Prologue Hong Kong’s Love Letter to Tailoring [My Review of Prologue’s Online MTM]

Prologue HK is a love letter to tailoring.

Co-founder Jerry Tong describes it as taking inspiration from their favorite tailoring traditions around the world.

The beautiful, curvy pignata hip pockets and barchetta-shaped breast pocket, as well as the lightness in canvas and shoulder construction, evoke the Neapolitan tradition (all the better for the hot and humid climate of Hong Kong). The swooping lapel line and moderately low position of the notch evokes the arc shape created by Florentine tailors like Liverano. The shoulder is slightly extended, without the use of any padding, but with a small amount of roping at the sleevehead, creating a shoulder expression that’s appealing on basically any body type. They bring their Asian provenance to bear in the attention to detail. In their own words: “The last piece of the puzzle draws from Asian tailoring heritage with precision and intricate finishing. Redolent of the Shanghainese qipao, pick-stitching, bar-tacks, and buttonholes are painstakingly sewn by hand to assemble, reinforce, and decorate garments bearing the Prologue marquee.”

Shop this post

• Jacket: Prologue HK Online MTM blazer in their “Junior Navy Hopsack”
• Trousers: Prologue HK Online MTM trousers in their 380g Worsted Wool Twill
• Off-white denim: Sid Mashburn natural denim
• Blue poplin cutaway collar shirt: Prologue RTW blue cutaway poplin shirt OR Proper Cloth Thomas Mason Luxury blue broadcloth
• Shoes: Beckett Simonon “Durant” brown adelaide punch-caps
• Alden snuff suede tassel loafers
• Tie: Granqvist grenadine brown regimental stripe
• Pocket Square: Granqvist elephant pocket square

Prologue is one of several Hong Kong-based clothing companies and tailoring houses transforming the image of that city from that of the traveling salesman selling you cheap custom suits that may or may not have a needle accidentally left in the lining, to a center for beautiful, well considered and well made clothing with an identity all its own. (Others include WW Chan and The Anthology). If someone asks “is Hong Kong tailoring any good?”, Prologue and others resoundingly answer, “yes.”

Prologue is best known for its “semi-bespoke” service, which involves the steps you’d expect from a custom tailor—measuring then creating a fitting garment then creating a final garment that can be altered. Those garments are made with a full canvas construction, using a pattern that’s made specifically for you. The blazer I had made is only half-canvas, made more industrially with less handwork using their online made-to-measure program. They also offer an online made-to-order program if you fit their standard sizes well enough without customization.

I met Jerry and his business partner way back in the Before Times, at Pitti Uomo 97 in January 2020. We talked in their rented apartment, just off the Piazza Santa Maria Novella. I was with Peter Zottolo, both of us working on Styleforum’s team covering Pitti that year. They walked us through their house style, what level of quality they make, and measured us both for suits. In the following weeks and months back home in the States, as I listened to concerned NPR coverage of a novel coronavirus making its way through Asia, I was in contact with Jerry to see what their final dates would be for their trunk show that April in New York City, where I hoped to try on a fitting garment. Once April actually arrived, however, it was not to be. The project was put on indefinite hold.

However, during the pandemic period of 2020 and 2021, they launched a new project that frankly is more up my alley anyway—online made to measure and made to order (MTM and MTO). So we made an agreement to change from their full custom to online MTM. They used the same measurements they’d taken back in 2020, and I chose some of their stock fabrics. I wanted a new navy blazer to complement and rotate out with my all-time favorite Eidos blazer, a raw silk jacket that’s wearing through at the cuffs and under the armpits. I chose Prologue’s Junior Hopsack fabric. And to pair with it, I wanted a high-twist pair of mid-gray trousers for summer, and Jerry found just such a fabric for me.

Style details

I chose a straightforward configuration for the jacket: single breasted notch lapel, 3-roll-2 closure, dual vented jacket with open patch pockets at the hips and a normal besom pocket at the chest. I asked for single button cuffs on the sleeves. For the trousers, they wanted to do their house style, which is a high-rise double-reverse pleat, so I accepted.

I’d admired Prologue for years on Instagram. As one of a few Asian tailors making gorgeous, curvaceous tailored jackets, they created a kind of Old World, romantic vision of tailoring that strongly appealed to me. But as we all know, sometimes an impeccably tailored jacket sitting on a form with moody window lighting can look incredible, but what truly matters is how it fits your actual body. Is Prologue’s online MTM worth it? In a word, yes.

The end result is a lovely mid-blue blazer that imbues a feeling of elegance to any outfit I create with it. That feeling comes from the curvy, rounded lines in the lapels and down through the quarters. But it also comes from the longer length on their default pattern. What is the right length for a suit jacket or blazer? It should, at the very least, cover your seat. From there, you can have a range of lengths that still look good on you. As a general rule, a blazer or sportcoat can look good on the shorter end of the range, and a suit jacket should be a little longer. Since Prologue makes their jacket a little longer, it has a slightly more formal vibe. I feel it looks most at home with tailored trousers. That’s not to say it doesn’t also look fine dressed down a bit in my signature blazer-with-white-jeans look, but there’s an elegance to the shape and design of Prologue’s jacket that resists dressing down.

