You’ve come to the right place!
I live in NYC and I’ve been getting custom-made suits for years, and have tried a LOT of places. Most of the Hong Kong/Bangkok places are usually run by Indians, who take your measurements and do the sales end of things here in NY, then send your measurements to Hong Kong (or Thailand) for the suit to be made.
This looks to be exactly that, except this particular guy travels around on “tour” doing the sales/measurement part of things, as opposed to having one strorefront, if I’m not mistaken.
As far as custom-made clothing, yes it’s a relatively good deal relative to a place that would make it onsite here in the U.S. You can probably get one made at one of these places, if you choose a reasonably good fabric (not super-cheap and not their highest-end stuff) for $700-800.
I only glanced quickly at his (Nick’s) price list, but I’m pretty sure that if you choose the cheaper stuff than that, the fabrics will probably be pretty crappy quality.
I used these Hong Kong-type custom tailors for years and finally got fed up. Yes, once they get it right – ONCE they get it right – they can make something that technically fits you perfectly, and that you might like and be happy with.
BUT, and keeping in mind that my physique ain’t too easy to fit, as is the case with anyone that has some muscle on them (hence the need for custom suits), it would often take a LOOOOT of tweaking and refinements after the fact to get it right in the end. Which is fine – any custom-made suit is going to require that, especially the first time, until the get your individual fit down pat.
However, these Hong Kong/Thailand/Indian guys have 2 major problems in general, especially when someone’s fit is a little more complicated (like mine):
1.) Lack of customer service and really, proactively TRYING to make it right and fix what should be wrong, rather than be done with it and washing their hands of it.
This might be a cultural thing, or it might be that most of these operations tend to be a little shyster-ish, but rather than doing what a good old-fashioned Italian tailor would do, which is to notice the things that don’t look perfect – even point out to you things that YOU DIDN’T NOTICE that don’t look perfect to his trained eye, and fix them, these guys will typically try to say (when you point out something that needs adjusting that might not be so easy for them to adjust), "Oh, it just needs pressing.
You just need to press it and it will look perfect," when the suit is obviously PULLING in a certain place and not lying right. A good, true tailor would take enough pride in his/her work to latch onto that problem and fix it without being strong-armed.
2.) Lack of eye for style/lines/fashion, for lack of a better term. Like I said, these guys can usually make you a suit that “technically” looks perfect, once they perfect your fit with a few tweakings. It will eventually (usually) lie just right, not pull anywhere, fit in the shoulders, be the right length, etc., etc.
But will it have the overall “look” to it that an Armani or Canali or Zegna suit will have? No. You look at someone in one of those (Italian designer) suits that fits them right and they just have something to the overall shape of them and the way they hang on the body that you can’t put your finger on, but it’s a STYLE thing that these guys don’t seem to be able to duplicate.
However, these brands don’t make fully custom suits (they’ll do made-to-measure, which is "semi-"custom but not fully custom, and thus has its limitations. It didn’t work for me, and I tried it with both Armani and Zegna).
Unfortunately, the solution that I found is much more expensive, but I found a place that gets it EXACTLY right, in terms of fit, customer service/communication and style. Giliberto Designs www.gilibertodesigns.com . It will run you (ouch) about $2,200 bucks for a nice fabric, however.
If you’re not ready to shell out that kind of money, by all means I would suggest trying one of the Hong Kong/Bangkok places. I don’t know how Nick’s compares to the rest, but these places are the next best thing to good ole’ Italian-tailored (i.e. Giliberto’s) suitmakers for someone that needs a truly custom suit and can’t buy off the rack or buy made-to-measure.
Like I said, they might just get it right for him, and he might end up liking the end product. I had a couple of these places that I used for years, and though I didn’t love the styling of the end result as much as I do Giliberto’s products, I did LIKE them once they got them right. (That often took decades in my case, but hopefully he’ll have more luck).
I would probably go with a place that has an actual, physical storefront here in New York, however, as opposed to a nomad like Nick appears to be. You can try Mohan’s, La Rukico or Bhambi’s (Bhambi’s being a little more expensive than the other two). Hope that helps.