead is the entire gap. SuitSupply carries around 108 stores worldwide,¹¹ an Amsterdam headquarters and a supplier network of 41 factories in 13 countries.¹⁵ Proper Cloth carries New York salaries, four showrooms and the software that makes Smart Size work. Both of those are legitimate businesses delivering real value. We carry one workshop in a town where rent is a rounding error. When a New York brand has a shirt sewn in Vietnam, ships it to a US warehouse and then to you, every one of those steps is a real cost -- and every one of them is a step we simply do not take.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Proper Cloth or SuitSupply better?

For shirts, Proper Cloth, clearly -- it is their founding product and their fit guarantee is the best in the category.⁹ For suits, it depends on whether you want a store. SuitSupply gives you a fitting room, Italian mill cloth and free 30-day returns even on Custom Made.¹ Proper Cloth gives you transparent construction tiers from $645 and a remote process refined over fifteen years.² Neither answer is wrong.

Where are Proper Cloth shirts made?

Vietnam. Their FAQ states shirts are "cut and sewn with our production team in Vietnam with fabrics sourced from all over the world,"⁴ and their shipping page confirms shirts and casual pants ship from Vietnam.⁵ They do not publish a country for tailored clothing.

Where are SuitSupply suits made?

Predominantly China. SuitSupply's own Fair Wear Foundation Brand Performance Check reports China at 70.04% of production volume across 15 production locations, with Italy at 14.3% and Portugal at 7.91%.⁶ The Italian connection most shoppers are thinking of is the cloth -- mills including Vitale Barberis Canonico and Reda.⁷

How much is a Proper Cloth suit in 2026?

Their custom suits page lists unstructured from $645, half-canvassed from $695, half-canvassed tuxedos from $730 and fully canvassed from $845.² Ordering via a showroom carries different headline pricing, listed from $795.¹²

Can you actually return a SuitSupply Custom Made suit?

Yes -- their own FAQ says "our return policy extends to Custom Made," under the standard 30-day free return terms for unworn, unaltered items.¹¹⁰ That is unusually generous for made-to-measure and worth factoring into the price.

If Proper Cloth already makes shirts in Vietnam, why is yours $39 and theirs $125?

Because you are not just buying a shirt from them -- you are buying a New York company. Design team, engineering team that built Smart Size, customer support, four showrooms, marketing, and the logistics of moving a finished garment from Vietnam into a US distribution system and back out to your door. All of that is real work that real people do, and it goes into the price. We are the workshop. You message us, our tailors cut it, it ships to you. That is the whole difference, and it is not a comment on their quality -- it is a comment on the length of the chain.

What if the fit is wrong when it arrives?

Send us photos on WhatsApp and we will work through it with you. Every garment is cut with generous seam allowances and ships with a piece of the same cloth so a local tailor can adjust it -- you pay that tailor, and it is usually faster and cheaper than shipping a jacket back across the world. We do not offer cash refunds or reimbursed alterations. Proper Cloth does offer a store-credit alteration allowance and free remakes on shirts,⁹ and if that safety net is what you need, it is a legitimate reason to pay their price.

The Bottom Line

SuitSupply and Proper Cloth are both well-run companies that treat customers decently, publish more than they have to, and deliver what they promise. SuitSupply sells you a room, a mirror and Italian cloth with a genuinely generous return policy. Proper Cloth sells you precision, honest construction tiers, and the best fit guarantee in this comparison. If you buy from either, you will probably be fine.

What I would like you to walk away knowing is the thing neither of them will put on a homepage: a well-liked New York brand already has its shirts cut and sewn in Vietnam and says so plainly.⁴ A Dutch retailer already has 70% of its production volume in China and publishes the figure.⁶ The skilled hands making Western menswear have been in Asia for a long time. That is not a scandal and it is not a secret -- it is just the industry.

The only real question is how many businesses stand between those hands and your closet, and how much each of them takes. Our answer is: one, and not much. Custom suits $149-$309, custom shirts from $39, typically 2-3 weeks door-to-door including express shipping, cut to a pattern drafted for you, with seam allowances and spare cloth so a local tailor can fine-tune it.

For the full spec -- tiers, cloth library, construction details, FAQ -- see our bespoke suits and custom tailored suits page. For the numbers, the pricing menu. If you want to compare the wider field first, our Indochino vs SuitSupply breakdown covers the made-to-measure tier in more depth.

Or just message us on WhatsApp and ask the awkward questions -- what the cloth actually is, what happens if it does not fit, why it is this cheap. We will give you straight answers. Linda will also tell you that you are far too handsome for the shirt you picked, and she will not be joking.