I recently purchased a tuxedo from German tailoring brand Maximilian Mogg. Max was visiting London on company business. Richard Gelding It’s on North Audley Street.
I was interested in purchasing Max’s pieces because I knew my readers would be interested and I admired his unique approach to tailoring: traditional square shoulders, long jackets, and wide trousers. In fact, it’s probably for the same reason. I’m a reader too, and I wanted to know what it was like.
So does a Mogg suit make me ‘smexy’? (Portmanteau Max, combining ‘smart’ and ‘sexy’)
Overall, I think Max (and personally it’s been Max every time) did a good job with the fit. This is one of the best products. Custom made pieces I had. But I was a little unsure about the style, so it ended up being less dramatic than I expected.
The jacket is well proportioned, has good sleeve pitch and a fairly clean back. There are some wrinkles in the shoulder line where the shoulders rotate forward, and there is a slight gap in the back of the neck, but both are minor. Actually, Max and I thought a lot about whether to tighten the neck at all, and I don’t think adjusting it will be difficult in the future.
The pants are higher and wider than I usually wear (natural waist, hem 23cm), but I really like wearing them in a formal and dressy way. The fit and leg line are good, and both the pants and jacket are very comfortable.
When it comes to fit, keep in mind that the best comparison for a suit like this is not a hand-tailored one (where you have much more time and freedom to perfect the fit), but other MTMs, and not even a luxury suit with a hand-padded chest and lapels.
The construction of the Mogg suit is actually a bit lower level than most MTMs we’ve covered over the years. It’s fully canvased, but has less hand detailing and a machine-attached collar. And this is reflected in the price. A suit purchased in the EU starts from €1800 (£1560).
Here is a list: My favorite MTM tailor shop By the way, Mogg will now be added.
Styling-wise, the jacket features padded, roped shoulders, wide lapels, and relatively high button points (17½ inches from the shoulder seam). When I say relative, I mean relative to a particular custom tailor. As you can see In this article For example, I have the same height as Ferdinando Caraceni, but all the other tailors are shorter.
The most notable aspect of the Mog dinner jacket is its lapel shape, which is wide, has a curved belly, and is relatively short (determined by the button fastening point). This is always a big factor, but especially so with dinner jackets, where the lapels are usually made of a contrasting material.
While Max and I discuss suit styles in detail, I should make it clear that I’ve always erred on the side of his house style, using this piece to describe the brand’s preferred look.
Max is slimmer than me but we are similar height and this is the style he wears and readers may have seen him online. The jacket I was wearing at the first fitting was so similar that I had to guess the cut.
The only significant change Max made to the suit was adding a bit of flare to the pants.
So if the style is standard, why does it feel less dramatic and stylish than you might expect? (Above, some images from Max online.)
I asked Max this and he said I get a lot. Unlike the likes of Husbands, the look isn’t actually that strange. This is especially true when it comes to British tailoring with structured shoulders and long jackets.
Of course, being less unusual is in many ways a good thing. This means Mogg suits will appeal to more people and make a difference, and few MTM brands offer such structured tailoring. The majority are shorter, rounder, and smoother. Close to southern Italy.
Personally, I was looking for something a bit more stylish – an unusual piece to sit alongside tailoring from Ciardi or Assisi – and that’s why I chose the dinner suit. Personally I could have put the buttons lower, but now you can see the shape of those round lapels. Likewise, the wider lapels of the Edward Sexton or Chittleborough & Morgan seem to have worked better for me when they were lower. And Caraceni was more straightforward.
On the other hand, I really like the overall proportions of the jacket and pants. The wide shoulders balance the length of the jacket, and the wide pants give it a comfortable and elegant look.
By the way, the shirt and bow tie are also by Maximilian Mogg, so they contain elements of his style.
The body and collar of the shirt are made from marcella material and the back is made from a very lightweight voile material. I really like the look of the collar (slightly more pointy and slightly longer), but in retrospect I think the cut of this jacket would have had a plain front with no studs, as only one stud is visible.
The bow tie is their house style, single ended. One end is a typical bow shape and the other end is a simple line of material (see image above). This makes it easier to tie, but the downside is that the bow is thinner and not as full.
The tuxedo’s material was Dugdale’s black barathea (420g/m, 3110). The lapels and other surfaces are made of grosgrain silk, but it is a lighter Italian silk. I think I probably prefer the English I’ve used in the past because it has more texture. But it’s not for everyone.
The shoes are Velvet opera pumps from Baudoin & Lange; The cufflinks are old PS products.
The dinner suit cost €2750. Typically, Maximilan Mogg’s custom suits start from €1800 if sold in the EU and €2500 if sold outside the EU. Outside includes all shipping costs, duties and taxes.
There are also custom build levels starting from €5500 and €6700 for EU and non-EU.
Maximilan Mogg has a store in Berlin and staff in London, Cologne and New York, who book other stories (e.g. Richard Gelding in London). They currently hold regular trunk shows in Zurich, Vienna, Paris, Hamburg and Los Angeles.
