A suit to take home from Japan
Guests often reach us after four other shops have said that what they had in mind could not be made. It usually can — though a suit takes about 45 days, so plan your visit with that in mind.
L’ECRIN is a made-to-measure house in Saza-cho, Kitamatsuura-gun, Nagasaki. We keep hundreds of cloths from British mills, we cut a pattern for one person only, and we are willing to attempt the things a larger shop has to refuse.
An interpreter sits with us so that nothing is lost between what you meant and what we make. You leave Japan with a garment that exists nowhere else — and, more often than not, with the pattern of your body kept on file for the next one.
Cut for your body, not for a size chart
The sentence we hear most from guests from overseas is that everything sold at home is cut too big.
Ready-made clothing is drawn from an average, and an average belongs to no one. If you are slim, or long in the arm, or narrow across the shoulders, the label that fits one part of you will be wrong everywhere else.
We do not begin from a size at all. We measure you, write down the particulars of your body — the way one shoulder sits lower, the turn of the back — and cut a pattern that belongs to you. A basted fitting can be added if you want to see the shape on yourself before the cloth is finally cut.
A lining that could only have been made here
Outside, a suit you can wear to any office in the world. Inside, the reason you came to Japan.
A lining is the one part of a suit chosen entirely for the person wearing it. Bring us a pattern, a photograph, or only an idea, and we will find the cloth or have it made up.
Your name, in kanji
Ateji is the old practice of writing a foreign name with Chinese characters chosen for their sound — and, where we can manage both, for their meaning. Michael, Sofia, Antoine: each can be written in a way a Japanese reader will pronounce correctly and find beautiful.
We will propose the characters, explain what each one means, and embroider your name inside the jacket, beside the L’ECRIN label. It costs little and it is the detail guests write to us about afterwards.
Photographed here: rainbow AMF stitching run by hand along a lapel. A different detail, but the same principle — something put there for one person and no one else.
An interpreter, at no charge
A professional interpreter will be with you for your entire appointment.
We used to rely on AI translation. It gave us the words, but not the difference between a jacket that is close and one that is tight — a few millimetres at the shoulder, the exact way you want a trouser to fall, the small things you care about and why. Those nuances never came across completely, and that is exactly where a made-to-measure suit is won or lost.
Because we want to make you the best garment we can, we changed how we work. A dedicated professional interpreter now sits with us for your appointment, and we do not pass the cost on to you. Speak in English, and tell us everything you have in mind.
The one thing we ask in return is that you write to us early and let us propose the day and time, because the interpreter has to be booked ahead.
Please write to us in English at lecrin0707@gmail.com. We cannot take enquiries in English by telephone.
Fitting it into your stay
Tell us your travel dates at the first appointment and we will tell you honestly what is possible.
Measured on your visit, made while you travel on, and finished at a final fitting when you return.
A trial garment is tried on you and corrected before the cloth is cut. It needs a second visit, and it gives the best result.
We can send the suit to you, carriage payable on delivery. Without a final fitting it has to be accepted as it arrives.
Payment is taken when the order is placed — in full, or 50% as a deposit with the balance on completion. Cash in Japanese yen, or credit card. Suits from JPY 98,000; see Price and FAQ.
Write to us before you fly
Send us the dates you will be in Japan, and anything you already have in mind — a colour, a photograph, a pattern another tailor has turned down. We will write back in English.