Measuring Help


SIZING FOR YOUR JACKET
When you order your Doctor's Jacket, you need to do a little work for the tailors.  Unlike the usual S/M/L/XL etc. off-the-peg pre-made jackets used for general retail, every one of these is cut and made from scratch, the old school way, to fit the owner properly. After all, the last thing you want to do is have a custom made jacket and not have it fit your arm length properly!

I'm proud to report that under the guidance of my chosen tailors in dealing with sizing the Jacket, and now that I've been providing these for a little while, the Bad Wolf email inbox is nicely full of happy owner reports about what a brilliant fit their jackets are!  So don't be daunted about having to take measurements, it's totally worth it!  And if you have ANY doubts or uncertainty, JUST ASK.

Here's the details of the measurements we'll use to make you an excellent jacket.


IMPORTANT THINGS
In researching for this project, it was found that there are a couple of different descriptions of things like Sleeve Length out there.  For example, it's usually done differently depending on whether you're measuring for a shirt or a jacket/coat.  What we describe here are the ways our commissioned leather tailors have instructed as their way.  So be sure to have your measurements taken as shown.  This makes sure everybody's speaking the same language, so there can be no mistakes!

So get your person who will measure you to also read this page, get your measuring tape, your notepad and traditional pencil ready, and get to work.



With the help of this drawing of a guy robbed from some 1970's mail-order catalogue, you'll know where exactly we're talking about in each of the numbered items below.


DOING THE MEASURING

DON'T MEASURE YOURSELF.  Cardinal rule.  Trust me on this!

Get somebody else to take the tape measure to you.  I'm not kidding with this.  I swear to God (or other deity of your preference) the head tailor has twice now spotted a measurement which looked a bit off in proportion to the other sizes given and asked me to query it with the client - got it re-measured, and sure enough - DIFFERENT!  Unbelievable.  Those guys did indeed measure themselves and were saved from really expensive mistakes.
Note: I also correctly spotted another probably wrong measurement myself, since I've now got a feel for what sizes typically look like - blimey, who'd have thought a web writer and boffin like me would ever have got a clue about tailoring!


Take these measurements wearing normal light clothing, a shirt for example.


1.  SHOULDER
Measure from the base of your neck out to the end of the shoulder/top of the arm as shown in the pic.


2. SLEEVE LENGTH
Starting from the top of your arm, where you stopped measuring #1 above, measure all the way down the line of your arm, following the curve of your arm (don't hold your arm dead straight), to your wristbone.  ADD at least 1.5".  That's the sleeve length we want. With this measurement taken like this, when finished, the cuff of the jacket will be near to the base of your thumb for a textbook fit.

Alternatively, if you have really big hands, you might want to measure all the way to the knuckle of your pinkie finger and SUBTRACT 1.5".  Use your own judgement - for example, notice where on your hand your sleeve comes to on an existing jacket or coat you own which you feel has a good sleeve length for your taste.

You can double-check your work on 1 and 2 by measuring all the way from the base of the neck to the wristbone - the figure should of course equal the sum of 1 and 2.



3. BACK WIDTH
This is the measurement across your back from shoulder bone to shoulder bone, as shown.


4. JACKET LENGTH
This type of jacket should come down to about the bottom your butt.  Measure from the bottom of your shirt collar to where shown on the drawing.


5 . CHEST
Almost nobody knows their true chest size, as you're about to find out:  Measure around the fullest part of your chest, which is just a little under your arms.  Breathe normally!  Stick a finger under the tape to allow for some breathing room, and don't pull too tight.


IMPORTANT FINAL NOTES:  Remember these measurements are used by the makers as a whole in creating a jacket to give a good fit for the person providing them.  That doesn't mean that any particular measurement on the finished jacket itself will correspond exactly to the figures submitted, but that it will be a good FIT for a person OF those measurements.  Just in case you wondered.

Just for a little more clarity on that point - this is an outer coat, and in their original role they were worn over shirts and often also over jumpers.  This is taken into account by the tailor when he's cutting the shell, and the jacket is built to be of the correct fit for this format.  So provide the correct measurements, and let the tailor worry about making sure it fits properly for its intended role.






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