The Meaning Of Custom Tailoring

CUSTOM TAILORING

With retailer cutting back their slower-turning stocks of tailored clothing to bolster their cash flow, more stores than ever before are offering made-to-order clothes. And given the reduced selections and available sizes, more men are testing these waters. Because the price of a better designer or European hand-tailored, off-the-peg suit has, in some instances, surpassed that of one custom-made, the interest in bespoke clothing has increased. However, the first thing you must establish is to what degree the clothing you are about to order is genuinely custom-made.
The term “Custom-made,” when referring to tailored clothing is used so loosely today - particularly by those who have something to gain by its obfuscation – that it is now applied to almost any garment that has not been purchased off the rack. However, the criteria for judging whether a man’s tailored garment is authentically custom-made have changed little since the early part of this century. There produces must be observed if the product is to earn such a designation.
First, the individual parts must be cut from a paper pattern that has been created specifically for the wearer. In the old days, the tailor who measured the suit would cut the pattern immediately upon the client’s departure. This meant the wearer’s unique carriage and manner, elements that inform the garment’s character, were kept fresh in his mind’s eye. Second, all the work required to create the suit was to be executed on the premises where the measurements were taken. This insured authenticity and aesthetic consistency, and acted as a quality control. Finally, except for the straight seams of the trouser, all work was to be executed completely by hand.
The terminology presupposes that the material is of the highest caliber, the sewing thread of silk, the linings of fine silk or rayon Bamberg, and the buttons of genuine horn or a vegetable derivative. The entire process required at least two or three fittings to take the garment from its first to final stage. Any suit that went through these rigors was recognized for the Savile Row tailors who invented and refined this production process. The long-term advantage of having a suit made in this manner revolves around its original paper template. Once created, it can be adjusted to further perfect the next garment. Nothing controls the consistency of each subsequent suit’s fit and look more precisely than this finite individual pattern.
One step below custom-made is made-to-measure. Instead of a paper pattern being made expressly for the client, the manufacturer’s stock pattern being becomes the starting point. Various adjustments for fit and posture are incorporated into it to individualize the final garment. The coat is delivered to the store without buttonholes, allowing the shop’s fitter to position them correctly while the customer is wearing it. This technique for capturing a person’s fit works well for most men unless their posture or bone formation requires something more particular. How well it replicates the custom-made suit’s fit depends on the extent to which its base pattern can be manipulated to resemble an original pattern.
Since made-to-measure defines a process rather than the degree of craft, this product can vary widely in quality and cost. It can be made from a superior cloth or an inferior one, by hand or by machine. However, how closely it comes to matching the bespoke coat’s quality will depend on its ingredients and workmanship.
Last on the scale of individually cut clothing is something called a stock single. Too many suits represented today as custom-made are usually from this group. Though it doesn’t afford the same degree of customized fit as the made-to-measure, this creation in certainly a step up from ready-to-wear. Since a stock single is cut one at a time, it offers the wearer an opportunity to personalize a factory-produced suit. If you have an athletic build, say a forty-inch chest with a thirty-one-inch waist, the suit can be ordered with a smaller trouser and its jacket’s waist will be tapered accordingly. Or if your measurements indicate your jacket should be longer than a regular but shorter than a long, and, additionally, your trouser requires a longer rise, these adjustments can be made. However, under no circumstance should this be mistaken for anything other than what it is, and it is clearly not a custom-made suit.

