SuitSupply is one of the best things that happened to menswear in the last twenty years. I will say that out loud before I say anything else. They took Italian-milled cloth, half-canvas construction, and a sharper silhouette, and they priced it under a thousand dollars while Zegna was still charging four. If you are in a US city with a SuitSupply store, walk in, touch the fabric, try the jackets on. You will understand why they got popular.
But most of the traffic to "how to measure yourself for SuitSupply" is from people who cannot walk in. They are ordering online. And SuitSupply's online process is not quite what most people think it is. This is the guide I wish I had read the first time I tried it.
First: Understand What SuitSupply Actually Is
SuitSupply is off-the-rack with a made-to-measure tier layered on top. That distinction matters for how you measure yourself.
When you order a regular SuitSupply suit online, the measurements you give them are not used to cut a suit to your body. They are used to match you to one of six predefined fits, at the closest standard size. The "measurements" question is really a "which of our existing patterns fits you best" question. That is a different problem than measuring for a custom tailor.
If you upgrade to SuitSupply's Custom Made line (their MTM tier, usually $200-400 more than a standard suit), then yes -- the measurements get used to adjust a base pattern. Even then, it is pattern-adjustment, not a suit cut from scratch for your body. That is not a criticism. It is just what MTM is, everywhere.
The Six SuitSupply Fits (Brief)
Before you measure, you need to know which fit you are trying to land in. These are the six SuitSupply cuts as of spring 2026:
- Havana -- Unstructured, soft-shouldered, Neapolitan-influenced. Looser through the chest, higher armhole, shorter jacket. The "summer weekend wedding in Puglia" suit.
- La Spalla -- Their softest, most relaxed shoulder. Full-canvas, hand-finished. A step up in construction from Havana. The most "Italian" of the fits.
- Lazio -- The modern slim. Slim through the body, slightly suppressed waist, narrow lapels. This is the fit most twenty-something guys accidentally end up with, and the fit most likely to pull across the shoulders if you lift weights.
- Washington -- Their "classic" fit. Straighter through the body, more room in the chest. Do not be fooled -- it still runs slim by American standards. If you wear a Brooks Brothers 40R and feel good in it, you are probably a Washington.
- Vincenza -- A double-breasted cut, sharper waist suppression, longer jacket length. For double-breasted lovers and nobody else.
- Jort -- Their newest fit (late 2025). A looser, wider-legged, higher-rise cut that leans into the 2026 silhouette shift. Think Harry Styles more than Daniel Craig.
If you do not know which fit you are, you cannot really measure yourself for SuitSupply. The measurements are downstream of the fit choice. Pick the silhouette first. Then measure.
The Measurements SuitSupply Asks For
When you buy online (not Custom Made, just regular), SuitSupply's size-finder typically asks for:
- Chest -- Around the fullest part of your chest, tape horizontal, arms relaxed at your sides.
- Waist -- Around your natural waist (not your trouser waistline -- your natural waist is roughly at your belly button, higher than most guys expect).
- Hip / Seat -- Around the fullest part of your seat, standing naturally.
- Shoulder -- From the bony point on the outside of one shoulder, across your back, to the bony point on the other.
- Sleeve -- From that same shoulder bone, down the outside of your slightly-bent arm, to your wrist bone.
- Inseam -- From the crotch seam of a well-fitting pair of trousers down to the hem.
- Height and weight -- Used as a cross-check. They will flag a mismatch if, say, you claim a 48 chest on a 5'7" frame.
That is the full list. Compared to Indochino's 15-20 measurements, it is deliberately lean -- because, again, SuitSupply is matching you to a pattern, not cutting one for you.
How to Actually Take These Measurements (Alone, In a Hallway)
Chest: Wear a thin t-shirt, not a dress shirt. Tape snug but not tight. Biggest mistake here is not accounting for posture -- if you stand at parade attention, your chest measures bigger than it will when you actually wear the jacket. Stand how you normally stand.
Waist: Find your natural waist by bending sideways -- the crease is your waist. It is higher than your jeans waist. Measure there.
Shoulder: The hardest solo measurement. You cannot reliably measure your own shoulders alone. Two workarounds: (1) get someone else to measure, or (2) take a jacket you already own that fits well, lay it flat, and measure the shoulder seam on the jacket itself. That second number is usually more reliable than a tape measure across your back.
