Good shirtmaker in UK

"The brute covers himself, the rich man and the fop adorn themselves, the elegant man dresses!"

-Honore de Balzac

alden
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Tue Mar 12, 2013 5:13 pm

I believe that the above is wrong.
Julian

May very well be wrong and maybe they are using a different machine. The one I saw at the factory prints out a paper pattern that looks so much like a hand drawn one you could probably print 50 pound notes with it. :D So what came first the pattern or the egg? In the example I described, "my" paper pattern was conceived and printed out from data input into the computer. And it would have been ready to send out to a maker to display to the customer. It might very well be that the reverse is the case, that the hand drawn pattern is scanned into the computer. The only way to know would be to ask the shirtmaker to draw the pattern, rock of eye, in front of you. Most craftsmen would be happy to do so.

What amazes me in this discussion is that fact that some of you allow and accept the presence of CAD/CAM in a supposedly handmade, traditional craft at all? Need I really say more? :shock: Point, game, match... :D

Cheers
NJS

Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:47 pm

I always thought that I was technologically deficient. Now I think that I should be glad; because I don't even know what a CADCAM is. :D
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culverwood
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Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:34 am

What amazes me in this discussion is that fact that some of you allow and accept the presence of CAD/CAM in a supposedly handmade, traditional craft at all?
I have two quibbles with this. Firstly I am looking for a great fit when buying a shirt the methodology of making it does not matter to me neither does unnecessary hand-work. Secondly is shirtmaking a traditional craft, why should we ignore the 21st or even the 20th century and behave like those at the Petit Trianon?
yialabis
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Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:35 pm

Firstly I am looking for a great fit when buying a shirt the methodology of making it does not matter to me neither does unnecessary hand-work.
Absolutely !!! It can be good whithout being a product of the process of bespoke shirtmaking , I agree to that !
why should we ignore the 21st or even the 20th century and behave like those at the Petit Trianon?
We shouldn't ... I could not agree more !! There is no should involved at all here !!! Everyone can choose of what kind of a relationship they want to have with new technology, to what extend and in which part of their lives! I choose to work in a process of a relationship with a craftsman that nows me (from what I do , to the extra space I need under the arm and shoulder blade becouse I drive a motorbike ) , I can not explain certain things to a machine nor can I explain them (and thi is only me ) to someone who will explain it to the machine !! This is not for everyone , and I do not say this in a snobbish manner , it is a fact, that the true Bespoke process is for certain people who believe in this exact process and have fun most of all in practising it !

Vassilis
Rowly
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Wed Mar 13, 2013 7:40 pm

Firstly I am looking for a great fit when buying a shirt the methodology of making it does not matter to me neither does unnecessary hand-work.
Absolutely !!! It can be good whithout being a product of the process of bespoke shirtmaking , I agree to that !
----- and I do not say this in a snobbish manner , it is a fact, that the true Bespoke process is for certain people who believe in this exact process and have fun most of all in practising it !

Vassilis
I agree completely with this. The same applies to Jackets and suits. I am lucky enough to have some Rtw. outfits fit me so well that they might have been bespoke. But to me, they are sterile and lack the personality and character of the organic results of the true bespoke process. The Human touch born out of and nurtured by the most wholesome of human collaboration. Practising this process is a pure pleasure for me. The journey is as much fun as the destination. This is the antithesis of snobbery. Well said Vassilis!
bond_and_beyond
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Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:28 am

alden wrote:
I believe that the above is wrong.
Julian

May very well be wrong and maybe they are using a different machine. The one I saw at the factory prints out a paper pattern that looks so much like a hand drawn one you could probably print 50 pound notes with it. :D So what came first the pattern or the egg? In the example I described, "my" paper pattern was conceived and printed out from data input into the computer. And it would have been ready to send out to a maker to display to the customer. It might very well be that the reverse is the case, that the hand drawn pattern is scanned into the computer. The only way to know would be to ask the shirtmaker to draw the pattern, rock of eye, in front of you. Most craftsmen would be happy to do so.

What amazes me in this discussion is that fact that some of you allow and accept the presence of CAD/CAM in a supposedly handmade, traditional craft at all? Need I really say more? :shock: Point, game, match... :D

Cheers
Just to clarify here: With T&A they first make a paper pattern (David Gale takes measurements and notes things like sloping shoulder etc (for example that I had one shoulder "pulling more than the other)). This paper pattern is then scanned into a computer, and re-printed in the factory for the actual cutting. They can then make small adjustments like moving the individual panels (such as the shoulder panel) around. In my experience MTM cannot do this (there it is only collar size, chest size, sleeve length etc that can be adjusted).

Even though I know you all think Permanent Style is an "advertising blog" that should be scorned, Simon Crompton's posts on how "bespoke" at T&A works is in my experience accurate. I would suggest reading those to learn how this works at T&A (even if it is an "advertising blog" doesn't mean that it can't provide a good description of a process).