The differences between the made-to-measure and stock single vary according to the manufacturer. Some makers permit various fitting adjustments on a stock single while others permit none at all. Today, a computer generates individual cutting instructions and a customer’s pattern is created and retained to record subsequent alterations. If the customer body reasonably approximates the stock pattern, the computer will provide a fit approximates the bespoke blueprint. However, if the customer requires significant adjustments, the computer-generated stock pattern will not measure up.
Most of the nuances that distinguish one top custom tailor from another are too esoteric to describe in mere words. Before engaging any tailor, you should ask to see a recent sample of his work, preferably something that is about to be collected by its owner. Unfortunately, inspecting the jacket’s cut or fit when it is not being worn by the body it was designed for won’t be of much benefit unless you are a tailor or bring a learned eye to such matters. Though its fabric, modeling, and detailing reflect the patron’s wishes and most of its tailoring craft is concealed beneath its linings or shell fabric, you can learn much by examining the buttonholes. The sensibility and execution of the buttonholes reflect the creator’s training and taste in a way that can be illuminating.
Examine the lapel buttonhole first. As the detail closest to the wearer’s face, it offers the most visible evidence of the tailor’s artistry. It is the last element of needlework to go into the garment before its final pressing. If its color, size, or placement is off, it can undo the forty or so hours of painstaking work invested in your garment. As founders of the woolen tailoring world, Savile Row tailors established the standards for high-class buttonhole decorum many years ago. Depending on where he apprenticed, each tailor on the Row may favor a different silhouette or style, but each jacket’s buttonholes are a consistent part of this legendary culture’s pedigree.
Creating a proper buttonhole is a dying art usually performed by trained women with excepting finger dexterity. The lapel buttonhole should be long enough (1”/ 1 1/8” ) to comfortably accommodate a flower, though you may never choose to wear one. There should be a keeper for the flower stem on the lapel’s underside. The buttonhole should be precisely angled on the same line as the slope of the lapel’s notch. If the coat has a peaked porting. If a flower were places in it, it would be framed by the lapel’s outer edges.
The buttonhole on the lapels and sleeves should be hand-sewn so skillfully that their individual stitches become hard to discern. Although there are sewing machines that try to simulate the look of a handmade buttonhole, legitimately custom-made clothes require that they be hand-sewn. Many tailors choose a machine-made buttonhole because their own hand-sewn buttonholes end up looking ragged, as if a dog had gnawed on them. A handmade buttonhole is clean on the both sides. When finished, the buttonhole should be supple to the touch.
Quite important is its color, which should disappear into the cloth. For example, a buttonhole on a black-and-white glen plaid suit should have an inconspicuous, medium gray tint. If I saw a color such as charcoal gray or even black, contrasting upon such a cloth, as is found in most middlebrow custom-tailored clothes, I would note the tailor’s lack of taste.
The jacket sleeve’s buttonholes should be aligned straight and close enough to one another so that the buttons appear to kiss. The distance from the edge of the jacket’s cuff to the middle of the first button should not exceed 1 1/8”. More than that, and they look as if they are floating on the sleeve and have abandoned their historical relationship to the cuff as its fastener.
If a tailor seems knowing about buttonholes, I would defer to his judgment in other matters. This is critical, since no matter how specifically you instruct any tailor, many aesthetic judgments concerning taste are going to be made by him in the course of his work with little input from you, and these are the ones that will ultimately infuse the clothing with a sense of class and character.



We remain with best regards,
your E-tailors at www.mycustomtailor.com

Custom Tailored Custom Clothing By Custom Tailor

Since the price of a suit constitutes most men’s single largest clothing outlay, unless you are confident of your ability to select the best one, I recommend that you prepare accordingly, Wearing something that is reasonably representative of what you are shopping for provides the salesman with a starting point and the fitter with a tailoring guide. If you are considering a different take on your usual habiliments, this same garment can also provide a basis for comparison.

Should you go to the store intending to make a purchase, you should bring a dress shirt whose fit satisfies you. The dress shirt is a key element in the suit-fitting process; its collar height and sleeve length inform the tailor how you expect those components of the jacket to fit. You should also bring along all the items you normally pack into your suit. If you wear a pocket square or an eyeglass case in your jacket, or keep a wallet in your back trouser pocket, your suit should be fitted to accommodate these items. The time invested in this preparation will minimize the probability that you will have to return to the store for an additional fitting after discovering that you bulging billfold makes your coat’s chest gap.

If shopping in a large store that offers a variety of suit styles and you do not have a relationship with any of its salespeople, spend a few minutes looking for one whose dressing style impresses you. Do not automatically accept the first sales associate to engage you unless you know exactly what you want and need him to act merely as an expediter. If you are looking for a high-fashion designer suit, the classically attired salesperson would not be my first choice to explain the nuances that distinguish an Armani three-button crepe suit from the latest Vestment confection.

