Franco Masoma specializes in made-to-measure wedding suits from our Los Gatos location, with garments constructed in Napoli using Italian artisan techniques refined across generations.
The Franco Masoma Made-to-Measure Process
Creating made-to-measure wedding suits follows a disciplined progression designed to maximize precision while respecting your time.
Initial Consultation and Fitting in Los Gatos
Your process begins with a private ninety-minute appointment at Franco Masoma’s Los Gatos showroom. This time is scheduled exclusively – no overlapping clients, no retail distractions, complete focus on understanding you and your wedding.
Franco wants context before touching measurement tape. Your wedding venue – whether Napa vineyard, San Francisco landmark, Marin coastal location, Peninsula estate, or elsewhere. Your ceremony character – traditional formal or relaxed celebration. What creates confidence versus discomfort regarding clothing formality.
This conversation informs decisions that seem purely technical but actually depend on understanding how you live and how your wedding will unfold.
The physical fitting then begins with trying master garments close to your approximate size. Franco observes how these refined base models sit on your actual body.
Shoulders are assessed first – the most critical fit element that cannot be corrected if wrong. The jacket shoulder must align with your natural shoulder point and match your shoulder slope. Franco observes this from multiple angles, noting precise adjustments needed.
Chest and torso fit comes next. How much ease provides comfort while maintaining structure? Where should waist suppression occur based on your specific build? These aren’t generic rules but observations about your proportions.
Sleeve length, pitch, and how they hang during natural arm position. Collar fit around your neck. Lapel roll and how it creates the jacket’s character. Overall balance and silhouette from front, side, and rear perspectives.
Trouser fitting receives equal attention. Rise appropriate for your torso length and comfort preferences. Waist, hip, thigh, and knee proportions creating balanced silhouette with your jacket. Leg taper and break at the ankle based on your height and aesthetic preferences.
Franco documents every observation with precision. These specifications – often dozens of individual measurements and adjustment notes – travel to Napoli for construction.
Design Customization
Made-to-measure includes comprehensive design choices beyond sizing.
Lapel style and width. Peak, notch, or shawl lapels, proportioned specifically to your build and jacket design. Button configuration – two-button, three-button, or double-breasted. Pocket style and placement. Vent selection – single, double, or none.
Lining fabric and color. Monogramming style and placement. Trouser details including pleat versus flat front, cuff versus plain hem, belt loops or side adjusters.
Each choice is discussed and decided collaboratively. Franco guides based on expertise while you determine what feels appropriate for your wedding and personal aesthetic.
Fabric Selection from Italian Mills
Made-to-measure quality depends fundamentally on fabric excellence.
Franco curates textiles personally during trips to northwestern Milan, working with mills like Vitale Barberis Canonico, Zegna, Loro Piana, Cerruti 1881. These houses produce luxury materials that define what exceptional suiting fabrics should be.
For Bay Area spring and summer weddings – particularly outdoor Napa, Sonoma, or Peninsula celebrations – Franco often recommends superfine worsted wools or linen-wool blends. They breathe naturally, resist wrinkling, and maintain structure through temperature transitions.
Fall and winter weddings benefit from cashmere-silk combinations or refined wool blends that photograph beautifully and feel exceptional.
The fabrics feel different immediately when you touch them. The hand communicates quality. The drape creates elegant lines. These materials elevate made-to-measure suits from “better than off-rack” to genuinely luxurious.
Napoli Construction for Bay Area Weddings
After your Los Gatos consultation, specifications travel to Franco Masoma’s workshop in Napoli where Italian artisans construct your suit entirely by hand.
This isn’t manufacturing optimization for volume. It’s traditional tailoring by craftspeople whose families have practiced these techniques for generations.
Full Canvas Construction
Canvas is layered between the suit’s outer fabric and lining, then shaped by hand to your specific chest structure based on Franco’s fitting observations. This canvas creates the garment’s foundation – providing structure while allowing the jacket to mold to your body over time.
Full canvas construction costs significantly more in time and expertise than fused methods used in most retail suits. It’s also the only approach that ensures your wedding suit looks exceptional immediately and continues improving with wear across years.
Hand-Set Sleeves
Sleeves are attached by hand with thousands of small stitches, allowing fabric to ease naturally into the armhole. This creates mobility and natural drape that machine-attached sleeves cannot achieve.
For wedding days requiring eight hours of continuous wear – greeting guests, embracing family, raising arms repeatedly for photographs, dancing – hand-set sleeves transform comfort entirely.
Traditional Handwork Throughout
Lapels padded by hand to create proper roll. Buttonholes worked individually, each requiring approximately fifteen minutes. Pick stitching along lapel edges. Collar attachment shaped specifically to your neck.
These details aren’t visible in photographs necessarily, but they’re felt during wear and they determine how the garment ages. Quality construction maintains integrity across decades. Inferior methods deteriorate quickly.
Production Timeline
Standard made-to-measure production requires six to eight weeks from consultation to delivery. This timeline accommodates most Bay Area wedding planning schedules when grooms begin the process four to six months before their celebration.
For compressed timelines, Franco offers three-week expedited production maintaining full hand-construction quality. This serves grooms with approaching wedding dates who cannot extend their timeline.
Made-to-Measure Benefits for Bay Area Weddings
The Bay Area hosts remarkably diverse wedding celebrations, each creating different requirements for groom suits.
Napa and Sonoma Vineyard Weddings
Wine country celebrations benefit from made-to-measure precision because fit must remain comfortable through long outdoor days. Jackets need to drape naturally during ceremony photographs among vines while allowing ease for cocktail hour movement and reception dancing.
Made-to-measure accounts for these requirements during construction rather than hoping off-rack with alterations approximates proper fit.
San Francisco Urban Venues
City weddings at landmarks, hotels, or private clubs often involve more traditional formality. Made-to-measure delivers polished precision appropriate for these settings – clean lines, refined proportions, construction quality that photographs beautifully against architectural elegance.
Marin Coastal Celebrations
Ocean-facing venues require suits that maintain structure despite wind and temperature fluctuations. Made-to-measure construction using quality fabrics performs reliably across these environmental shifts.
Peninsula and South Bay Estate Weddings
Private property celebrations throughout Los Altos Hills, Atherton, Portola Valley, Saratoga, Los Gatos. These venues often feature both indoor and outdoor spaces requiring versatile suit performance – made-to-measure provides this adaptability through proper fabric selection and construction.
Scheduling Your Made-to-Measure Consultation
Creating made-to-measure wedding suits begins with scheduling your initial Los Gatos appointment.
Franco books consultations exclusively to ensure undivided attention. Popular wedding months – May through October – fill earlier. Grooms planning spring or summer Bay Area celebrations should schedule four to six months ahead to ensure adequate fitting and production time.
Appointments are available weekdays and weekends, scheduled around your calendar rather than retail hours. The process respects that Bay Area professionals operate under genuine time constraints while refusing to compromise the precision made-to-measure quality demands.
