Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette.
And part 2 of our series on How to Buy Clothing at a Steep Discount Online. In
today's video, I'll show you how I put together an outfit that retails for $4,315
and I just paid $255 for it and I'll also
show you how you can do it on your own so you end up with something at a very
steep discount. Now looking good and having nice custom-made suits and
bespoke shoes when you have a lot of money is relatively easy. On the other
hand, if you're on a really tight budget, it can be a lot harder or at least the
common perception. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of money and so I had to
learn to make my dollar or my euro go further. I started using eBay 1999 when I
was fourteen years old and I quickly learned the ins and outs of it. So, how do
you get a really expensive outfit on a tight budget? Well, the key is to shop for
pre-worn gently used items. In part 1 of this series, I already shared with you
all the tips and tricks I learned since 1999 on how to get men's clothing on a
budget. I'll share my entire step-by-step process in that video. So today, I take
the theory explained in part 1 and turn it into practice. I'll show you how I got
a summer outfit that retailed for $4315 for
just 255 bucks. Honestly, you can do it too and I'll
prove it to you by showing you three different combinations that evolved
around one jacket. Summer is here and while you can get better deals buying winter
clothes during the summer season and vice versa, I decided to get a summer
outfit during summer to show that this concept even holds true when it's a
little more expensive. When you buy an outfit, you should always start with a
jacket or a suit because that's the most expensive item and the most difficult
one to get to fit right. First, I looked on Facebook Marketplace, on Poshmark, and on
Etsy, and then finally on eBay. And eBay had by far the best selection. Armed
with the knowledge of all of my measurements, I looked for a jacket in a
42 or a 44. I also knew that I wanted something that was summery ideal
with patch pockets to underline the casual character of the jacket. I wasn't
really interested in a suit and went for a combination. All the principles
outlined in part one work just as well with a suit though. So after going
through many listings, doing some searching, comparing measurements, and
narrowed it down to two jackets that ironically even came from the same
vendor. One was a light gray pinpoint jacket from Borrelli which is an
Italian brand and it had nice three patch pockets, a three roll two style
with notch lapels and side vents. The fabric was a wool-cashmere blend which
is usually pretty soft and jacket from Borrelli retails around €1200
which is about $1300. The eBay list price was $119.99.
The photos look good, the jacket looked clean, there was no damage and the
description confirmed that. The next jacket that seemed a good fit was from
Isaia which is also an Italian brand from Naples. Today, they're mainly known
for the red line and they're smart marketing with a piece of coral which is
commonly found in Naples as per their lapel pin decoration. Now, Isaia also
has a budget line called Gian Luca Napoli and so a lot of people get it confused
but I knew that before they had the red label their main line was the Gianluca
Isaia Napoli so I knew quality wise, this was the same level as the highly
regarded red line. That's one of the reasons it's so important to build your
knowledge about brands if you want to find good deals online. I think Isaia
switched to the red line labels in around 2006 so I knew the jacket was
about 15 years old. Some people may be put off but we're in closer to 15 or 20
years old but if the garment is hardly worn, and that's been stored properly,
you always get a very clean timeless classic men's style so you can
never tell what a reject is 2 years old or 20 years old.
Now, even if I had not known about the details of the brand, I could recognize
the finely sewn handmade buttonholes with a silk thread and assumed that it's
a quality jacket just because of that because it's not something you'll find
on inexpensive jackets. And typically, if they put a lot of time and effort into
the buttonholes, they do the same with the rest of the jacket. The original list
price on eBay was $139.99. Again, it seems to be in great
condition, it had this beautiful pastel in color and I liked it and so I watched
both of the jackets -- both the Borrelli and the Isaia. Both of these
listings weren't the traditional auction but a buy it now but when I watched it, I
got an offer from the seller for both jackets that was below the list price.
Now I knew he was motivated to sell so I sent him a message asking if he would
give me both of the jackets shipped for $150 if I bought them together. Because
that saves him on shipping and he gets rid of something and he agreed to that.
