Getting clothes made in Hoi An is one of the few travel experiences that genuinely delivers, and one of the easiest to ruin by rushing. The town has hundreds of tailoring shops in a few square kilometres, quality ranges from excellent to actively deceptive, and the difference is mostly determined by decisions you make in your first twenty minutes in the shop.
This guide covers what things cost as of mid-2026, how long they really take, and how to judge what you are being sold. It does not name shops, because the same street can hold a very good tailor and a poor one, and reputations here turn over faster than any guide can track.
What things cost, and how long they take
Prices below are typical mid-2026 ranges for the mid-market. The Vietnamese dong figures are approximate at around 26,000 VND to the dollar.
| Garment | Typical price (mid-2026) | Approx. VND | Realistic turnaround | Fittings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two-piece suit, budget (fused, polyester-heavy) | $120–$180 | 3.1–4.7m | 1–2 days | 1 |
| Two-piece suit, mid (wool blend) | $250–$450 | 6.5–11.7m | 3–4 days | 2–3 |
| Two-piece suit, premium (full canvas) | $550–$900+ | 14.3–23.4m | 4–6 days | 3–4 |
| Shirt, cotton or linen | $25–$40 | 650k–1.04m | 1–2 days | 1 |
| Shirt, premium cotton | $50–$85 | 1.3–2.2m | 2 days | 1–2 |
| Chinos or cotton trousers | $35–$55 | 910k–1.43m | 1–2 days | 1 |
| Wool dress trousers | $60–$110 | 1.56–2.86m | 2 days | 1–2 |
| Casual summer dress | $40–$75 | 1.04–1.95m | 1–2 days | 1 |
| Silk day dress | $80–$130 | 2.08–3.38m | 2–3 days | 2 |
| Cocktail dress | $120–$220 | 3.1–5.7m | 3 days | 2–3 |
| Evening gown | $250–$550+ | 6.5–14.3m | 4–5 days | 3 |
| Blouse, silk or cotton | $35–$65 | 910k–1.69m | 1–2 days | 1 |
| Tailored skirt | $30–$70 | 780k–1.82m | 1–2 days | 1 |
| Blazer, standalone | $150–$300 | 3.9–7.8m | 3 days | 2 |
| Wool or cashmere overcoat | $200–$450 | 5.2–11.7m | 3–4 days | 2–3 |
| Leather shoes, custom | $60–$150 | 1.56–3.9m | 1–3 days | 1 |
Two things about that table matter more than the numbers. First, larger sizes usually cost more for the same item, because they consume more cloth, and that is normal rather than a scam. Second, the turnaround column assumes the shop is not overloaded. In peak season, roughly February to April and again around July and August, add a day.
Building a fitting schedule that works
A structured garment needs a correction loop, and the loop is the product. Here is the shape that reliably works for a suit.
- Day one, afternoon. Measurement, cloth selection, lining selection, design decisions. Allow an hour, more if you are ordering several pieces. Pay a deposit, usually around half.
- Day two. First fitting, often on a basted or roughly assembled garment. This is where shoulder, chest and armhole get corrected. Move around. Sit down. Raise your arms.
- Day three. Second fitting on a much more finished garment. Sleeve and trouser lengths, waist suppression, collar gap.
- Day three or four. Final check and collection. Try everything on in the shop before paying the balance.
Shirts and simple dresses compress this to one fitting and a collection. Shoes usually need only a single fitting but benefit from being ordered early so there is time to adjust.
The practical implication is that three full days in Hoi An is a minimum and four or five is comfortable. If you are also planning excursions, our guide to Hoi An beyond the Old Town is worth reading before you lock in fitting times, and the Hoi An destination guide covers the town itself.
How to judge fabric
Fabric is where most of the money and most of the deception sits.
Burn a thread. Ask for a few centimetres from the bolt and burn the end. Wool and silk smell like burning hair and leave a crumbly ash. Polyester and acrylic smell like burning plastic and melt into a hard shiny bead. This is a thirty-second test and a shop that objects has told you what you need to know.
Weigh it in your hand. Suiting cloth for Vietnam's climate should be light, but light and thin are not the same thing. Good tropical wool feels dry and springy. Cheap polyester blends feel slick and slightly cool.
