Cutting is the stage where cloth is cut to the pattern, turning measurements and drawings into the panels that will become your suit. It is the step that seals all later precision: cut one centimetre wrong at the shoulder and no seam can fully rescue it. In traditional tailoring houses, the person holding the shears — the cutter — has always been the most respected figure, and Mon Amie would like to tell you why.
What is cutting in the tailoring process?
After the client is measured and the pattern is drafted, cutting is where pattern meets real cloth. The stage involves several smaller steps, any of which can ruin an expensive length of fabric:
- Inspecting and shrinking the cloth: wool must be steamed and relaxed before cutting, or the suit will shrink after its first pressing.
- Laying the pattern on grain: each piece must align with the lengthwise grain — an off-grain cut is the most common cause of twisting trouser legs and curling lapels.
- Pattern matching: with stripes and checks, the cutter plans ahead so lines meet at the seams — accepting extra cloth consumption to do so.
- The cut itself: one decisive, even stroke of the shears; a jagged edge frays and undermines every seam sewn afterwards.
Why cutting shapes the suit more than sewing does
Skilled sewing can make beautiful seams, but it cannot change the shape of a panel already cut. Slim or relaxed, sloped or square shoulders, more or less waist suppression — all of it is locked in at the cutting table. As the trade saying goes, the cutter creates the suit; the sewer completes it.
In bespoke work, cutting is also where true personalisation happens: a left shoulder lower than the right, a slightly rounded back, a fuller stomach — the cutter adjusts every pattern piece for that one body, something no ready-to-wear size chart can do.
How to recognise a well-cut garment
- Trouser legs drape straight, without twisting around the leg when you stand naturally.
- Lapels lie flat against the chest, with no curling edges and no bowing away from the body.
- Stripes and checks run unbroken across seams, pockets and even the shoulder line.
- Viewed side-on in a mirror, front and back hang in balance — the jacket neither tips backward nor pitches forward.
Common mistakes about cutting
- Thinking cutting is just "cutting along the lines" — in reality it concentrates knowledge of cloth, grain, shrinkage and the wearer's body.
- Judging a tailor by the showroom without asking who actually drafts and cuts your pattern.
- Assuming industrial cutting machines are always more precise than hands — true for mass uniforms, but bespoke demands individual adjustments no machine makes on its own.
- Economising on cloth for striped suits, leaving mismatched patterns at the seams — a saving you will see for the garment's entire life.
A word from Mon Amie's artisans
Mon Amie's cutters never work from the measurement sheet alone — they want to see how the client actually stands: two men with the same 96 cm chest need different cuts if one has a full chest and the other a thick back. So at your measuring session, stand and walk as naturally as you can, without bracing yourself — those few minutes of observation let the cutting table correct what a fitting would only discover too late.
The cutting table is where your suit is truly born. Book an appointment for Mon Amie to measure and draft a pattern of your own, or preview the tailoring process in full.