Both jackets arrived just stuffed in one priority mailbox but when they came out
they had hardly any wrinkles. Generally, that's a sign of a nice fabric unless of
course you get maybe a linen garment. If you want to learn more about linen and why it
wrinkles so much, please check out this guide here. If you want to learn why wool
doesn't wrinkle as much, you can check it out here. Now sadly, the Borelli jacket
had actually a little stain in between the buttons which wasn't in the pictures
and wasn't mentioned in a description. So I reached out to the seller and he was
like well I can give you a $10 refund but that's usually not enough to go to
the dry cleaners and even if you agree to that,
you don't know if the stain is actually gonna come out because it may have been
set in the garment for a decade or longer and you just don't know. He also
offered of course, to take it back because it was their fault and so I
agreed to send it back to them for a full refund. Even though both listings at
the same measurements, the jacket fit differently. I felt that the gray one was
a bit longer and also wider in the shoulders. The green one fit me much
better. So keep in mind, just because someone provides measurements doesn't
mean there are a 100% accurate and try them on and seeing how
it works for you is the best way to determine if it's right for you at the
same time the measurements really help you to dial things in so you don't end
up with stuff you just have to return. Right out of the box, I could see it was a
nice handwork underneath the collar and even a sleeve had a typical
Neapolitan, kind of waterfall sleeve head or sleeve wrinkles. The fit of the
green Isaia jacket was really nice. It had high armholes, there was a good
range of movement, it felt extremely comfortable and it looked quite good out
of the box without any alterations. Except for the sleeves because they're
on the shorter side but I knew that because typically my sleeves are about
25 and a half inches long or 26 inches.
This one was listed as only being 25 but I knew that I could let it out because
it wasn't good condition. Also with higher-end jackets, they are usually
more fabric reserves so I could maybe try to have the sleeve lengthened from
the top but you need a very skilled alteration still to do that and it's
typically also more expensive. Now if I just let the sleeve up at the bottom
probably cost me around 50 bucks in the alterations tailor. Normally, I wear
garments for a little bit just to figure out if I want to let it out by how much
but for this jacket I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do it. So now that I have my jacket
and I knew what it looked like, I could continue with the pants. First, I picked
up a pair of Polo Ralph Lauren seersucker pants because they're very lightweight
and summery. I also found one that didn't come in a
typical blue and white color but in a beige and white color. I figure it would
look quite nice with a green and create that summery feel I was going for.
Of course, I wanted to show you some different outfits so you don't think
this was just a one-off thing but I truly believe that you can repeat this
process and get the same results. So I get a second pair of pants which is kind
of a brownish cavalry twill which is a little heavier than the seersucker but
still appropriate for summer and then I got a pair of glen check pants in a
cotton fabric which is rather unusual also in kind of a brown tone. Both of
those were vintage Polo Ralph Lauren. I think one of them came even new with
tags; they retailed for $125, the cavalry twill
one cost me $37.50, the other one only cost me
$17.99. Shipped and I say that because sometimes a listing can be five bucks
but in the shipping cost 23 so the end of the day what matters is the
full amount you pay. So now we have a jacket and pants that would work with it, I could
select the right shirt. In the process, I bought a bunch of different shirts
because in this series, I want to do just a video on shirts and what you should
look for so stay tuned for part three and four. For the seersucker pants, I
wanted a casual look. Maybe something in linen or maybe a
denim shirt. As a general load, I think finding pants and jackets that are very
gently used preworn is relatively easy. When it
comes to shirts though, a lot of pre-worn shirts are worn heavily and sometimes
completely worn out and they may be nice brand names and people just put them on
eBay because someone is gonna pick them up because of that but ultimately even
if you have a shirt that retails for $1,000, if it's worn out. it's worn out.