Watch it drape. Hang a length over the edge of the table. Wool falls in soft rolling folds. Synthetic blends tend to crease into sharper, flatter angles and hold the crease.
Ignore the mill label. Selvedge markings and mill tags are trivially easy to add and are one of the most common misrepresentations in town. Judge the cloth, not the branding.
Match cloth to climate. If the suit will mostly be worn somewhere hot, lightweight wool, wool-linen or pure linen are the right answers. Linen creases, which is a feature, not a fault. A linen blend gives you a softer compromise at a lower price.
Jacket construction, the thing nobody asks about
This is the single most useful question you can ask, and very few travellers ask it: is this jacket fused, half-canvassed or full-canvassed?
- Fused means the front structure is glued to the outer cloth. It is fast and cheap, it is what you are getting at the budget tier, and after a few dry cleanings and a Vietnamese summer the glue can bubble and delaminate, at which point the lapel stops rolling properly and the chest loses shape.
- Half-canvassed means a stitched canvas through the chest and lapel with fusing lower down. This is the sensible compromise and appears at the upper end of the mid tier.
- Full-canvassed means a floating stitched canvas throughout. It moulds to you over time and is what the premium tier should be delivering.
If a shop cannot answer the question clearly, that is information.
The lining upsell
The common pattern is an attractive quote on the outer cloth followed by the cheapest available lining. Thin polyester lining traps heat, tears at the armhole under stress and pills quickly, and it is the layer that actually touches you. Ask to see and handle the lining swatch before you agree a price, ask what it is made of, and pay the modest upgrade to viscose, cupro or silk. Do the same for trouser pocketing and waistband curtain, which are the other places corners get cut invisibly.
Sizing and getting it home
Have your measurements taken in the underlayers you will actually wear, and bring the shoes you intend to wear with the trousers so the hem can be set at the right break. If you expect your weight to move, say so; a tailor can leave extra seam allowance, but only if asked at the start.
For shipping, DHL, FedEx and Vietnam Post EMS all operate out of Hoi An and Da Nang. Express couriers typically run five to eight business days to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, seven to ten to the UK, and six to nine to western Europe. EMS costs less and takes roughly twice as long. Ask for a rigid or semi-rigid garment box rather than a soft mailer, and photograph everything before it is packed. Import allowances have shifted in several markets in the past two years, so check your own country's current threshold rather than relying on an older figure.
What goes wrong, and how to prevent it
- You ordered too late. The most common failure by a wide margin. Order on arrival.
- You approved a garment you were unhappy with. Say what is wrong at the fitting, specifically and while pointing at it. Vietnamese tailoring shops are used to direct feedback and will usually remake rather than argue.
- You were taken there by a driver. Taxi and cyclo drivers who insist on a particular shop are usually earning commission, which is priced into your quote. Choose the shop yourself and travel there independently.
- You relied on a single photo. Photographs show the front. Most fit disputes are about the back and the shoulders. Bring images from three angles, plus a garment that fits.
- You skipped the written spec. Get the order written down: cloth, lining, button count, vent style, pocket style, price, and collection date. Photograph the docket.
- You paid in full up front. A deposit of around half is normal. The balance should be due at collection, after you have tried the garment on.
For how tailoring fits into a wider trip budget, see our Vietnam budget guide.
Limitations
This guide gives price bands rather than shop-specific quotes, and it deliberately names no tailors: quality in Hoi An is unstable at the shop level, staff move, and a recommendation that was accurate a year ago can mislead badly today. The figures are typical mid-2026 mid-market ranges gathered from published tailor price lists and traveller reports rather than from a systematic survey we conducted ourselves, and individual quotes vary widely with cloth choice, garment complexity, size and how busy the shop is. Dong conversions assume roughly 26,000 VND to the dollar and will drift. We have not verified current courier tariffs, which depend on weight, destination and season, nor the present import-duty thresholds in individual countries, which have changed recently in several markets. We also do not cover leather goods beyond shoes, alterations to garments bought elsewhere, or wedding-dress commissions, which follow a longer timeline than anything described here.