Building Alfaiate: the software behind a made-to-measure suit shop

A made-to-measure suit isn't a product sitting on a shelf. Each one is a design, a set of measurements and a job for the workshop, and the sale only works if the customer can see what they're buying. That's why Suitmade runs on its own software, Alfaiate, which is Portuguese for "tailor".

Seeing the suit before it exists

The part customers see is the Atelier, the suit builder on suitmade.eu. Pick double-breasted, peak lapels and Prince of Wales check, and the suit on screen changes to match, on one of three models, from the front or the back.

The Suitmade suit builder: a double-breasted, peak-lapel suit in Prince of Wales check drawn on a model, with jacket options on the left and the order summary on the right — The Atelier builder on suitmade.eu, drawing the suit in the chosen cloth

There's no 3D engine behind it. Each part of the garment is a layer of artwork for each model and view. The chosen cloth is tinted into each zone of the garment on a canvas, and a final overlay adds folds and shading so the fabric sits naturally instead of looking flat.

Every option has its own picture, so choosing a lapel or a vent is a visual decision, not a word in a dropdown. A fabric preview shows each cloth up close with its mill, weight and composition, and the price updates as you go.

The jacket options in the suit builder, with pictures for each jacket type and lapel style — Every option has its own picture, and the suit updates as you choose

Freezing the order

After the design come measurements and fit preferences, then payment through Stripe. Measurements are saved as profiles, and every change creates a new version, so nothing a customer entered before is lost.

At checkout, the design, measurements and price are frozen into the order. Products and prices can change later without touching anything a customer has already bought, and the workshop always sees exactly what was ordered.

A sheet the workshop can sew from

In the admin, the team reviews each order, approves it and turns it into a production job. The job sheet is the one page that matters in the workshop: the customer's note, the garment, every style choice, each body measurement and the fit preferences, ready to print.

A printable production sheet with the customer note, garment, style choices and every body measurement, using invented data — A production job sheet, with invented data

Jobs are assigned, prioritised and given due dates, and move through quality control to shipping. If something doesn't fit after delivery, the customer reports it from their account and the team approves an alteration or a remake.

Diagram of an order's journey, five steps on suitmade.eu followed by review, job sheet, production, quality control and shipping in the admin, plus fabric stock and how the builder draws a suit — From a click to a finished suit

Cloth is stock

A suit shop is also a fabric warehouse, so stock is part of the platform. Fabric is reserved for each order, so the available amount is always true, and the admin flags low stock, suggests reorders and reports on which cloths sell and which don't.

How it was made

I designed Alfaiate and wrote its planning documents first: the data model, API specification, business rules, roles, customer flow and build order. A developer then built most of it with me, phase by phase, on Next.js, NestJS and PostgreSQL. The first commit was on 3 April 2026, the full first build landed at the end of April, and the Atelier builder followed in July.

You can try the builder yourself at suitmade.eu.

About the screenshots

The store screenshots are of the live suitmade.eu. The admin screenshots come from a copy of the admin app fed with invented orders and customers.