Martin Greenfield Clothiers

Martin Greenfield Clothiers is a working factory rather than a showroom, and that is its strength. Private clients are measured and fitted on the third floor of a four-story building at 239 Varet Street that has housed clothiers since at least 1917. The pattern is cut on the floor above and the suit is made in the same building by a union workforce. The company says it is the last union men's clothing manufacturer in New York City.

Martin Greenfield arrived in 1947, an orphaned survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and took a job as a floor boy at the GGG clothing factory on this site. He rose to run production, bought the business in 1977 and renamed it. For decades it made suits for designers and retailers and costumes for film and television, including more than 600 suits for Boardwalk Empire; presidents from Eisenhower to Obama wore its work. He handed the company to his sons, Jay and Tod, in 2012 and died on March 20, 2024, aged 95.

The custom process is efficient. A consultation and measurements produce an individual pattern; a fitting follows four to five weeks later, with the jacket unfinished at the sleeves and buttonholes, and the suit is ready about 10 days after that. Jackets have a full canvas, fitted by hand, and the pockets, armholes and collars are made by hand. Fabrics come from mills including Loro Piana, Dormeuil, Vitale Barberis Canonico, Holland & Sherry and Scabal.

With a single fitting, this is closer to high-end made-to-measure than to the multi-fitting bespoke of Leonard Logsdail or Paolo Martorano, and Permanent Style does not class it as bespoke. It also costs far less. Prices are not published, but a suit cost about $2,000 when the firm began dressing President Obama around 2010. Choose it for well-made American suits, wedding clothes and value.