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Dclxvi said:
I was wondering how a suit that is custom could be equal to a suit made by a major company. I was thinking that the overall innovation and quality of a good Alpinestars or a some other major company should offer up a greater ammount of protection when compared to a custom made suit.
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I don't know why you'd think that /wwwthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif. While a number of companies make off-the-rack suits and also custom suits--custom suits offer the advantages of a "perfect" fit, unlike a standard-size, production suit--of the same quality (like {my off-the-rack} Vanson, for instance) generally speaking, the best suits are the custom suits, if for no other reason than that not everybody is a perfect fit for a "standard" suit. My Vanson, although armor-equipped to my specification, was/is a standard, off-the-rack suit. While it fit perfectly everywhere else, it started life about .5-1 inch too short through the torso and excessively tight in the chest, but it (slowly) stretched and conformed--as leather garments will--and now fits me as well as any custom suit could, but the same isn't true for everyone, and I could've saved myself a fair amount of break-in trouble/discomfort.
(On a side-note, my personal experiences of some advantages of dealing with a custom suit maker: as a custom, as well as a "standard", suit maker, Vanson badges and tracks ALL their suits with an individual serial #, and offers a full repair/refurbish/modification service.
I've sent my suit in a couple of times for (minor) repairs--zipper replacement, re-stitching, etc.--and even to have a custom neck closure fabricated and added to the suit in place of the standard one. I drew an exact "diagram" of what I wanted, complete with measurements, sent it in with the suit, and they took care of it.
And Vanson keeps a history of all the work performed.)
Many custom leather shops--like Z-Custom Leathers, Syed, etc. are suit specialists with YEARS of knowledge and experience in making race suits, instead of some large apparel/accessories company for which leathers are only a portion of their focus and may not even fabricate the actual suits, but rather just have them made for them and branded as an A-stars, Joe Rocket, etc.
In fact, most of the suits the big pro racers wear that are branded as A-stars, Joe Rocket, Teknics, etc. aren't even made by those companies but (rebadged) are custom suits made especially for the riders by one of the top custom suit makers--i.e. the "major companies" aren't equipped to make suits of the quality and performance of a custom suit maker.