What is HAND MADE?

[shredder]

Having seen Giorgio Armani's HAND MADE TO MEASURE advert on the front page of the FT today, two questions came to mind. First, isn't that Sartoriani's usual spot? Then, what does 'hand made' mean?

'Hand assembled' or 'hand finished' may give an impression of being somewhat vague but in fact conveys a much more precise description of the process with respect to identifying the portion of the transformational process where human hands were actively and directly involved.

'Hand made' can evoke a seemingly definitive impression of how the product came to be. However, in reality, it is a rather vague description that is likely to be wide open to abuse. It sort of runs parallel to the other discussion about a new term for 'bespoke': what is 'hand made' with respect to garments?

[Cary Grant]

The terms "hand made" and "bespoke" interchangeably have ben completely co-opted by marketing to mean something very diffreent than what true bespoke.

There's one suit manufacturer using the phrase "hand finished" when all they do is add pic-sticthing on the lapels... with a hand-operated machine.

[storeynicholas]

Is that 'co-opted' - or 'corrupted'? It's not the twisting, other-meaning-yarn-spinning-designing-marketeers who are, primarily to blame: they are just taking easy advantage of ignorance in the customers, who are, increasingly, deplorably educated; to an ever-decreasing standard of 'excellence'. Auctioneers used to say: "Going, going, gone.' We are now at the tertiary stage - you know, the stage that Brummell reached. Insanity. A divorced friend of mine is giving his children (none too bright by his accounts) an education that means that, although his earnings are easily in the top 10% of professional earnings, in the UK, his post-tax income is miserable - after you also take off payments to an intellectually brilliant but lazy ex-wife; the mortgage on their former matrimonial home and his current living expenses, he has a disposable income near that which I had 20 years ago. Not many people will make that kind of sacrifice for their children and so the next generation is moving into a slough of despond; engendered by the designers, as they sail around in their yachts. Communist? Me? Certainly not. Tempted? Sometimes - because, at least communism promoted excellence. Current trends promote nothing but: self and cash, by peddling crap to idiotic sheep - come on, Simon, tell us about it - as well all the nice incentives for using phrases; such as 'until now.'....
NJS.

[Cary Grant]

As a marketer myself, I'm not blaming my peers

And co-opted/currupted. I'd say the prior begat the latter.

[Cary Grant]

at least communism promoted excellence.

In word only. Commuist consumer products in the 60's and 70's were dismally bad, shoddy things.

[Merc]

Communist? Me? Certainly not. Tempted? Sometimes - because, at least communism promoted excellence. Current trends promote nothing but: self and cash, by peddling crap to idiotic sheep - come on, Simon, tell us about it - as well all the nice incentives for using phrases; such as 'until now.'....
NJS.

Communism- excellence??? i'm not a political person, but i'm still laughing at that one. I continually hear my in-laws talk about how crappy clothing, cars, TV's, cameras, etc all were in the soviet union even though they were comparatively well off (for there). Sometimes Didnt matter what size you were, you took what size you could get

Although i do agree that 'handmade' has now become a frequently meaningless term. As an analog: I have even been in places that say "hand scooped" ice cream. pretty funny actually.

[storeynicholas]

I said 'communism promoted excellence'; I did not say that it 'provided excellent goods'. The excellence that I meant is evident from the Soviet Union's sportsmen and women and some of its artists. The fact that they yearned to defect (some did defect) because there was little freedom and nothing to spend their money on, is beside the point. My main point was that the system tried to remove the stinking incentive of the trough - the unacceptable face of capitalism. All too suddenly and quickly restored, the trough system in Russia has proved the springboard for corruption and gangsterism on a gigantic scale, with money laundering all over the world; turning places such as Cyprus into blood money counting houses. Moreover, the corruption there is tainting the world. All else aside, he Russian mafia's ready-money demands ready goods and part of the Big Push against bespoke derives from the desire of those too willing to fumble in the greasy till and bow and scrape to satisfy this growing, ignominious demand and the desire for this demand is being spread like a plague through the cheap-jack media. This factor combines disastrously with the lowering of educational standards in the UK, which has produced a population dominated by ignoramuses - although everyone has a degree - even the bog-cleaners. That society is even governed by them. The Iron Curtain went up too quickly and came down too suddenly. I don't mind provoking laughter - I'd be happy to be able to make a living by just standing there (Tommy Cooper did) - but please try to see beyond the mere shop window.
NJS

[storeynicholas]

As an analog: I have even been in places that say "hand scooped" ice cream. pretty funny actually.