Sleeve: Slightly bend your elbow when you measure. A straight arm gives you an inflated number. And the "wrist bone" is the bony point on the pinky-side of your wrist -- not the top of your wrist where your watch sits.
Inseam: Skip the tape measure entirely for this one. Find a pair of dress trousers you already like the length of, lay them flat, and measure from crotch seam to hem. Trust that number.
Where Self-Measurement Breaks Down
Here are the three things I see go wrong most often:
1. Posture. The chest tape does not know whether you have a forward-rolled shoulder or a straight one. If you work a desk job, your shoulders are forward. That changes how the jacket hangs. A chest measurement alone cannot catch this. SuitSupply's size-finder does not ask about posture. Neither does Indochino's. This is why off-the-rack jackets sometimes show a collar gap even when the chest "fits."
2. Shoulders are the hardest to measure solo and the hardest to alter. A tailor can take a jacket in at the waist all day. A tailor cannot rebuild a shoulder -- the shoulder is where the structure of the jacket lives. If you get the shoulder wrong, the jacket is wrong, full stop. Measure twice. Have someone help.
3. Sleeve pitch. If you have broad shoulders, rounded shoulders, or forward shoulders (most desk workers), your sleeve does not hang straight down from the shoulder -- it hangs slightly forward. Off-the-rack jackets are built for a neutral sleeve pitch. SuitSupply does not ask about this. If your off-the-rack sleeves always show twisting or bunching in the back, this is why.
The SuitSupply Sizing Quirk Nobody Mentions
SuitSupply runs slim. Even in Washington, their classic fit, they run slim by American off-the-rack standards. If you wear a 40R in Jos. A. Bank or Macy's, you are almost certainly a 40R Washington or a 42R Lazio -- but a 40R Lazio will likely be tight through the chest if you have any build at all.
My rule of thumb: if you are between sizes, size up. You can always have the waist taken in at a local tailor for $30-50. You cannot take out what is not there.
Pro Tip: Bring a Jacket You Own
If you have access to a SuitSupply store -- even for one visit -- bring a jacket that already fits you well. Not your favorite jacket. The one that fits. The fitter can use its shoulder width, chest, and length as reference points, and you will walk out with a far better size call than anything the online size-finder will give you. This is the single best piece of advice for SuitSupply shoppers and nobody tells you this.
For Detailed Measurement Diagrams
If you want visual diagrams for each measurement -- body positioning, tape placement, where your natural waist actually is -- we built nathantailors.com/measure as a free resource. Use it regardless of which tailor you end up ordering from. The measurements themselves are universal. Our Guided Measurement App at /measurement/new walks you through each one in real time with reference photos, if you prefer an interactive walkthrough.
The Honest Trade-Off
The upside of SuitSupply is you can walk in and touch the fabric. The downside is you are buying one of six fits, not getting your own. For most guys with a relatively standard body, that is totally fine -- SuitSupply Washington or Lazio will fit well enough, and the Custom Made tier closes most of the remaining gaps for an extra $200-400.
But if you have a non-standard build -- broad shoulders with a small waist, athletic chest, forward posture, long torso, short arms, any of the common deviations from the size-chart average -- the match-you-to-a-pattern approach has limits. No amount of self-measurement solves a pattern mismatch. You are optimizing a proxy.
If you want a suit actually cut to your measurements -- not matched to the nearest pattern -- for less than SuitSupply's made-to-measure tier, that is what we do at Nathan Tailors. Custom two-piece suits start at $129 (wool blend), $169 (wool-silk), $229 (pure wool), up to $289 (merino). Remote via our Guided Measurement App -- 17 steps, about 15 minutes, 3 reference photos, submits straight to Telegram where our master tailor reviews it with 25+ years of experience behind his eyes. Three weeks from order to delivery. 420+ five-star Google reviews. 5,000+ customers across 50+ countries, most of whom never set foot in Hoi An.
If you are weighing us against SuitSupply specifically, we wrote a longer comparison here: Indochino vs SuitSupply vs Nathan Tailors. Read it with a skeptical eye. We are one of the three companies in that post and we are not going to pretend we are neutral. But the numbers are the numbers.
Measure carefully. Then decide.
