Best Place to Buy a Loud Suit

Pants Plus

In 1973, George Jiandani came to the United States to work as a tailor. Nearly 40 years later, he’s still at it. Inside his Broad Street shop, Jiandani doles out his philosophy on the industry. It isn’t about how expensive a suit is, he says. It’s about how the guy inside it feels wearing it.

So head out to Franco’s for a high-end, sleek suit if you like — and plenty do. At Pants Plus, the shop Jiandani and his brother Jimmy have run since the early 1980s, you can buy a pink Stacy Adams number with matching straw fedora for less than $500.

As the week winds down, Jiandani says members of the shop’s majority black, middle-aged clientele come in — many via the GRTC line, which stops right outside his storefront — to buy something on the more festive side of the color spectrum.

Still, demand for the louder suits has dropped off in recent years, Jiandani says. Among other conclusions, it might mean that the recession has made customers more timid. One day, however, someone is going to purchase the double-breasted purple plaid suit hanging in the window display. Us, probably.

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