The overall shape has a rounded appearance—slightly concave lapels, rounded lower quarters, super curvy patch pockets, boat-shaped barchetta breast pocket. The shoulder expression bucks that trend by being extended (so the seam extends a little ways past your shoulder bone), and by having a lightly roped sleevehead, which creates the soft ridge along the top. I personally find totally bald/rounded shoulders not the most flattering, so a little roping like this is very welcome. The lower quarters also defy expectations a little by hanging very straight, rather than sweeping away. Southern Italian (as well as Florentine) jackets have made somewhat swept-away lower quarters a popular and common design feature, and the design of Prologue’s cut reminds me of Florentine tailoring a lot, which is why this was a surprise. 

The fabric quality is a nice, medium-weight hopsack in a really nice shade of blue. 

There were some bumps on the road to getting it to fit right. Out of the box, the jacket was significantly too large in the hips and seat. The shoulders, chest, waist and sleeves all fit great, but from the top of the vents to the bottom hem it just billowed out, requiring alterations. In a normal scenario with a normal customer, they’d have taken care of this with complimentary alterations (or, if it weren’t fixable through alterations, a whole new jacket). In my case, since the jacket was given to me*, I had a local alterations tailor look at it and slim the back side seams. While that took care of the extra fabric and it now fits me, I wondered if doing so deformed the intended drape of the jacket. The quarters feel more closed, falling straight down below the button rather than sweeping away somewhat. 

So I asked Jerry his thoughts on the fit post-alterations. He said that it’s slimmer than their house style, especially if you look at the robo-poses below and see the diagonal pulling that starts the button and moves up toward the shoulders (this bothers me and I might have it let out in the future unless I lose weight). A drop 4 is their typical, which means the waist measure 4 inches smaller than the chest. But, he said, the way the jacket hung otherwise looked right. Those closed quarters is their design.

As for the trousers, they’re a great, medium-dark gray worsted twill cloth that’s lightweight, and which hold their shape very well with wear. They have a high rise, which combined with the double pleats, wears extremely comfortably. I strongly prefer flat-front trousers (though I’ve come around to pleats lately), but Jerry strongly urged me to go with their double pleat model based on, as he put it, “the size of your seat and the shape of your legs.” This is part of what you pay for with a custom tailor—their external opinion about your body shape based on experience with other clients.

Jerry said the trousers looked good overall according to their intent, but that they’d take in some excess fabric in the crotch area and adjust the back rise to get the fit just right.

I do think it’s odd that the same set of measurements of my body resulted in trousers that fit pretty well in the waist and hips, but a jacket that was miles off in that same area.

In the end, the trousers are still a little outside my comfort zone. I just can’t shake the long-lasting PTSD of the double-pleated Dockers that were ubiquitous in the 90s when I was growing up. Though whenever I put them on, the longer I look at them, as my eyes adjust to their shape and silhouette, I can begin to see the benefits of the intended silhouette. One thing’s for sure—roomier trousers are pretty dang comfortable. I can squat all the way to the floor or even sit cross-legged and never worry about splitting any seams.

Quality and Make of Prologue Hong Kong MTM

The jackets Prologue makes for its made-to-measure program are half-canvassed, unlike their flagship fully custom products. The price reflects the lower-quality make. I reached out to Jerry and the team for more information on the specific aspects of their quality, and if they get back with me, I’ll update the post. But you can see underneath the lapels the hallmark pad stitching that indicates the canvas in the upper half has not been glued.

As for the trousers, all the details you’d hope for are here and then some, with none of the ones you don’t. I’m talking a curtained waistband, a three-button waist closure with an extended front tab, side adjusters (which have their own little keeper loops, a nice touch I’ve not seen before), front lined to the knee with bemberg and pockets made from 100% cotton. Inside the waistband are strips of rubber, a feature I’ve seen on bespoke trousers before. And on the outside are bar tacks galore—tacks at the top of each pleat in the front as well as the ones above the pockets in the back and tacks at each end of the hidden coin pockets on both sides. It has a zipper fly—a wonderful departure from the button-obsessed custom tailors who seemingly revel in showing off with ever-more-complex button-fly systems (I have a pair of trousers from a custom tailor that have 12 buttons at the fly/waistband). A zipper: what a marvelous, modern invention!

Long-term thoughts

This review has benefitted from having more time with the garments before publication than with some of my other reviews, and so I’ve worn the clothes in day-to-day life, giving me a bit more perspective. The “junior navy hopsack” is a fantastic daily wearer; it’s a lightweight fabric that’s comfortable in the warmer weather. The color is beautiful and is very versatile; I worried it would be too bright and look kind of dandy, but it does not. I like the shape and fit of the jacket and it’s become my go-to dress-up blazer this summer; it looks great worn with a tie and tailored trousers. Worn casually, like with denim, feels a little mismatched to me personally on account of the longer length and the more straight-down front quarters.

The trousers have not gotten a ton of wear publicly, I’ll admit. However, I have worn them a few times and have come to appreciate how comfortable they are.

Prologue’s online MTM is a fantastic value. The style is unique, the quality is good, and being custom-made, a good fit is highly achievable. It’s not their flagship fully custom, yet I’m quite happy with the results.

I recommend Prologue HK heartily. 

*See here for my policy on free products, reviews and gifts.

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