Custom Overcoats & Winter Coats, made for a Toronto winter

A topcoat is lighter and shorter, made for spring and autumn over a suit. An overcoat is heavier and longer, made for a Toronto January. If you are only having one made, the overcoat earns its keep for more months of the year here.

Below the knee is the classic and it keeps you warm; mid-thigh is easier to drive in. The one rule worth keeping is that the coat must cover the jacket beneath it, or the suit hem shows and the line is lost.

No. Sam makes tailored coats: cashmere and wool overcoats, trench coats, raincoats and pea coats. For most of a Toronto winter, a heavy cashmere or melton overcoat cut to go over your suit is the tailored answer; the guide on down or wool sets out when each one is the right coat.

A wool or melton coat, yes: Sam alters them, whether he made them or not. He does not take on down coats or parkas.

No. Sam worked at Canada Goose, where his role was increasing the efficiency of fabrics, but Sam's Menswear is his own studio and is not affiliated with Canada Goose. What you get is a tailored coat made to your measurements, under his name.

For its weight, down. It traps more still air than any cloth, which is why it wins for standing at a bus stop in January. Wool is denser, blocks the wind well, keeps insulating when it is damp, and looks like tailoring over a suit. Sam makes the wool and cashmere kind.

That is the point of having one made. A coat off the rack is warm or well cut and rarely both, because it is sized for an average body under an average sweater. Cut to you, the shoulders sit, the length is right for your height and the colour is your choice, not the season's.

It is measured over the layers you actually wear, which is exactly what off-the-rack gets wrong. Tell Sam whether it goes over a jacket, a jacket and a knit, or just a shirt, and bring the jacket to the fitting.

Yes, for the first appointment: Sam comes to your office for the measuring, a selection of cloth and the conversation, and measures you over the jacket you wear to work, which is the layer the coat has to clear. Book it online or by phone and he will confirm the time and the address. The fitting on the finished coat is at the studio in Vaughan.

Something with weight and some body: a heavier wool, a wool and cashmere blend for softness, or a tighter weave if wind matters more than snow. Sam will steer you by how you actually commute rather than by what feels dear in the hand.

About five weeks: 35 days from the first appointment to the finished coat. Order in October rather than the week the first snow arrives, and you get the choice of fabric rather than what is left.

Yes, and a coat is the best place for it, because the lining is the part only you see. A colour, a pattern, or a monogram at the inside pocket.

A store coat is cut for a man in a sweater. Drop a suit jacket underneath and it pulls across the back and rides up at the collar. A made overcoat is drafted to sit cleanly over tailoring, warm without the bulk.

The velvet-collared Chesterfield, the camel polo coat, the fawn covert coat, the navy peacoat, trench coats and raincoats, a topcoat for milder days and an everyday car coat, in cashmere, camel hair and heavy wool.

Melton, cashmere, wool-cashmere, camel-hair and covert fabric: heavy enough to hold warmth and their line, but still able to drape. I'll match the weight to how cold you actually run.

Long enough to cover your suit jacket: knee or just below for a formal coat, shorter for a car coat. I cut the length to your height and how you wear it.