Conversely, If you like to accessorize your more English-style suits with high-class furnishings, you might want to be attended to by someone whose taste demonstrates firsthand experience in such matters. The salesman who dresses as if he is interested in clothes usually regards his profession as something more than just an opportunity to bring home a regular paycheck. He prides himself in his taste and enjoys taking the extra effort to find something special. Ideally, in the course of your dialogue, he should be able to teach you something about how to dress better while assisting you with your decision-making.

FIT AND FABRIC


Compared to a decade ago, most men wear their clothes fuller in scale and lighter in weight. This means that today’s average suit jacket has slightly broader shoulders and a bit more length. Its pleated trousers are worn up on the natural waist with its fuller thighs tapering down to cuffed bottoms that break on the shoe. Much of this reapportionment is attributable to the high-fashion men’s design community’s search for a more modern yet comfortable vessel to replace the stuffy, boxlike structure of the conventional male business suit.

In the early stages of latest reconfiguration, the suit jacket’s dimensions were pushed outward to allow its softer and less padded shell to drape more fluidly from the wearer’s shoulders and around his torso. Textured, crepe-weave fabrics were introduced to enhance the sweater like cushiness of the more advanced designer Suitings. However, as the contemporary men’s suit started looking less like its old self and more like a piece of sportswear, men who required the articulation and dressiness of the more classically tailored ensemble began to make their preferences known.

The classic suit is returning, but like any garment caught up in the maelstrom of high fashion, it’s just not returning in quite the same form as when it left. While swinging back to its military roots, with enough shape and padding to recall its former prestige and purpose, men’s tailored clothing is now influenced by the more modern, drapey cloths. Previously, the only fabrics able to maintain such defined line and proper creases were the typical four-harness worsted from England and Italy. This is still the case. However, their tighter weaves and more substantial construction have now been made to feel soft and pliable. After you squeeze the fabric, the better cloths spring back without wrinkling. At the end of the day, a top-quality worsted wool suit still only needs to be hung out for a time to regain its pressed look.

This is not to suggest that all crepe like textured woolens or other soft high-twist cloths are inferior in quality or wear ability to the finer worsteds. Italy has created many exceptional fabrics that look sturdy but are light as feathers and fall as if tailored by gravity. It is true, however, that some less expensive, textured cloths will pull easier than the smoother worsteds and, if not tailored skillfully, will also not perform up to their potential. But the better, high-performance ones can be tailored by hand or by machine and still make you feel like a prince. However, if longevity is the objective, there is no substitute for the time-honored harder-finished worsteds. While they may not make you feel as languidly swathed, they will help a man convey a stature both confidently masculine and quietly measured.

...style and the man by Alan Flusser




We remain with best regards,
your E-tailors at www.mycustomtailor.com

Clothes Make The Man (part 3)

Last week we had started to look at how to choose a good tailor and I wish to go a little further into this.

As I had said earlier, the easiest way to choose the tailor is to look at how well the establishment decorates the display windows and how fastidiously the staff in the establishment dress. This does not mean that the staff in a good establishment should be dressed in a coat and tie. Weather in Thailand would not encourage this, but the staff and at least the person running a good establishment should be sensibly if not well dressed. This would reflect directly on the way the clients products are handled. When judging the display windows of the establishment, great attention should be afforded to the way the models are dressed. Colour coordination should be good in the clothes the mannequins are wearing and the styles should be up to date as well as sensible. Each establishment has its own particular way of dressing its models and this on the one hand reflects the kind of client the establishment is trying to attract and is attracting and as well on the other hand reflects on the dress sense of the establishment and its runners. This also tells us as to what to expect from the establishment in terms of styles, cuts, and designs.

And establishment that dresses its models in a myriad of styles, patterns and colours can be easily equated with one which will try to dress a client any which way possible just to make him drop his money there. A well run and professional establishment should always have its models well dressed and sensibly too. One should not feel overwhelmed by the many options and possibilities being impressed upon the client when he tries to get a feeling of what exactly he wants to get by looking at the displays.