And even if you get it at just 20 bucks or 10 bucks, you can't wear it. So it's
worthless. Because of that, looking very closely at the pictures in the largest
version possible is key for shirts. Typically, a shirt wears out at the shirt
cuff. If you have a barrel cuff, it's usually at the edges first, if you have a
double cuff or french cuff, it usually starts to wear at the crease on the cuff
where you fold it. Also, you can look at the tip of the color because that's
where typically wears fast or at the upper edge of the collar or it wears
second. Of course, if you see stains in the armpit area or around the collar, you'll
know that this shirt has been worn a lot and it's probably not something you want
to invest your money in. For example, I bought this nice looking striped shirt
from Borrelli which retails for about $300 has a lot of handwork, the fabrics
are really nice and it was advertised as being in great condition without any
visible flaws. When I got the shirt, the collar tips were already worn and so
were the edges of the sleeve cuffs so I knew the shirt was almost at the end of
its life so I returned it. So for this outfit, I found a denim shirt from Eton
which retails for a$195. One thing I like about
Eton is that they have longer sleeves and have longer arms so it typically
works for me and they're slim fit is very attractive, it's not boxy but it's
also not super slim so it works for me. In their red line, they also have nice
fabrics and help them treat them with an anti iron coating that is much better
than other stuff you can find in the industry. They don't have much handwork
but the buttons are sewn with ascolite so I know they never come off.
Overall, the fabrics are very good quality. At the same time, it's not a
brand that everyone knows so the listing price on eBay was just 25 bucks for a
shirt was in pretty good shape. I made an offer and got it for 20 bucks shipped.
Because it has a casual button-down collar and overall it's a very casual
combination, I decided to skip a tie for this outfit but I wanted a pocket square
and I added one from eBay which cost 15 bucks. It's no name but it worked color
wise with a shirt and a jacket. Next up, I needed shoes and you can find tons of
high-end brand shoes on eBay. I want something in the lighter brown or tan
that will work with a summery outfit. I found a pair of Meermin in cognac tan
and Meermin is a brand that is in general relatively inexpensive for the value and
quality you get so you're not gonna make the huge savings in general, but it's
still a good brand and still a good shoe and you have to kind of see what's
available at any given point in time. The shoes retail for $195, they were in
auction format, I won the auction for $56 but with the shipping it came to $70.32.
The funny thing was when I got the shoes, the seller added a
note and said "Thank you very much for all the videos I really appreciate the
Gentleman's Gazette". So that was a funny side note and I like
the color the shoes. I was wondering if I could make them even nicer and so I sent
them over to my friend Preston Soto from the Elegant Oxford to give him a nice
shine and look. When it come back, we'll give them away to one lucky winner.
They're a size 10 UK on the hero last so stay tuned for the giveaway. Now at this
point, all I needed to finish the outfit was basically a belt and socks. And for
belts, the cognac tan one from the Fort Belvedere belt system with the extension
buckles worked really well but it's a little more expensive because it's
really high quality and you can exchange everything so for the purposes of this
video it wasn't a good fit. I looked around to hopefully find something that
was roughly in the same color which can be difficult because the photos are
sometimes shot with different white balance so even though they may look the
same in the pictures, they may actually not look the same when you get them. To
learn more about how to match your belt with your shoes and your other
accessories, please check out this video here. But in general, I just wanted
something that was close enough so I got a belt from Polo Ralph Lauren for 30
bucks which retails for $75. Nothing special but it
does the job. Now I'm a size 36 belt, if you're smaller like 30 or 28, you're
gonna find tons of belts sometimes even alligator for like 30
bucks which is really incredible. For a socks, I bought a pair of new Falke socks
which is a German brand, I got for 15 bucks, they retail for about $20 or $25.
They have some polyester knit and they're not as nice as my Fort Belvedere
socks but I truly wanted to put together an outfit that was very affordable and
that had no Fort Belvedere items in it. Alright, not have you seen the outfit
what does the retail price break down and how much did I pay for it? Well first
of all, Isaia jacket was $3695, the
seersucker pants had a retail price of a $120, the Eton
denim shirt retailed for $195 and so did the Meermin shoes, the pocket square
I just left at $15 because I didn't know and the belt was 75 bucks, with the socks
being 20 bucks that gives us a total of $4315 retail value.
