Today we meet a brand whose discretion is written in its name: Confident . In fact, to access it, you must make an appointment via a secret link . Even the brand label does not provide any information, since everything is written tone on tone. Why is this name so mysterious? It's a play on words:
- it is a men's ready-to-wear brand with tailoring roots . Florent, the founder of the brand, sees the tailor as a loved one or a close friend. There is an idea of proximity and privileged relationship,
- Florent really likes American culture, I can't believe that there isn't a play on words with the word "confident" in English, which expresses an idea of self-confidence. It would therefore be a clothing brand for men with a certain confidence...
Behind this thick fog, let's try to see more clearly...
Who is behind Confident? The answer in video!
This is Florent from the SoDandy blog. As you can see in the interview video, his experience at Menlook Label as a buyer/product manager allowed him to get a solid foothold in clothing on the design and production side , since he had to create a collection by managing all its aspects: pricing, marketing, design, etc.
The brand was born from a certain frustration on Florent's part: he likes ready-to-wear, he likes design work, but he doesn't like being disappointed in the middle of a fitting and seeing that a sleeve is too short, or that the piece is not fitted enough.
Florent, with his unwavering determination, is also a big fan of double-breasted suits. Don't hesitate to talk to him about it if you want to take the plunge, he will be happy to accompany you gently. Photo credit: Péo Amany
In his quest for clothes according to his desires, he turned to tailor-made. But there too, he realized that something was still missing, that little extra that we have in ready-to-wear: the design work and the brand universe (which can however exist in the tailor universe provided you put a good budget into it).
And then it is true that many tailors are not particularly rejuvenating the profession. I myself would like to have better chosen fabrics. I would rather have to decide between 10 carefully selected fabrics than 50 fabrics available "just in case" . Likewise, some tailors have no "fashion culture" at all, and make suits that are certainly well cut, but ultimately quite banal and sometimes even a little austere.
So that’s when an idea popped up:
“What if I offered a collection of pieces with details very specific to my tastes, my vision of men's ready-to-wear, with my choice of fabric, colors, cut, but by making them tailor-made?”
In short, he wanted to circumvent the limits of ready-to-wear and made-to-measure and it was this idea that laid the foundations of Confident: made-to-measure ready-to-wear, so to speak.
The birth of Confident
And that’s where the brand’s concept of “ tailor-made ready-to-wear ” was born. In fact, you no longer have to bother choosing an acute notch or a sport notch on a jacket, Florent does it for you in advance. This is the identity of Confident, you just have to let yourself take the measurements.
Depending on the time Florent receives you, there will be either water or cognac in this pretty bottle.
But Florent didn't want a boutique, he wanted something much more peaceful and natural . He missed the time when the customer was received by his tailor in a house. It is for this reason that the brand welcomes guests in its apartment showroom, by appointment, with all the time necessary to take care of you, while sitting comfortably, around a coffee.
The Confident showroom is in Paris. For the record, it was Florent himself who made the racks from copper pipes.
I would say that the brand is aimed at those who want urban clothing, simple but with a little twist. In this regard, Florent always has a lot of ideas in terms of styling to add a little extra to your outfit.
The kind of clothing you find at Confident. Florent is a big fan of this type of club collar.
The brand offers tailored pieces such as jackets, shirts and pants . Florent has an expression of his own to define style: cool tailoring . For example, he often wears his suits with Nike Dunks or with very short pants and without socks, Italian style .
Note that Florent wishes that everything could be worn mismatched , this is a real desire for him. The jackets are quite short, and they have less padding than average. Still in this contemporary spirit, the lapels are quite thin, but never below 6 cm, the goal is not to ape The Kooples!
As for the pants, they are completely in tune with the times, since they are fitted at the ankle, but with comfort in the thighs and buttocks.
Finally, the shirts can be worn inside or outside the pants, Florent adapts to your wishes on this side.
What finishes for Confident?
On this point, you will not be disoriented, because Florent has exactly the same attention to detail as us (and which you are starting to know well):
- mother-of-pearl buttons on shirts,
- half-moon seams on the pockets of jackets and pants (it's a nice aesthetic detail),
- Italian fabrics for shirts and wools,
- on jackets, the interior pockets are cut from the fabric and not from the lining,
- about the lining, it is actually made of Oxford cotton, which makes it more comfortable than polyester,
- the jackets are semi-canvassed,
- the shirts have French seams,
- it's six points per centimeter for the side seams on the shirt, but eight points per centimeter for the collar seams (and 1mm from the edge), those which are most visible,
- and for the pants, there is a pin at the waist and an anatomical "V" at the back (to give you an idea, it's exactly the same type as the one on our flannel pants).
