Buying a suit can be painful, as any man who's ever searched for something to wear to a new job or wedding can attest.

There's nothing like wasting a perfectly good Saturday running in and out of dressing rooms in search of a suit that looks great, fits the unique proportions of your body, and costs less than a two-week vacation.

If you avoid the stores and shop for a suit online, it can be even worse: You'll find questionable quality and style, and then you'll have to spend time going to the tailor for alterations.

"A suit is what men wear when they need to look their very best, but a suit that fits well is nearly impossible to find,” says Matthew Mueller, cofounder of menswear company Knot Standard. “For something as personal as a great suit, you shouldn’t be forced to buy it from a warehouse."

Almost every other consumer vertical has moved to mass customization, but the lagging fashion industry operates on essentially the same model it has for the past 100 years. You can build your own laptop, customize your car’s color and interior, or design your own running shoes. But instead of personalizing our clothing, most of us buy more than we can keep and send back what doesn't fit. With the fashion ecommerce market expected to grow to $73 billion by 2016, it's staggering that one-third of all online clothes purchases are returned.

For many professionals, this process makes it difficult to get the high-quality clothing they need to look and feel their best. But that's finally changing. Thanks to advances in technology and manufacturing, you can have a luxury suit custom-made to your specifications, quickly and from scratch — for the same price as a garment made in a standard size.

Custom suits and free stylists

Enter Knot Standard, a New York-based luxury menswear retailer that's pioneering these technological breakthroughs. The entire process of measuring and designing a new suit takes just minutes with the help of one of their online stylists. After that first appointment, Knot Standard imports your fabric, digitally cuts and assembles your suit, and delivers it to you a few weeks later.

Founded in 2010, the company allows any online customer to upload his existing wardrobe, measurements, and personal preferences to create a unique pattern for himself. With all of that data, Knot Standard can make a perfect-fitting pair of pants, shirt, or full suit at a moment’s notice. Customers can toggle between Knot Standard’s design settings to create a unique digital pattern that's automatically cut out from high-end fabric by an army of laser cutters.

For those unsure of what will look best on them or what their measurements are, Knot Standard offers free 60-minute consultations with a personal stylist at its six brick-and-mortar showrooms. The showrooms, which offer an even wider scope of premium fabric options, can be found in cities like New York (its flagship), Dubai, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Washington, DC, and soon Chicago.

With every piece of clothing created just for them, it's no wonder customers return just 2.3% of Knot Standard’s products. “We have become a brand where every customer knows that our products will fit them well," says cofounder John Ballay. "They are always asking us to expand into the rest of their closet with custom polos, casual shirts, and even sweaters — all of which we are starting to offer."

Since 2010, the custom-menswear market has doubled in the US, indicating a growing desire among men to own clothes designed and fitted for them, rather than for a mannequin. And it makes sense. By all indications, this streamlined, unobtrusive shopping process is the future of online fashion retailing.

Learn more about how to develop your personal style. 

This post is sponsored by Knot Standard.

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