Frederick Sholte

[alden]

Uppercase

The information I possess comes from conversations with various SR tailors gathered over decades. I must confess that the recollections of tailors who lived in the era might be tainted.

The last of the Scholte tailors passed away a few years ago. He was 92 years old when I met him at James & James. We had a blue PoW suit of Windsors to look at that day. We did not talk at all about AS, but about Windsor, his size, the cloth, Scholte etc. I kick myself for not doing an in depth interview, but who would have predicted the resurgence of interest in bespoke we are living today?

As mentioned in the previous post, the only other scholarly research I can offer is personal experience with Scholte’s, Sheppard’s and AS’s work (from the 80s.) I have not worn or touched any of the more recent AS clothes though I have seen the work on others.

It is probably true of any tailoring house and something that does not wind up in their press releases, that every cutter has his version of the house’s theme. If you look at the work of dozens of past AS cutters and tailors, you will see a good deal of artistic license and interpretation at play. There were some brilliant riffs and some less happy ones played on the old AS horn over the years.

Scholte was not the kind of man to accept individual expressions from tailors. It was his way or else. And the early decades of the last century were probably not as freewheeling for craftsmen or tradesman as it is today. Today tailors who have a hankering for self employment hang their shingle at the drop of a hat. So I do see a logic for Anderson leaving Scholte.

Mr. A and Mr. S clearly took a good deal of what they learned from Scholte when they opened their practice. If you could see the clothes made by both houses, side by side, you would not even question that fact. And the date of Scholte’s invention of drape is irrelevant to the extent that one is comparing clothes made in the same time period, in this case, the early 1930s and within years of each other (between ’32 and ’36.)

The buttons on the Valentino suit look like the plastic (polyester) ones Scholte and AS used. The shoulder however looks a bit constructed and the peak lapel has a sharp point as opposed to the more rounded SR point. It is very hard to make a judgment based on a photo like this. I agree it must be very handsome.

Keep up the research and let us know what you find

Cheers

Michael

[andreybokhanko]

Gentlemen,

First of all, let me say that this is a fascinating discussion!

Secondly, let me present my modest addition to the pile of sources collected. This is an extract from James Sherwood's "The London Cut" book. Sorry for horrible quality; but I don't have a scanner...

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/6229/p1090632c.jpg
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8859/p1090633f.jpg

Mostly it reiterates what is already written before; but there are a few new tidbits, too. For example, on Mr Sheppard's whereabouts.

Andrey

[marcelo]

Let's refer to the Duke: he writes that Scholte refused to cut a coat for Fruity Metcalfe, an officer, who wanted " wider shoulders and a narrower waist". This sort of exaggerated silhouette, which is still bespoke today as a 'Scholte' silhouette, is indeed a sin, and does not represent what Scholte made nor his philosophy whatsoever.

Again, the Duke writes that Scholte had "rigid standards concerning the perfect balance of proportions between shoulders and waist in the cut of a coat to clothe a masculine torso".

This perhaps explains why Esquire sometimes referred to the “drape suit” as “the English drape suit” in the thirties, so as to distinguish it from the American interpretation of the drape suit. The American interpretation of the drape, as you suggest, seems to have overemphasized the proportions Scholte had established. Douglas Fairbanks’ coat seems to exemplify a conspicuous faux Scholte.




This excerpt from the Esquire deals with the “English drape suit” and its American counterpart (disregard the first two columns in the first image):





I wonder whether the so-called American interpretation of the drape was easier to offer as a RTW garment. Any thoughts?

[marcelo]

Here is another account of Scholte’s place in the history of tailoring techniques. I do not know if Fred Astaire’s photo, used to illustrate the article, is a reliable indication that the coat at issue was tailored by Scholte himself. Was Scholte trained at HP's?



Men’s Coats, by Vittoria de Buzzaccarini


Does anybody have a copy of this issue of Esquire (Oct. 1987)

The article “Fashion Statement: The Shape of the Suit to Come”, by B. Boyer, deals with the American interpretation of the drape. I haven’t been able, however, to find and read the article.

[schneidergott]

This is an article I found in an old T&C magazine, just can't remember the exact year it was from. I think it was in a 60's edition:




SG

[storeynicholas]

Re-reading page 147 of the Duke's "A Family Album" raises an interesting point because Davies & Son claim that their Hanover Street shop had a royal fitting room reserved for George V; whereas, the Duke says that his father never went to shops. This might be explained away on the basis that relations between father and son were not close - but Davies & Son held royal warrants for both of them. This suggests that the Duke attended upon Scholte but not Davies & Son and that George V broke his usual rule and attended upon the Hanover Street shop. Over this there was rumoured to have been discreet 'accommodation' (a la Rosa Lewis) for favoured customers. Might this suggest that George V's apple did not fall far from his own father's tree?
NJS

[storeynicholas]