One should also, and this is especially true of tailors in Thailand; beware of establishments that advertise ridiculous deals and fantastically low prices for their products. I am a tailor and I know that it is not possible to get 2 suits, 2 trousers, 6 shirts and god knows what else for something like twenty five dollars. Being so, firstly one has to call into question the honesty and integrity of such business, which advertise low rates and when it does come down to it, are unable to comply with the conditions that such establishments have mentioned in their own advertisements. I do sometimes wonder why the government does not do anything about this. Were it Europe these establishments would be sued into the ground.


Ironically by advertising such ridiculous and preposterous prices establishments that do take out such ads are also telling you what to expect from them. There is no free lunch as a famous economist once said and I am afraid this is truer than ever today. By telling us that a suit costs forty dollars the establishment that sells it for such a price also is inadvertently warning us about the quality and durability, hence value of such an item.

Were one to know that an airline is selling a plane ticket from any where in the world to anywhere in the world for fifty dollars, wouldn’t you be skeptical too and wouldn’t you try to find out what the small print says? So why not the same for such false advertisements? Frankly I would consider my time and peace of mind much more valuable than that. It is a shame that unwilling and unaware tourists do fall for such scams and this gives the country an undesired image. Such establishments should be given a wide berth.

Another thing that does bother me about tailors in Thailand is that they profess to have received various awards and trophies. Since such awards do not actually exist, where do these shops get them from? And who does give it to them? I really wonder.

Once the presentation criteria has been met in choosing the right tailor for your self, one should now try to get to know how well informed is the tailor who serves you.

Let us go into this in my next newsletter next week. We shall then discuss what is necessary to know by a tailor that you would be happy being served by and how to find that out.

We remain with best regards,
your E-tailors at www.mycustomtailor.com

Clothes Make The Man (part 2)

Last week we looked very generally, how the need to dress appropriately and the custom tailor came into being.

This week we will look into some criteria one should keep in mind when choosing a personal custom tailor.

The custom tailor, if he is of any good repute is also a sartorial advisor who does not feel it wrong to tell his client that he is ill dressed. In fact, if he is any good, he will consider it his duty to tell the client what he feels about the way his client is dressed. And why he feels so. It is my personal advise that when choosing a good tailor, one should beware of the tailor who agrees to any and every wish the client makes about the way he want his clothes made.

A very important point to be remembered here is that each tailor has his or her own style and personal idiosyncrasies which is reflected in the way he performs for the client. Visiting a custom tailor is very much like visiting a barber because the type of style suited (no pun intended) or should I say reflected by the tailor and his products may or may not suit the very individual style of dressing that the client has. The same way that all customers do not like the haircut given by one barber . that is why each person prefers to use the same barber all the time, hating to change.

One of the easiest ways to judge if a custom tailor is any good is to look at the way he or she is dressed and the way he or she dresses his display windows. The way he or she runs his establishment and displays his products (fabrics, styles etc.) also will be reflected in the way he or she tailors for the client.

A sloppily dressed tailor cannot be expected much of as can be understood why. Neither can one expect much from an unkempt or crowded store or storefront.

Also, I personally would not expect much from a custom tailor, and this is specially the case in thailand; who gives his establishment the name of a large off the rack production company like Versace or Hugo Boss or Armani and the like. This is because, firstly, in giving the name of his establishment a name akin to one of the designer houses (with a slight twist to the original name to stay on the right side of the law), his personal ethics and self-respect comes into question. Secondly in doing so, I feel he is telling the world that he does not have his own reputation but has to rely on the reputation of the more well known establishments to make a living (feels like I am describing a parasite here). Thirdly, in using a parasitised name, I feel that he is expecting his potential clients to be fooled into thinking that they are actually visiting a designer establishment. Fourthly, he is ,I feel trying to encourage his clients to fool people that the client comes into contact with , that he (the client) is wearing an outfit by the more well known makers of garments. Sort of like the kettle trying to convince the pot to call itself black! In fact, such establishments go to the extent of asking the manufacturers of fabrics to include designer names, with a twist of course, to the selvedge of the fabrics they supply to convince the client that either he is getting more than his money’s worth or has to pay more for choosing that particular fabric for his suits etc.