The relevant post from his blog is here: http://www.permanentstyle.co.uk/2009/12 ... hirts.html

It answers most of the questions raised in this thread about T&A I think.

BB
NJS

Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:33 pm

Isn't the real point here that, traditionally, if one walks into a bespoke shirtmaker and is measured by the 'cutter', one expects (and most would believe) him to make the pattern and cut the shirt? Some now find it perfectly acceptable that, without express disclosure to the customer, the 'cutter' just makes the template pattern, which is then sent to a factory, in Mummersetshire, where an unknown functionary duplicates the pattern through a computer and then the same (or another) unknown functionary - cuts the shirt? Is this acceptable or not for stuff that is sold as 'true bespoke'? That is the question. There is certainly an argument that the actual cloth cutter should, at least, have met the customer!

It goes without saying that, generally speaking, all the assembly and sewing has, in relation to London shirtmakers, for many decades, been undertaken (whether by hand or machine), by out-workers and there is no real point in discussing that aspect, except to compare it with certain continental models, as a counsel of perfection.

The diminution in the level of individual and personal service that we can perceive in action in factory-made 'bespoke' shirts is thrust upon us in relation to everything nowadays; from banking; through grocery shopping to bespoke clothing. Once upon a time, you'd open a bank account and meet the manager and he would deal with all important issues for each customer; now 'personal banking' involves telephoning a 'Marcia' in Merseyside or 'Mohammed' in Mumbai (if you are really unlucky, you will get through to Herbert in Humberside), and they read a manual to you and waste your time. The 'supermarkets', with their plastic food, horse lasagne, price-fixing, scams and fraud have squeezed out the small grocers and many towns no longer have individual shops for fresh, local meat; greengrocery; cheeses; fish and so on. The fact of the matter is that we do not live in an age in which true bespoke and personal service have much of a place because most business is about minimizing costs and maximizing profit and then schmozing Joe Public into believing that he is getting a 'good deal' in 'traditional' this and that. True bespoke doesn't easily fit into this business model, as the costs would kill the trade altogether. However, an increasingly ignorant and undiscriminating Joe Public doesn't know his arse from his elbow and so skimpers and scamsters get away with creating false illusions. Hell, they are even happy to advertize what they are doing. Ironically, they do not see themselves as being 'shown-up' but being 'shown-off' in the brave new world of internet PR!

NJS
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culverwood
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Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:54 pm

I am not sure about what you say. If I am going to commission a new custom bicycle or sculpture for instance although I may expect the maker to do the design work and perhaps some of the craft work but I would not expect it to be made using 19th century or earlier methods I would expect whoever the craftsman is to use the latest tools available.
NJS

Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:05 pm

culverwood wrote:I am not sure about what you say. If I am going to commission a new custom bicycle or sculpture for instance although I may expect the maker to do the design work and perhaps some of the craft work but I would not expect it to be made using 19th century or earlier methods I would expect whoever the craftsman is to use the latest tools available.
Using technology is fine. I have not said that it is objectionable. What is objectionable is that customers are attracted to a certain shop because they have heard that the cutter is good - and a good cutter is as important to a shirt as a good architect is to a building. However, his input is, actually, quite remote and minimal; to the extent that the process of cutting and making the shirt fit can (we are told above) take up to five adjustments, done apparently by a process of hit-and-miss wiggling and tweaking the pattern around on the computer. That is all absurd. Moreover, I dare say that most of the factory workers in question are newly qualified and on low wages in low-rated buildings, where every overhead is kept to the minimum. Most customers know nothing of any of this and are content to rest on the laurels of big names and pay top dollar for something less than they thought that they bargained for.

NJS
Badden
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Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:21 pm

Lot of accusations on this thread, very little evidence. Is this AskAndy?
NJS

Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:48 pm

Badden wrote:Lot of accusations on this thread, very little evidence. Is this AskAndy?
My 'accusations' are just comments on the reported, actual experiences of some other LL members and the published results of a 'factory visit', which seem to corroborate them. It has all come to concentrate on one British firm but I am sure that there are several others whose staff do not know one end of a computer from another and use experienced shop-based cutters who make the patterns and cut the cloth. All that I am saying is that this (for the reasons stated), is preferable to the factory method of pattern-duplication and cutting. Indeed, it should be noted that some LL members are happy with the factory method. The point, though, is that it is at such a remove from the customer that some of us wonder whether the methodology qualifies as true bespoke. Some LL members (Michael Alden no less, among them), say that there are still artisan establishments which make whole shirts, on the bench, in the shop, one by one, for individual customers - and that this is true bespoke. It is rather difficult to argue with that, isn't it?

Sometimes, one wonders whether all contributions to sites such as this are always free of some interest, beyond mere analysis. Certainly, the firms that are 'up' with computer technology and internet PR will probably have scouts trawling the internet for references (especially adverse references) to their businesses.

Finally, I have never said that a factory-cut shirt might not result in a better fit than a shop-cut shirt but the fact that the denotation of the processes needs to be different remains. The factory-cut shirts are described as 'bespoke' because this adds glamour and attracts custom - but it is plainly misleading.

