I recently had this tuxedo made by the German tailoring brand Maximilian Mogg, while Max was visiting London for the appointments he runs at Richard Gelding on North Audley Street. 

I was interested in having something from Max both because I know readers will be interested, and because I myself admired Max’s distinctive approach to tailoring – its traditional square shoulders, longer jackets, wide trousers. In fact, maybe that’s the same reason; I’m a reader too, and I wanted to know what it would be like. 

So would a Mogg suit make me ‘smexy’? (A portmanteau Max uses, combining ‘smart’ and ‘sexy’)

Overall I think Max (and it was Max each time, in person) did a good job on the fit, which is among the best of the made to measure I’ve had. But I’m a little unsure on the style, which turned out less dramatic than I had expected. 

The jacket is well balanced, with a good sleeve pitch and quite a clean back. There is a touch of wrinkling on the shoulder line where my shoulder rotates forwards, and a little bit of gaping at the back of the neck, but both are minor. Max and I actually went back and forth on whether to tighten the neck at all, and it wouldn’t be a hard thing to tweak in the future. 

The trousers are higher and wider than I would usually have (on the natural waist, hem 23cm) but I really like them with something this formal and dressy. The fit and leg line are great, and both the trousers and jacket are very comfortable. 

As regards fit, bear in mind that the best comparison for a suit like this is not handmade bespoke (which has so much more time and freedom to perfect the fit) but other MTM, and even then not the high-end ones with hand-padded chests and lapels. 

The make on a Mogg suit is actually at a slightly lower level than most of the MTM we’ve covered over the years. It’s fully canvassed but has fewer hand details and a collar attached by machine. And that’s reflected in the price – a suit bought in the EU starts at €1800 (£1560). 

There is a list of my favourite MTM tailors here by the way, which Mogg will now be added to.

In terms of style, the jacket has a padded, roped shoulder, a wide lapel, and a relatively high buttoning point (17½ inches from the shoulder seam). And when I say relative, I mean relative to particular bespoke tailors – you can see in this article that it is the same height as Ferdinando Caraceni for example, but the other tailors are all lower.

The aspect of the Mogg dinner jacket that stands out most is the lapel shape, as it is wide, bellied (curved) and relatively short (determined by the buttoning point). This is always a big factor, but particularly so on a dinner jacket where the lapel is usually in a contrasting material. 

I should make it clear that while Max and I talked about the style of the suit in detail, I always erred towards his house style in order to use this piece to illustrate the kind of look the brand favours. 

While Max is slimmer than me, we are a similar height and this is the style he wears and readers will have seen on him online. I even tried on the jacket he was wearing at the first fitting to get an idea of the cut, as it was so similar. 

The only significant change Max makes on his suits is to give some flare to the trousers. 

So if the style is standard, why does it feel less dramatic – less styled – than I expected? (Above, some images of Max online.)

I asked Max this, and he said he gets it a lot. In contrast to someone like Husbands, the shape is actually not that unusual, especially if you’ve had English tailoring, with its structured shoulders and longer jackets. 

Of course, being less unusual is in many ways a good thing. It means a Mogg suit will appeal to and work for more people, and there are very few MTM brands out there offering structured tailoring. The vast majority is shorter, rounder, softer – more southern Italian. 

Personally, I was looking for something more styled though – an unusual piece to sit alongside my tailoring from Ciardi or Assisi – and it’s why I went for a dinner suit. As a personal thing I might also have gone for a lower buttoning point, now I see the look of those rounded lapels on me. Similarly wide lapels from Edward Sexton or Chittleborough & Morgan seem to have worked on me better when they have dropped lower. And the Caraceni ones were straighter.

On the flip side, I really like the overall proportions of the jacket and trousers, with the broader shoulders being balanced by the length of the jacket, and the wider trouser feeling both relaxed and elegant on me.

The shirt and the bow tie are also Maximilian Mogg, by the way, so there is that element of his style included. 

The shirt is marcella on the body and collar, with a very light voile back. I like the collar shape a lot (slightly more pointed, slightly longer) but I think in retrospect I would have had a plain front, not studs, as with this cut of jacket only one stud shows. 

The bow tie is their house style, which is single ended. One end has the regular bow shape, the other is just a line of material (see image above). This makes it rather easier to tie, although the downside is the bow is thinner, not as full. 

The material for the tux was black barathea from Dugdale (420g/m, 3110). The facing on the lapels and elsewhere is grosgrain silk, but a lighter weight Italian one. I think I probably prefer the English I have had in the past, as it has more texture. That’s not for everyone though. 

The shoes are velvet opera pumps from Baudoin & Lange; the cufflinks are old PS ones. 

The price of the dinner suit was €2750; made to measure suits generally from Maximilan Mogg start at €1800 for those sold in the EU and €2500 for those sold outside. The ones outside include all shipping, duties and taxes. 

There is also a bespoke level of make, which starts at €5500 and €6700 for EU and non-EU. 

Maximilan Mogg has a store in Berlin, and staff in London, Cologne and New York that do appointments in other stories – in London at Richard Gelding for instance. They currently hold regular trunk shows in Zurich, Vienna, Paris, Hamburg and Los Angeles.