Handmade clothes from Nepal gave two old school friends the idea for an online bespoke tailor. From a modest start on a stall, A Suit That Fits now boasts 25,000 customers and a £1.2m turnover

Warren Bennett I have taken various gap years and done quite a few voluntary teaching placements. Wherever I’ve been I’ve always had my suits made. When I was in Nepal the school I was working at introduced me to a family of tailors. They made me fantastic suits that I thought I could wear at home. I wanted to have some made for my friends and family, too, so I kept in touch with them.

David Hathiramani Warren and I are old friends from school. One time when we met up for a drink he was wearing this pretty awesome suit. It wasn’t to my taste because it was olive green with massive flares, but it was well fitted. I asked him how I could get one. It was a light bulb moment where we thought other people might want one, too. Since I didn’t like Warren’s flares I thought that if you could customise your own suit online then that would be quite a cool idea.

WB The next day we went to Hampstead market (north London) and set up a stall to test it out. Within 20 minutes we had sold two suits. David had done computer science at Imperial. That night he whipped up a website that could just about sell and make up a suit and away we went.
DH We launched the business in May 2006. We both worked nights and Warren worked on it during the day as well. At the time I was working as an IT manager for a recruitment company. Around February 2007 we realised that we could create a lot of value if I was working on it full-time as well.

WB Our suits are all hand-tailored but they have off-the-peg prices. We take payment in advance, which means we have a great positive cashflow model. The mainstay of our market is the young professional. We also appeal to the older generation who used to have a tailor back in the day when it was the norm.

DH Last year we turned over £1.2m. We are hoping to double that this year. We broke even in the first year and have been profitable since then. We have 25,000 customers on our database.

WB Customers can design their own suit online using the style wizard or come into one of our stores to consult a style adviser. We are tailored to creating a suit that fits your personality, your style, your frame and your budget. The customer is in complete control.

DH We started off as an internet company. It would have been too risky to do anything else. But now we have a number of stores (in London and Bristol). Customers often like to come into one of our stores to be measured for their first suit and then order their next one online. We’re still very much an online company and every store is based around the online experience.

WB When we realised that customers were coming in at the weekend from places as far as Cardiff and Edinburgh we introduced a “roaming tailor”. So now we have 18 tailor stops nationwide—from Scotland and Manchester to Reading and Southampton.

DH The business is getting bigger all the time. We have 33 people in London, made up of the programming team, the marketing team, accounts, customer services and style advisers. Then we have 90 tailors working for us in Nepal—including six master cutters, all with around 30 years of experience. The fact that our tailors are based in Nepal means that our cost base for our goods is lower than the UK, but we still pay over 50 per cent more than local wages.

WB We didn’t choose Nepal because it’s low cost. We’re going for the artisan feel and real attention to detail. It’s deeply ingrained in their culture that everything they do is made by hand and personally for you.

DH I do IT and finance, Warren does sales and marketing. But we have larger teams now with managers. That’s the only way to run the business now we’re this size.

WB David and I get on well. We’ve built up huge trust and respect through school and now working together. It’s great to have a business partner you can share the highs with and help pick you up when you are low.

DH We work with our customers to make sure they go away incredibly happy. Fantastic customer service is lacking in the UK.

WB We want to be Britain’s local tailor, that’s the aim. We have a great service and a great product, and we want to be able to provide that seamlessly throughout the UK.