If you went there merely to be amused, I am sure that you deserve applause - but if you went there for the ice cream, one wonders why you stayed...
NJS

[Simon A]

Hi NJS

Fancy feeding sheep on that nasty stuff; sounds like animal abuse to me Let them eat grass, I say.

I work in the Republic of Georgia, where the Communists merrily dismantled a thriving 3000 year old textile industry and replaced it with dark satanic mills, so to speak. Now even they lie dormant..

The Soviet-era products were lousy because the ruling class thought that bureacrats were better able to make decisions for the consumer than the customer, or the engineers, manufacturers, or artisans serving the customer. How would we like the Government telling us that Prince of Wales Check is a reactionary bourgeois artifact of a crumbling feudal system, and we should write a self-criticism for placing such an order at the commisary, and that we should wear a practical and cheap government-pattern tracksuit 7 days a week, and be grateful that we have clothes on our back? (The Georgians didn't like it either, and during the Soviet era became notorious smugglers of quality garments from the West via the Black Sea )

The RTW "brand managers" have one purpose only, to make money, which they do by selling clothing in quickly-dated styles made from relatively fragile textiles, and investing a fortune in frothy marketing hype.

Our tailors also don't go to work out of the goodness of their hearts; as Adam Smith said" “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest”. Likewise our suits...by introducing our friends and family members to the entertainment and satisfaction yielded by having clothes made for us, then this interesting traditional craft will survive and thrive.

[Costi]

Communist? Me? Certainly not. Tempted? Sometimes - because, at least communism promoted excellence.

There was a joke in communist Romania, a quarter of a century ago. It went like this:
Q: What is plastic blue cube ?
A: An iron red ball made in Romania.

The kind of excellence in sports, science etc. that managed to break through the Iron Curtain was hardly due to the system's promoting excellence, but rather proof that the strive for excellence, genius and talent always find a way to flourish against the worst circumstances.

NJS, we mustn't forget that intellectual elites were literally massacrated all over Eastern Europen in the late forties and early fifties, as enemies of the system. The later elites were all obedient, or underground and completely unknown. Even in theory, the system declared itself openly against any form of elitism and the only kind of excellence accepted and acclaimed was in complying with the communist party's instructions and dogma. Countries were ruled not by competent professionals, but by uneducated party activists, exactly as Simon wrote. Ceausescu was a shoemaker apprentice with no more education than primary school (4th grade) and he was president, so you can imagine what he understood about excellence, how he felt about it and how interested he was in promoting it.
If you are talking about utopic communism, we must be aware it was never ever put into practice, anywhere in the world (although half of it was communist 20 years ago), so it proved entirely impossible.
I am not so pesimistic about the future of the World, all societies have their internal balance mechanisms that always come into play when the time is ripe. For the mere sake of the intellectual exercise, do you think ANYTHING at all is better today than it was 50 years ago in the World?

[Merc]

As an analog: I have even been in places that say "hand scooped" ice cream. pretty funny actually.

If you went there merely to be amused, I am sure that you deserve applause - but if you went there for the ice cream, one wonders why you stayed...
NJS

no - i live in NYC where one walks by tons of stuff with signs outside ---ive walked by these places. im not much of an ice cream eater in the first place

[storeynicholas]

Costi - I have bitten off more than I can chew on this one I think that I did mean utopian communism - but I guess that the whole point of that is that it cannot actually exist (at least in the developed world) - so that part of my argument becomes a confused and mangled mess. On a lighter note, I learned recently that Sir Tomas More's Utopia was actually based on a real community - just down the coast from here - at Cabo Frio.

