Ferndale High School has about 739 students across four grades, which makes its senior class a room you can count. At a prom that size there’s nowhere to hide a tuxedo that came out of a box sized to a number: everyone knows whose it is, and the sleeves are in every photograph. The good news is the opposite is also true. A tuxedo fitted to him gets noticed by the same room.
Fitted, not sized
A consultant puts the jacket on him. If the shoulder’s wrong it comes off and the next one goes on, and the right one is the one where the seam sits on the bone and the collar lies down. The trousers are pinned to the shoes he’ll dance in. A chart can’t do any of that, because a chart has never seen him.
The tie is the only choice
The tuxedo stays black or midnight blue. The dress decides the bow tie and the pocket square, so bring the photograph of it on his phone and the consultant holds the tie against the screen. A jacket in the dress’s color is a costume, and in a school of 739 it’s a costume everyone remembers.
Three weeks out, on Nine Mile
Come in three weeks before with the shoes. It’s a straight run west on Nine Mile from Ferndale, and Roman, master tailor at Lincoln Tailor, on site in our store, hems to the shoes; a hem is a small job he can often do while you wait.
More on tuxedo rentals, or plan your visit to our Oak Park showroom.
