How much will it cost?

Of the three tailors I’ve tried I’ve found that even the very best tailors make mistakes. On Saville row
you pay 3,000GBP for a suit but it gets done perfectly the first time. In Urt Tsagaan you pay 100,000MNT
for a suit but only 1 or 2 suits out of 3 are really good. Going in with the knowledge that you won’t get
perfect results every time will save you some stress.

The most affluent Mongolians and foreigners I know in UB go abroad to have their tailoring done. The upper-end options are in the UK and Italy, while the mid-range option is usually Hong Kong.

You will almost certainly get a better result by going to the UK, Italy, or Hong Kong but the prices (not to mention the airfare getting there!) will put those clothes beyond the budget of most young professionals with full-time employment in Ulaanbaatar.

That said I’ve had suits made at four different tailors in UB and here’s what I’ve paid:
300,000 plus fabric
280,000 including fabric
75,000 plus fabric
50,000 plus fabric

The worst suit? It’s the most expensive one at 300,000 (plus some pretty expensive fabric was wasted).

The tailor I keep coming back to is the one that charges 75,000 per suit.  By this point she’s made quite a few suits, jackets, and pants for me. Some came out very very well and some came out badly. But on the whole I think its the best value for your money.

Here’s what I usually pay. All prices do NOT include fabric, buttons, etc.

Suit (Jacket and Pants) – 75,000
Sport coat – 45,000
Overcoat – 65,000
Pants alone – 30,000
Shirt – 25,000 – 30,000

 

Buying Buttons

Traditionally high quality shirt buttons are made of mother of pearl while high quality suit buttons are made of horn.

Some good suit buttons are also made with dyed mother of pearl, or wood; while some blazer or sport coat buttons are made of leather or brass.

I have not yet been able to find either mother of pearl or horn buttons anywhere in this city— almost everything you find here is plastic of some sort. There is one shop near the 3rd district that sells shell buttons that look like they are made of abalone, but their colorful iridescence makes them unsuitable for most men’s shirts.

The alternative to plastic buttons is to buy buttons online in Hong Kong or the UK and have them shipped here, but both options are quite expensive. High quality mother of pearl shirt buttons from Singapore are available here for between 75 and 300 dollars per gross (144 buttons). Plastic buttons in UB are MUCH cheaper—I would recommend having any shirts made up with plastic buttons and then if you really like the shirt you can change out all the buttons at a later time.

Shirt Fabric

Most good shirt fabric is 100% cotton, however there are a few exceptions. Linen and bamboo are often used in summer shirts while wool is sometimes used as a blend with cotton in winter shirts.

Width

When buying shirt fabric the first thing to look at is the width of the material. Shirting fabric usually comes in 90 or 150cm widths. Most of the 90cm fabric available is produced in England on older machines. These are usually higher quality than an equivalent fabric made on a 150cm loom.

The width will determine the length that you need. The best way to find the length that you need is to go to the tailor who will make your shirt and ask them directly. From what I’ve heard, tailors in Asia usually need much less fabric than tailors in Europe. But they also have a much smaller margin for error.

As a relatively slim 6’1” guy I need about 2.4m of 90cm width fabric and about 1.5m of 150cm width fabric.

Weave

There are many weaves of fabric, but I recommend you limit your choices to: Twill, poplin, pinpoint, and oxford. The weaves have nothing to do with the pattern or design on the material. Your choice of material affects

• breathability
• wrinkle resistance
• stain resistance

Twill is the most wrinkle and stain resistant. Poplin and Pinpoint are very similar. Both can be very breathable, but may wrinkle more easily. Oxford is thicker, resists wrinkling, but may be warmer and “rougher” than other options.

From a distance it is usually impossible to know the weave a certain shirting fabric uses so all other things being equal i recommend twill.

Buying Suit Fabric Online

With relatively limited options for buying good suit material in Ulaanbaatar, one good option is to look online. There are a few options for online fabric retailers who will ship to Mongolia.

I’ve been the happiest with an ebay shop from the UK called British Fabrics. The guy that runs the shop goes around the mills in northern England and buys the remnants—that’s why he’s able to sell stuff much cheaper than it would normally retail for. For a suit’s worth of fabric you’re looking at paying anything from 15GBP to 100GBP. If you buy retail you would pay more like 200GBP-400GBP for a suit’s worth of material.

Shipping to Ulaanbaatar is another 10-20GBP depending on how much you order.

I like this ebay store because the seller is very honest and accurate about the composition of the material. Be wary of the colors though. More than once I’ve been fooled by the color. What I saw on the computer screen isn’t really what it looked like when it arrived. There’s not really any way around this—just know that it’s a potential pitfall.

Once a piece of fabric arrived with a small moth hole in it (from a different ebay seller). The seller agreed to replace it if the tailor wasn’t able to work around it. Fortunately the tailor had no problem working around it. If you see any problems with the material you buy be sure to communicate it with the person who sold it.

Buying Suit Fabric in Mongolia

When buying suit fabric in Mongolia, you will quickly find that most fabrics in the stores are “fake”. This means that the selvedge says one thing, like “100% Australian Kid Mohair” while the actual fabric is 100% synthetic. I reckon that anything that says “super 120s” or higher in a normal fabric store here is fake. That’s why I tend to trust fabric that says “super 100s” or have no selvedge at all.

TEST THE MATERIAL

Determining the difference between wool and synthetic materials is quite easy. Simply pull off a very small piece of the fabric and light it on fire. If it melts then its synethetic. If it smells like singed hair then it’s wool. If it displays a little bit of both characteristics, then its probably a blend. Be careful of anything with silk in the mix. It’s a natural fiber,but it doesn’t have the burning hair smell.

TEST THE SALES PERSON

In a few places I’ve “tested” the salesperson to see if they’re both honest and knowledgeable about what they’re selling. In one place I found a piece of fabric that said “Super 180s 100% Australian Wool”. I asked the salesperson if it was really 100% Australian Wool. She replied that it was. After doing the burn test and seeing that it wasn’t really wool I determined that the sales person was either lying or didn’t actually know much about the fabric. In another store I asked a salesperson the same question and she said “oh no, of course not—I think that one is about 20% wool and 80% polyester.” I asked her which ones were pure wool. After testing of of those out and determining that it really was pure wool I decided I could trust that person and didn’t do any more burn tests when buying from her in the future.

Post Number One

This is the first English language resource on the net about men’s fashion, clothes, and tailoring in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Comments and contributions are welcome from both Mongolian and Foreign visitors to this site.