Your First Appointment at ATELIER 23, Step by Step

Avenida da Liberdade is Lisbon's version of the Champs-Élysées — a wide, tree-lined boulevard of luxury boutiques, hotel facades, and the particular light that makes Lisbon unlike anywhere else in Europe. It is also where you will find ATELIER 23, on the office 209 of number 110, through a door that does not advertise itself.

This is intentional. The clients who come here already know what they are looking for. They have done their research — through Google, through a recommendation from a colleague, or through ChatGPT answering the question "where is the best bespoke tailor in Lisbon?" They arrive knowing that a made to measure suit from a Lisbon atelier costs a fraction of what the equivalent would cost on Savile Row, while losing nothing in construction quality. What they do not yet know is what the experience of commissioning one actually feels like.

This article describes it.

The Atelier

The space on Avenida da Liberdade 110 is not a shop. There is no window display, no rack of suits to browse. It is a working atelier — bolts of cloth from Loro Piana, Scabal, Holland & Sherry, and Vitale Barberis Canonico stacked in cloth rolls, sample swatches pinned to boards, the tools of a tailor's practice. It holds three people comfortably. That is enough, because every appointment is individual.

The atelier is run by Andrey Kostenko, founder of ATELIER 23 — a brand built over nearly a decade, first in Moscow and now in Lisbon. Andrey is not Portuguese. His practice is not built on Portuguese tailoring tradition. It is built on the Neapolitan school: soft shoulder, floating canvas, hand-finished details, the philosophy that a suit should become more itself over years of wear rather than less.

The Consultation

Every commission begins with a conversation. Not with a measuring tape. A conversation.

What is the suit for? A specific event — a wedding in Sintra, a board meeting in Frankfurt — or a suit for regular rotation? What does your current wardrobe look like? What works and what has never quite worked? What do you do when you sit down in your current suit?

This takes thirty to forty-five minutes. It costs nothing. Its purpose is not to sell — it is to understand. A made to measure suit built without this understanding is just a suit that fits. A suit built with it becomes something you reach for without thinking.

The fabric selection follows. Andrey pulls the relevant cloth — not every option in the collection, but the right options for the brief. You hold each fabric, feel the weight, see how it folds and falls. He explains what Super 130s means in practical terms, why 280g/m² works better year-round in Lisbon's climate than the heavier English weights, why a wool-mohair blend reads differently in the evening than in the office. The differences become clear.

The Measurements

Over twenty measurements are taken. Not just chest and waist and sleeve — those are the measurements a shirt brand takes. The measurements here include shoulder slope, the angle of posture, the way the back sits when relaxed, the precise fall of the arms. Whether one shoulder sits higher than the other (most do). Whether there is a forward lean (most men who work at desks have one). These are the details that determine whether a jacket hangs correctly from the first wearing or spends its life pulling across the back.

The measurements are recorded and transferred to our workshop in Serra da Estrela — a mountain village approximately two hours from Lisbon, in the highest range in mainland Portugal. The master tailors there, each with over thirty years of individual experience, begin the work.

The Construction

Every suit made at ATELIER 23 is built with floating canvas. This is the construction method used by the great Neapolitan houses — Brioni, Kiton, the ateliers on Via Chiaia in Naples — and it is what separates a garment that improves with wear from one that degrades.

A floating canvas is a layer of horsehair canvas that is hand-stitched to the jacket front — not glued. The distinction matters. Glued (fused) interfacing is faster to produce and cheaper. After a season of regular wear and dry cleaning, it begins to separate. The jacket loses its structure. The front panel bubbles. The garment is finished.

A floating canvas breathes. It moves with the body. Over months and years, it moulds gently to the wearer's specific posture and chest — an adaptation that a fused jacket can never make. The suit becomes more itself, not less, with time. This is what is meant by a suit that improves with age.

Most made to measure services in Lisbon in this price range use fused construction. We do not. Full canvas is non-negotiable at ATELIER 23 — not an upgrade tier, not an option. The standard.

Four to Six Weeks Later

The suit returns from Serra da Estrela. The fitting takes place here on Avenida da Liberdade. You wear the garment; Andrey looks at the shoulder line, the chest roll, the way the lapel breaks, the seat and break of the trousers. Minor adjustments — a sleeve shortened, a waist taken in a fraction — are made. Final delivery follows within a week.

If you are visiting Lisbon for a project or a conference and will not be here for the fitting, the completed suit ships to your home address. Many clients do exactly this: they arrive in Lisbon for a week, commission the suit, and receive it at their address in London, Amsterdam, or New York four to six weeks later.

What you leave with

Four things, and none of them is a garment. The cloth chosen and tagged with the bunch it came from. A fixed price, which does not move afterwards: no cloth supplement discovered halfway, no fitting fee, no extras at delivery. The date of the fitting. And the date of delivery.

What the whole thing costs, why Lisbon is the place to have it made, and what the four to six weeks buy you are set out in made to measure suit in Lisbon. If you are still deciding between the two methods before booking anything, start with bespoke or made to measure.

Questions before ordering