A discreet but very present quality/price ratio
The quality/price ratio is the aspect on which the brand communicates little, if at all, yet it is indisputably one of its strong points. Judge instead:
- Mismatched jacket : from €325. Moreover, the price of the jackets in the collection goes up to €365 but if you want an ultra high-end fabric, in 100% cashmere, it will cost €590. I might as well tell you that at this price, with 100% cashmere, there is no equivalent, everything would cost double anywhere else,
- 2-piece suit : from 450 euros,
- Three-piece suit : from 575 euros
- Shirt : from 80 euros,
- Chino pants : from 120 euros,
- Shorts : from 120 euros.
Really, for a two-piece suit at €450 of such quality, Confident is almost unbeatable . It is a very serious alternative for small budgets (example: you are starting out in working life and you need a first suit), even if the brand does not at all focus its universe on this aspect of its offer.
Testing the shawl collar jacket and reverse collar shirt
For this test, I wanted to take pieces that I didn't yet have in my wardrobe. Given that I have around ten different jackets in acute notch and sport notch, I wanted to try something else, so I wanted a shawl collar , which we saw a lot on the " dinner jackets " and tuxedo jackets.
The history of the shawl collar is quite vague and complex. Basically, there were dressing gown collars, which inspired dinner jackets , themselves the origin of smoking jackets. And again, there are a number of debates around dinner jackets and tuxedos, because some believe that they mean the same thing, others insist that they are two different items of clothing.
In any case, this very round, simple, refined, and ultimately very spontaneous collar fits well with this curious evolution of interior clothing (I remind you that dinner jackets and other tuxedos were worn above all in the smoking room in order to protect suits and shirts from ashes and odor).
The smoking jacket , the pimp garment par excellence that introduced the shawl collar. Obviously, I wanted something much more sober and less flashy!
Today, the shawl collar has retained a certain "elegant" connotation (although the history of shawl collars on cardigans is still different, but just as vague!). Florent decided to play on the tuxedo side by placing tone-on-tone buttons , covered with the same fabric of the jacket.
For the shirt, since I rarely wear ties, I decided to try the reverse collar , which Dior Homme popularized a lot a few years ago. I really like how it looks when the shirt is open, it remains straight and placed on either side of the jacket.
Since I'm starting to get a little tired of well-fitted shirts (I must have around twenty of them), I wanted a slightly more classic and less fitted cut . The same goes for the length, I already have what I need in a casual shirt, here I wanted a shirt only intended to be worn inside the pants.
So much for my stylistic choices!
Important: to make an appointment with Florent, you must use the secret link . To fill in the box for the person who recommended you, say that you came from BonneGueule 😉
When trying on and taking measurements, Florent is very professional and precise , he listens very well to what you like. His fashion culture (he has been running a men's fashion blog since 2009!) is very useful, because he is completely aware of current style issues . He knows his product very well, no complaints about that!
Three weeks later, I finally receive my jacket and shirt...
Well in the end, we end up with an excellent quality product with a very competitive price/quality ratio . Everything is clean and well executed , there is nothing to complain about.
And obviously, if ever there are any touch-ups to be done after this first draft, everything is taken care of by Florent who can deliver you wherever you want, in order to save you a third trip to the showroom. He has an undeniable and frankly very appreciable customer service culture !
As expected, the jacket is quite short, in the vein of Florent's "cool tailoring". I'm wearing Atelier Voisin ankle boots (Babel model, superb brand, very comfortable), Bold Boys jeans and an Office Artist shirt. In the following photos you will see the Confident shirt.
The jacket sits well on the chest, I like that. From this angle of view, we can better see the cut of the jacket and the jeans.
The bending is well executed, and the wool, given its lightness, barely wrinkles around the single button (yes, I'm a fan of 1-button jackets).
This is how a classic shirt looks when worn with a shawl collar jacket. Flannel allows you to relax this form of collar, which I remind you is quite formal these days.
I chose a very light speckled flannel in order to go against the satin or velvet side that we usually see on tuxedo jackets. We also see the reverse collar of the two-tone Confident shirt which fits perfectly when the first two buttons are open. We also note that the collar sits well at the nape of the neck.
The jacket arrives with very clean open buttonholes. I like the tone-on-tone buttons, discreet and elegant.
The famous work on the lining, with a so-called “butterfly” lining in the upper back, for greater ease. Note the Vitale Barberis label on the left, and above all, the interior pockets in the material.
The English seam of the shirt is very clean. The fabric has micro-stripes.
Here we see the brand's label, quite mysterious, since it is tone-on-tone and cannot easily be photographed. Also note the presence of half-moon stitching on the pen pocket and the large interior pocket which is not in the lining.
Conclusion: a coherent and well thought-out offer
Even if the brand wants to be confidential, Florent has done a lot of editorial work, since he meticulously details the pieces in his collection on his blog .
Go ahead, it will give you a good idea of the brand's universe and the possibilities available to you. Our colleagues from Bw-Yw have also written a very comprehensive test on the brand!
In any case, if you are looking for dressy clothes in keeping with the times, with real attention to the brand, and at an extremely reasonable price, there is really something to do at Confident , whose showroom is in Paris.
Do not hesitate to share your choices at Confident, I am very curious about your feedback.
