Of the well-thumbed photographs that appeal to those interested in men’s clothing, there is one floating around the internet that has always confounded me. It is a wide-angled shot of what I assume was only a fraction of the Duke of Windsor’s wardrobe. From left to right sweeps perhaps two dozen tweed, corduroy and tartan jackets. The scale of patterns, the variety of buttons, the unusual cuff treatments—a veritable encyclopedia of menswear esoterica is fully on display. I wish I could enjoy the details too, but I just can’t get my mind around the other glaring aspect of the photo: no two garments seem the same size.

I say seem because these things can be awfully difficult to determine with any certainty. There are coat hangers to consider; some stems are visibly longer and others rather stubby. The angle of the shot might exaggerate things. Then again, some sleeves differ as much as six inches, and the skirt lengths vary as well, but not proportionally, and some jackets are just short generally while others could be said to be longish. The Duke’s closet reminds me of a clearance rack of multi-sized jackets at a thrift store. A very stylish thrift store, mind you.

I often mull consistency. Today’s computer-aided design (CAD) machines precisely cut carefully established patterns for the assembly of ready-to-wear men’s suits. The tolerances for error are minute, and any pieces with variance greater than some pre-determined and low threshold are marked for the scrap heap. Good ready-to-wear suits all in the same size should, by every metric, be identical. That’s just not my experience though. I was quite happy in a well respected ready-to-wear brand for several years. And while most of it fit as well as it could, one in four pieces had some weird inconsistency—a fuller sleeve, some slightly narrower lapel. Like any self-respecting clothing enthusiast, I took a tape-measure to the garments to confirm my anxieties. Laugh all you will; it was later admitted in strict confidence to me by one of the senior sales associates that the plant manufacturing their garments was having serious consistency problems.

The other aspect of the issue is that I wasn’t precision cut by a CAD machine. Realizing this, I sought out clothes that weren’t either. The words are difficult to find, but the first suit Despos made for me didn’t just fit well; it was a handsome, dynamic extension of me. It was, quite suddenly, the first and only real garment in a closet full of imitations. I have slowly replaced the latter with the former, learning as I go. Recently, gazing upon an armoire that steadily grows, I realized something: bespoke has its own type of charming inconsistency as well. However, whereas inconsistency in ready-to-wear can be a frustrating disappointment, the type of mild variance in my wardrobe is purpose-built to reflect the character of the cloth and intended use. A casual flannel suit, therefore, might have slightly more expressive lapels to accentuate the softness of the cloth. A favorite tweed might be modestly roomier to accommodate a sweater. Trousers sometimes narrow or widen to reflect the character of cloth. This only makes sense considering the dramatically different properties of mohair and flannel, linen and worsted.

Finally, there is the very real fact that we (humans—all of us, even the clothing obsessed) have an unhealthy preoccupation with consistency—something that doesn’t really exist anyway. Oh sure, a stack of polo shirts can seem identical, or two bowls of lobster spaghetti can both be seasoned perfectly. But at some level well below most people’s threshold of negligibility, inconsistency thrives. Why must it be noticeable to bother us? Isn’t the thought alone that true consistency has never actually been experienced enough to explode any desire for its pursuit?

This is the point in the essay where that quotation from Oscar Wilde's "The Relation of Dress To Art" about consistency being the refuge of the silly, or whatever it is, would fit in nicely. I prefer Aldous Huxley’s though: “Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.” Indeed, not a good look.