Merc - just joking.
NJS

[Greger]

Hand made means many things, from a little to a lot. In the 60s and 70s the best store bought jackets had hand made button holes, hand padded lapels and so on, but they were not bespoke tailoring, even thought they used some bespoke tailoring methods of construction. Today, how many bespoke tailors use pad stitching machines and other shortcuts? Todays machinery is increditble what they can do. But a hundred years ago the plain sewing machine was used by some, but other tailors wouldn't use them because they thought the quaility was less so not to own a time saving machine. Today the old sewing machine is considered fine by most and customers buy those suits. The old tailors, who wouldn't use a sewing machine, their arguments still stand (do you know what their arguments are?), even though they themselves are in the grave. And then there is fuse; the new stuff is better. Should it be used? if so, when and where? And the tailors themselves are finding the correct goods is harder to find. Some merchants don't even know about silk button hole twist, what they sell is platsic. Plastic threads are showing up in some of the canvases.

Capitlalizm does not equate greed. Greed shows up in everything. In fact, greed runs communism, or the communist leaders wouldn't have sent most of the men to their deaths up north. There are plenty of Capitlalist who went bankrupt trying to make the best products. The reason why name brands are big in America is marketing and there are so many things to buy. What is not important to you means you put the lest amount of money there and what is important is where you drop the large sums. In the old days there wasn't much to buy and crafts men were competing against each other. The old tailors sewed dead straight, or the customers took there money else where. Today how many tailors, with a thimble and needle, can sew dead straight, get the right thread tension and be as fast as was required back then? Are you willing to pay for it? If not, then $12 jeans are fine sometimes.

[Merc]

Hand made means many things, from a little to a lot. In the 60s and 70s the best store bought jackets had hand made button holes, hand padded lapels and so on, but they were not bespoke tailoring, even thought they used some bespoke tailoring methods of construction. Today, how many bespoke tailors use pad stitching machines and other shortcuts? Todays machinery is increditble what they can do.

Funny...even on what is supposedly bespoke, one can take short cuts.
Although this is not an example of sewing/manufacture technique, here is a short cut i received:
i had a bespoke suit made earlier in the year (with someone i hadn't used before). my fitter was the cutter and i really received the full bespoke process on the jacket, with a first raw/baste fitting, then two more before it was complete. it came out great.

But, the trousers really were off a stock pattern and didnt really fit that well. i could have gotten the same thing by sending my waist, inseam, and seat measurements to a factory via email, (along with a stock riser length).

Of course the jacket is a lot tougher and generally needs more work. which is why they 'simplified' the trousers

[Greger]

There are certainly different degrees of bespoke. Some tailors use premade canvases. There cheap and a few changes for fitting. There are methods of sewing a jacket that requires very little hand sewing. These should reflect in the price. No doubt I like all the bells and whisles, but there are reasons sometimes to go the cheaper route. So to say, a quick coat. Generally a blazer would be a quick coat, at least quicker than a suit coat, but some people like their blazers with all the details of a suit coat.

Trousers have there own fitting problems. Whether you use a system to draw a pattern or a stock pattern (which maybe very close) you still have to consider where the lines really belong. A stock pattern is average. A system with the customers measurements will produce average for those measurements or create problems. Through experience the best cutters use there eyes and adapt the pattern from the years of experience. In other words, trial and error, or somebody looking over the shoulder for years and years. The seat measurement is always interesting. A 40" measurement means what? Does the seat jut out so the hips are narrower? And how much. Is it the other way? The stock is average and the system gives average, but a little closer. Now it is a the cutters eye that decides whether most goes to the sides or the seat, which brings up some other problems. Some systems are a little better than others at giving a better crooked or straightness to fit the seat and how wide should the darts be. Attitude changes the cut, and many other things. The best cutters see much and know what to do with the knowledge and make changes before cutting and has the smallest changes at the fittings. And there are varing degrees of fitting skills, knowledge and different ideas of how to fit.