Bespeaking of Bespoke - what is your experience?

[artificer]

I don’t think I understand the question…

I’ll use a sport coat as an example: To me, off the rack would be if I walked into a store, or purchased from a website a sport coat in a size 48R. It may look OK, but might need some fine-tuning, like sleeve length, or subtle waist adjustments.

Now if I walked into a tailor shop, and selected a fabric, and chose the style of jacket that I liked, added (or subtracted) specific features that I wanted, the tailor measured me, and then made the jacket, I would call this “made to measure”, or “made to order”, interchangeably. It sounds like this is your definition of bespoke, which is OK, but then what do you consider to be made to measure?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bespoke

Bespoke generally refers to the CUSTOM creation of a pattern for the commissioner, as well as control of every last detail (buttonholes, lining, etc). Additionally, bespoke was traditionally ALL handmade, although this appears to have 'drifted' a bit in the past decade or so.