The handmade suit I’ll never wear

Someone somewhere must surely have calculated that Bangkok has more doctors and tailors per capita than anywhere on Earth. These two industries, healthcare and clothing, must account for a prodigious share of tourist revenues, and they both operate on similar principles: make the customer feel pleasant even as the results disappoint. It’s a formidable business model, not least because it persuades thousands of customers that they have scored a bargain and therefore cannot be as disappointed as they actually feel. Deeply gaslit, the customer fervently believes in what he has purchased – even if his new suit would not look amiss on a Jacques Cousteau research boat or his ‘world-class’ surgeon operated on the wrong foot, something that happened to an acquaintance of mine. Weeks in a wheelchair but still a bargain.

Consider the average tailor on Sukhumvit Road, where American tailoring tourists go to die. You are greeted with a free beer and exuberant small talk, especially if the owners are Sikhs. There will invariably be a picture of George Bush back in 1997 wearing one of the $250 house suits. He must have gone on a veritable spree during that visit to Bangkok back in the 1990s and he certainly needed to save money. American law enforcement will also have left their badges all over the walls: reassuring. They will make you a suit in a week for $500. Canvassed? Yes, there is a lining (wrong answer). A little bit of glue is used, sir. Fabrics from Italy.

In the more serious high-end Thai places there’s none of this. The owner will come out and shake your hand and then, in a soothing whisper, inform you that – unlike the double-dealing Sikhs – all their fabrics are genuine Italian.