Shaarey Zedek was founded in 1861 and has been on Bell Road since 1962, and its Shabbat morning service starts at 9:30. A thirteen-year-old standing up there is being looked at by everyone he knows, and he is wearing a suit for the first time in his life that isn’t a costume.
Fit him for the morning, not for the growth spurt
The instinct is to buy big so it lasts. Resist it. A jacket that is a size too large reads as borrowed in every photograph, and the photographs are the point. Buy the size he is, and let Roman, master tailor at Lincoln Tailor, on site in our store, let the trousers out once when he grows, where the cloth allows. That is how the suit lasts to the next simcha.
Navy, and a shirt that stays tucked
Navy over charcoal for a boy; it is warmer against a young face. A white shirt one size closer to his neck than he’d choose himself, so the collar sits under the tie. A dark shoe, laced, worn in the week before so he walks up the steps and not around them.
The grandfather too
Three generations end up in the same photograph. If Grandpa’s suit was last worn at his own son’s wedding, bring him in the same afternoon; alterations on a suit he already owns are often done the same day for the basics, depending on the garment and current workload. From Bell Road the showroom is on Greenfield, just south of I-696.
Also for Southfield: A July Evening at the Burgh: The Unlined Jacket. More on style consulting, or plan your visit to our Oak Park showroom.