So what did I pay? $75 for Isaia jacket, 30 bucks for
the Ralph Lauren pants, 20 bucks for the shirt, 15 bucks for the pocket square and
$70.32 for the shoes, belt was 30 bucks and the socks $15 so that adds up
to $255.32 which is the equivalent of 94% off. Now, even if
I account for the $50 in alterations costs, I go up to $305.32
which is still 93% off. Again, this wasn't pure luck
but it's the result of a process and because of that, I use the same jacket
but made some changes for the other items to show you that it's actually
true. I changed up the seersucker for the cavalry twill and the retail was $125, I
got them for $37.50. Instead of a denim Eton shirt, I got a white Eton shirt
for 20 bucks which also retailed for $195. The tie, I bought for 5 bucks shipped from eBay
and it's a nice blue and yellow stripe tie, very thin in a kind of summery
fabric. It came from a brand called Personality Milano which I'm not
familiar with but probably retailed around 20 bucks. I put
a pocket square, it could have had a white linen one
on eBay but I already have really nice ones from Fort Belvedere especially with
the hand inverted initial and a hand rolled edges so just use that and the
retail prices are at $65. When it comes to socks on a big sucker for two-tone
socks because they're so easy to combine and so I picked a pair of Fort Belvedere
socks in navy and yellow which picks up the colors of the tie and it retails for
40 bucks. Of course, you could have also found a new pair of socks
maybe stripe or otherwise on eBay for less. The total retail value of this
outfit is $4410, I paid $342.82
for it and that includes the Fort Belvedere items at
retail price. Still, that's 92% off the retail price. If i account for
alterations which was shortening the hem of the pants, 15 bucks and the sleeves to
the jacket 50 bucks, it is still a great deal.
Now for the third outfit, I wanted to incorporate more patterns. So it shows a
pair of pants in a Glen check pattern which was brown and light brown and I
thought it worked really well with a jacket. Retail price $125, I got it for
$17.99 because it was used and it was described as a herringbone pattern which
is not true so the seller didn't know about it but I looked at it because I
saw the picture and I liked it and I got a deal.
The shirt I picked up is from Luciano Barbera which is not a really well-known
brand but Mr. Barbara is a really good dresser and has an impeccable sense of
style which is also reflected in his clothes. While their shirts don't have
the same level of handwork detail such as a Borrelli or Eton, it's still a high
quality shirt that uses very nice fabrics, also their little details for
example the sleeve folds that you can see up there which should help you give
more movement with a smaller armhole. The fabric is really nice it has these
kind of green and white stripes with elements of blue with kind of a hint of
purple. For the tie, I chose a green one with a really oversized polka dot in
white which is very summery as a linen texture. It retailed for $125,
I bought it on eBay for 5 bucks. You can tell it's an
older tie because it's much wider about like three and a half inches and right
now that's not what what you would find because
slimmer. For pocket square, I went with a no-name linen one that had really small
dots in beige and a contrast edge in beige that would pick up the color of
the pants but also the polka dots of the tie and
thus tying everything together. Also the dots in the pocket square are a
lot smaller than the dots on a tie so you know works harmoniously together
even though there are all different patterns. For the socks again, I went with a
pair of two-tone socks in brown and green to pick up the green colors and
the brown colors and tied everything beautifully together with the shoes and
the pants. To learn more about how to put together shoes, socks and pants
combinations, please check out this video here. So if you add up the retail value
for this outfit, you get about $4560,
I paid $266.29 and if you had 50
bucks for the alterations, it's $316.29.
Again, huge savings way over 90%. Naturally, it sounds great to
get such a big discount but you always have to be honest with yourself and ask
"how much time did it take me to put together this outfit?" and "how much
could I have earned during this time?" or "what would have been the spare time
worth to me if I hadn't served for that stuff?" That math is different of course
for everyone because some people earn more, others like shopping, others hate it
so it's something that you have to come up with and add it to the overall cost.
For me, it took me about 12 hours from start to finish including the returns of
the items to search for things, compare them, communicate with the sellers, get
them, and so forth. So that's a not insignificant amount of time in my mind.
Nevertheless, if you're in a very tight budget and you can invest a little bit
of time, you can get great results and huge discounts. With that being said,
please let us know if you enjoy this format in the comments. I could think
about doing a video like this from an interview outfit or a blazer outfit or a
full winter outfit for example. So let us know, we always try to serve you. If you
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