Marcelo,
My understanding is that Scholte was apprenticed to Johns & Pegg the (former) military tailors. They and James & James (to whom Scholte sold out), are now, by one of life's coincidences, both subsumed in Davies & Son. As Michael Alden mentions, it is a shame that he did not interview the elderly Scholte-trained cutter at James & James. I cannot remember, off hand, when Davies & Sons bought the name but I certainly recall, from the mid-1980s, a very, very old and venerable cutter in the former Davies & Son shop at 32 Old Burlington Street (A&S's shop now - another coincidence!). All that I knew about him was that he still worked only in the mornings and then, come what may, went off to a leisurely lunch at Wheelers. Apparently, he had no future marketing strategy. Davies & Son also sometimes used a very old tailor; especially for morning and evening dress coats and he made these things for me. I never met him and all that I know of his identity (from the ticket on the sleeve), was that he was called Fred. The midnight blue dress coat was to have a dark blue silk velvet collar. When it was made, there was a difficulty in getting silk velvet and I idly suggested that they use cotton instead - but Fred evidently wasn't having that on a coat made by him and so, at the final fitting, there it was, complete with very fine blue silk velvet. The cutter told me that Fred had thriftily saved a piece for the collar on a final overcoat for himself but could just spare this piece. Diverting somewhat from the thread and relating over to other threads where the increasing abuse of the term 'bespoke' is discussed, I suggest that the spirit and the reality is not just in the name we give this work; it is in the skills and the pride and the refusal to compromise in producing first rate work that embraces the (sometimes astonishing) specificity of customers, all according to standards of training that, somehow, do survive and continue to be passed on in a very stubborn oasis.
NJS

[uppercase]

This photo and article on Scholte are very interesting. He looks like a tough minded character.

[schneidergott]

Other than I thought, the article I posted is not from the 60's, but is from a February 1949 Tailor & Cutter issue!
My apologies to those I have given false information...

[uppercase]

Is Scholte smoking a cigar in that picture?

[schneidergott]

Is Scholte smoking a cigar in that picture?

Yes!

[mhampton]

I DO have a copy of the Boyer Esquire article you mention (1987 The Shape Of Suits To Come - although it appears to have come and gone in RTW). The photos contain examples of Luciano Barbera, Garrick Anderson and Alan Flusser. They are quite nice and do not scream 1987 too terribly; they hold up nicely but are RTW garments.

[Greger]

Read somewhere that the Sholte Drape was to make the corpulent look more athletic. Would like to see some pictures to bear that out.

[Etutee]

Uppercase or who else are interested in Scholte's clients. One of the very few celebrities permitted to Scholte was the British song and dance man Jack Buchanan. You can see him with Fred Astaire in movie Bandwagon. Now, when exactly Jack Buchanan was client of Scholte no one knows for sure. The best guess would be in between the wars. I will try to find more info on Jack's clothes.

BTW There is no record of Fred Astaire ever going to Scholte nor does the cut of suits ever look anything like Scholte's. He tried using Hawes and Curtis but was declined. Often people incorrectly attribute this to Fred visiting Scholte. Also, bear in mind that when we speak of Scholte's clothes we cannot necessarily go by Duke of Windsor’s clothes (as a median) because they were highly customized for him, which IS the true purpose of bespoke anyways and he was not an average client, even at Scholte. So to equate his clothes as the "generic" Scholte's cut or style usually will lead to erroneous comparisons.

The only possible thing you can go by is the quality of construction used if the garments are physically inspected. This you can assume for sure that garments made for DOW were supposedly top of the line work from Scholte's shop. Now, were all garments made of that quality level?… that is almost impossible to answer correctly without closely inspecting Duke's garments next to not so famous clients.

There is a lot of misinformation in popular books on menswear. Mostly, they write about same things over and over with slight variations (especially on DOW). If you truly want to learn about Scholte's / Drape cut the best bet is to try Trade / technical publications like Tailor and Cutter (or other written for tailors) from 1920s to 1940s. Usually the ones towards 20s will be more acuurate on this than later. Sadly, they are often not an easy read and require a perliminary understanding of patternmaking.

[storeynicholas]

According to Michael Marshall's biography of Jack Buchanan (Top Hat and Tails The Story of Jack Buchanan, Elm Tree Books, 1978) which also has an interest that extends into his substantive achievements, JB's suits were made by Hawes & Curtis and his shoes by John Lobb. I too have seen references to JB having been a Scholte client and, although this is quite likely, I have so far drawn a blank on tracing the Scholte records. Might I just also mention that Jack Buchanan was a little more than just 'a song and dance man'? He built and owned The Leicester Square Theatre, which occupied the southern side of Leicester Square until it became the Odeon West End; he managed the Garrick Theatre for many years and he funded John Logie Baird in his pioneering work in the development of television; besides enjoying a reputation for generosity and helpfulness, second to none in his profession and running his own film production company.
NJS