Thailand has two kinds of craftsmanship: the kind done slowly by people who care, and the kind slapped together for whoever is walking down the street.
If you have spent five minutes in Chiang Mai or Bangkok, you already know which one shouts louder.
Real Tailoring Starts With Cloth
A real suit starts with fabric that tells the truth when you touch it.
Natural fiber falls clean.
Tropical wool snaps back.
Linen wrinkles in a way that looks intentional, not tired.
Shiny synthetics and stiff panels that feel like plastic raincoats are the warning signs.
Honest tailoring shops will drop the cloth flat on the table and let you see the drape.
They will talk you through weight, lining, and how that jacket will feel in Chiang Mai heat or Bangkok humidity.
The copycat places hide everything under thick fusing and sales talk about discounts.
Real Stitching Does Not Need Hiding
Look inside the jacket.
A proper hand set sleeve shows tiny irregularities that prove a human did the work.
Cheap jackets use glue, hard fusing, and machine perfect shapes that fight your shoulder instead of following it.
If the tailor will not turn the jacket inside out for you, that is your answer.
Fake Cubans, Real Cigars
Bangkok and Phuket are full of boxes that say Cuba but smoke like cardboard.
Counterfeit cigars give themselves away through weight, foot, and burn line.
Poor leaf, loose roll, and a harsh, uneven burn are the textile equivalent of shiny plastic suits.
Real cigars in Thailand go through import paperwork, tax, and proper storage.
That is why serious smokers buy from licensed retailers such as Cigar Emperor.
Stock is excise paid, traceable, and kept at stable humidity instead of sitting in a glass case under a ceiling fan.
One Simple Rule
Tailors and cigar merchants who are proud of their work will show you the inside.
If they will not do that, it is not a secret.
It is fake.