In Thailand, a lot of the custom tailors also like to use fabrics with the word England or Italy etc. written in the selvedges of the materials for the said purpose of trying to convince clients about the truth of something that is false.

Such custom tailors I think should be made aware of their ill thought out strategy. The easiest way would be to avoid their establishment. For not only do they bring ill repute to their own establishments but also bring into question the reputation and ethical values of other more honest and worthy tailors.

I seem to have gone into a diatribe about custom tailors in Thailand in particular but I am sure the reader would forgive me of this indiscretion. I do feel quite strongly about such antics as those displayed by some of my brothers in trade and wish there was a better way to discourage them.

Apparently I have reached my allocated space already and wish to continue looking further into what it takes to find a good custom tailor.

Next week, we will look further into how to choose a good custom tailor and we will also look into how good custom tailor makes us look good and feel good about the way we look.

We remain with best regards,
your E-tailors at www.mycustomtailor.com

Clothes Make The Man

In the beginning there was the word and then were created the heavens and the earth and the wind and the waters and the birds and the animals. And then, was created what we consider the most perfect of all gods’ creatures’…man.

Since then man has been a slave of the need to cover. He covers his hearth with a roof his head with a hat and his self with clothing. But over time the real reason for protecting himself from the elements has given way to the need to flaunt. Sometimes to flaunt his wealth and sometimes to flaunt his sexuality. The latter need, much like the peacock with his feathers and the rooster with his comb; has more than anything else, been reflected in what he wears.

This has of course been a boon to the designers and manufacturers of clothing since who knows when.

Because of this need has arisen a cornucopia of makers of the various types of physical covers that we see in the form of suits, dresses, robes and the like worn by the people of our world.

To fulfill the demand has arisen massive clothing concerns to serve all the different walks of life. In fact they are so pervasive that they command an enviable share of any nation’s economy.

There are the designers without whose creations the rich and the famous would not considered themselves adorned and there are the tiny hole in the wall establishments catering to a more economically challenged section of society. In between is a gamut of other manufacturers who serve the needs of the middle classes with myriad tastes and requirements. Although, in trying to satisfy the needs and tastes of many, I feel, they are able to satisfy only the few. I must admit, that I do find the ready to wear off the rack productions quite akin to fast food that does serve a need but not a purpose. In this case the purpose being not only to be covered but also to have an individual style and statement, (the need to flaunt), which should also be in step with the circumstances one’s time.


The need to clothe oneself has mutated to the need to clothe oneself according to the times and situations which one faces from day to day. It is considered inappropriate to dress in fatigues or shorts at business meetings and inappropriate to dress in a tuxido when at a backyard barbeque, for example.

This in itself has given rise to a host of sartorial advisers whom people from the top echelons of business and politics to the middle managers and anyone else who likes to be considered well dressed; consult.

The only type of establishment exclusively geared towards creating an individual look and being at the same time appropriate as well as comfortable to wear for each person is the custom tailor.

In times past when it could be easily afforded, such individual service was easily accessible to most of society and in fact is even now accessible in some of the still developing societies of the world. This of course cannot be said for the developed societies where the cost of labour has made it almost unavailable to people in general, who cannot sensibly afford to splash out a sizeable part of their income to be dressed in the most perfect way that the time dictates.

Seville row in the U.K. is considered one of the best places to get this kind of exclusive service and attention….at a price!

In Thailand too it is possible to get a very high level of such a service. Especially since the standard of living being much lower than the developed world, it can be had more easily and affordably.

Next week we will discuss the inner workings of the custom tailor in general and tailors in Thailand in particular. We will also be discussing what one should and what one should not expect when visiting such and establishment.

We remain with best regards,
your E-tailors at www.mycustomtailor.com