NJS
Last edited by NJS on Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
NJS

Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:53 pm

culverwood wrote:I am not sure about what you say. If I am going to commission a new custom bicycle or sculpture for instance although I may expect the maker to do the design work and perhaps some of the craft work but I would not expect it to be made using 19th century or earlier methods I would expect whoever the craftsman is to use the latest tools available.
I missed part of this. The computer-designed or design-enhanced bicycle I could live with but, surely, not a sculpture - that is to say if it is meant to be a work of art! In my view, a work of art has to derive from 100% human input. There are no doubt many at Tate Modern who would argue that robot art has some validity but it would have less room in my house than the flower pictures recently produced by elephants in research at UCL.

NJS
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culverwood
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Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:47 pm

We are getting off topic but it may surprise you to know that many sculptures are subcontracted by the sculptor to manufacturers more capable of casting bronze or working with steel, large sculptures such as the Angel of the North could not be made by one man beavering away with a hammer and chisel in his studio. Laser cutting and other modern techniques are a fundamental part of most new large sculptures.

In a similar note do you regard photographic art as art, perhaps not.

This is not new and just as artists such as Leonardo worked in the studio of his master he also employed people to work in his studio when he was established.
NJS

Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:31 pm

culverwood wrote:We are getting off topic but it may surprise you to know that many sculptures are subcontracted by the sculptor to manufacturers more capable of casting bronze or working with steel, large sculptures such as the Angel of the North could not be made by one man beavering away with a hammer and chisel in his studio. Laser cutting and other modern techniques are a fundamental part of most new large sculptures.

In a similar note do you regard photographic art as art, perhaps not.

This is not new and just as artists such as Leonardo worked in the studio of his master he also employed people to work in his studio when he was established.
Yes well, a long way off-piste and into an area in which you most certainly know much, much more than I :D . However, I inferred from your first post on sculptures that you were commissioning something on a small scale; hence my response. So far as the Angel of the North is concerned, maybe it is at least as much a feat of artistic engineering as a work of art: in conception and design it is wholly a work of art but in construction it is almost entirely (if not quite entirely), a feat of engineering. The artist is, presumably, redundant by the time that the construction begins.

Personally, I regard photography as an artistic application of an instrument. The composition of the picture is artistic but the capturing of the image is instrumental (whether mechanical or electronic). It is impossible to say that photography is not an art just because an instrument is involved, because the instrument is absolutely essential to the pursuit of photography.

Making clothes is a skilled trade of human brain, hand and eye, in which an understanding of physical form, space and movement, in a scientific sense, is wedded to an artistic appreciation of proportion, sense of becoming (to the eventual owner of the garment) and balance, to execute a practical and well-looking product, which fits. Making clothes is (obviously) possible without the intervention of machines - but they make the process more cost-effective for the producer. If the intervention of the machines occurs at some remove from the initial measuring and pattern-making then, arguably, the process of true bespoke clothes-making is interrupted as the use of human brain, hand and eye have been excluded from a significant part of the process. I do not know whether it is still true but Rolls Royce radiator grills were always (proudly) made by the grill makers without the use of any measuring instruments. Maybe, the true secret of every skilled tradesman's calling lies in that fact. Other examples are: the cabinet maker who can cut square in the dark with a handsaw; the joiner who can make an internal step joint to take account of inconveniently knotted wood (if there is any joiner left in the whole world who can still make an internal step joint), and the ironsmith who can make complex wrought iron (no machine could ever do that unless a computer can be brought forth that knows how to use the anvil, the bellows and the hammer).

Now, of course, there are computerized machines which can even produce foot-moulds which can be used as shoe lasts but, since shoe lasts are never exactly the same as the foot inside, there is no potential in the computerized versions for the exercise of the human judgement that will go into making a shoe last that takes account of all the various peculiarities of the human foot - from arthritic joints, through fallen arches and incipient bunions, and on to hammer toes! The same thing seems to go for assymetrical shoulders - see the post above in which the computer took five attempts to find the fit (one wonders what the actual cutter of the original pattern was doing during this process).

For these reasons, I am far from convinced that creeping mechanization is a way to preserve the truth of bespoke cutting and fitting.

But, hell, except in principle, it doesn't really affect me anymore :P .

NJS
Frederic Leighton
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Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:24 pm

NJS wrote:Some LL members (Michael Alden no less, among them), say that there are still artisan establishments which make whole shirts, on the bench, in the shop, one by one, for individual customers - and that this is true bespoke. It is rather difficult to argue with that, isn't it?
Ahah.. I have to mention my dad once again! On my birthday, he sent me the tie he wore for his wedding in 1976. His entire wedding outfit was made by the same tailor, who at the time was reasonably affordable for a young man like my dad and now, being still around, has become an institution in Italy. He made the striped tie that now hangs in my wardrobe, the double breasted rigato suit that fits me perfectly and the off-white silk shirt.
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