The London Lounge

What do you choose as the best tailor in the world?
And why do choose him or her as the best tailor in the world?

The best tailor in the world is not any one man, or any one firm.

It is rather like asking who is the best wife in the world.

Any tailor of talent and discipline, performing at his best for an intelligent client whose physique and bearing he has had a chance to understand, is the best tailor in the world.

Huzir wrote:It is rather like asking who is the best wife in the world.

Sir, your sense of humour is an absolute delight.

I would not want to be the customer of any tailor thinking of himself as the best in the world. It would be very sad (not to say unfair and untrue) if anyone were proclaimed to be the best tailor in the world. Tim, I think it is in its eminently human-dependant nature that the excellence of bespoke tailoring lies: each artisan has his own style and way of doing things, each client wants and appreciates something else.
Who is the best painter in the world? The best composer? The best poet?

Huzir, I wholeheartedly agree.

The majority of what it takes for excellent tailoring is craft, and it can be objectively measured (for example what quality leather, how many stitches per inch). And what can be measured can be ranked.

However, there is an element of art. What looks best, and even more important what suits you. There is no objective way of measuring that. Who was the better artist: Rembrandt or Picasso? A futile question.

The best tailor for anybody is one who can get the quality right while making you look good and pleasing your taste. It helps if there is a personal rapport.

Why, the best tailor in the world is the tailor one currently uses, naturally.

We have a saying in the trade.

"Your only as good as your last suit"

The finest tailoring that I have ever seen, is on vintage, Yves Saint Laurent haute couture, for women. The next finest tailoring that I have ever seen, is on Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, vintage ready-to-wear, for women. I have yet to see any men's garments, whose tailoring can beat them.
My sister owns these garments. They are absolute miracles of tailoring, design, and craftsmanship.

Best tailor in the world is someone who completely makes a garment in his own workshop. Someone who can make anything and doesn't have a set house style. Someone who can make a garment fit perfectly to the clients desire. ln other words, my tailor.

Marabunta wrote:The finest tailoring that I have ever seen, is on vintage, Yves Saint Laurent haute couture, for women. The next finest tailoring that I have ever seen, is on Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, vintage ready-to-wear, for women. I have yet to see any men's garments, whose tailoring can beat them.

In what way? These are very sweeping statements. What details of the construction make them better than say a vintage Scholte for example? Also, how can you say the tailor/seamstree who made them are any good without seeing how they fit they person they were originally made for?

Also anyone who wears vintage bespoke men's or women's haute couture is effectively wearing ready to wear. And as far as jaw droppingly detailed hand made works of art go, I have seen some examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum which make the examples from YSL you have shown look like something from the local charity shop.

http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum

Well, if your local charity shop carries garments like these, you're very fortunate. What I know, is this: the cut, fit, and clarity of design that Saint Laurent achieved was matched only by Balenciaga and Vionnet. His haute couture seamstresses had twenty-eight years of experience, before moving up a 'notch' on the assembly line. I'd say their work, speaks for itself. I've seen it up close.

Perhaps you'll find Balenciaga in your local charity shop, as well. All the better, for you.

here's some more charity shop merchandise, for you. In cashmere.

And speaking of Museums: Monsieur Saint Laurent was the first living couturier ever to be featured in a retrospective exhibition, at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work has been recognized in other major exhibitions at the Palace of Fine Arts, Beijing, the Musee des Art de la Mode in Paris, The Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow, the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Australia, the Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo; and the Musee de la Mode in Marseilles. Among others.

And of course, at your local 'charity shop.'

I think this diversion into the world of women's couture is interesting and I welcome it. One of my oft repeated unified theory of life maxims is at the apex, everything looks the same. In this case, I mean that the practitioners of men's bespoke tailoring and of women's couture who are operating at the highest levels should be thinking about and doing the very same things, even if their product looks completely different - that means focusing on, cut, flow around the body, angles, fabric, construction details, drape, materials . . . everything. The better the practitioner, the more the particularities and techniques of his field become mere details in service of the higher-level objective.

I, for one, would be very interested in the ideas of YSL, Balenciaga, Vionnet and anyone else you think really understood what he was doing. Also - I would love to see more examples of the construction details in women's couture.

My wife wears a lot of vintage Pucci and, while it is not at the level of couture, I have been amazed by the construction quality and detailing - not just the sewing, but also how pieces of silk seem to be printed with their purpose in mind (like sleeve ends of hems having a printed edge). Most of the modern pieces are nowhere near the same standard although she recently bought a jacket that reminded me of the older stuff - for example, it had an inset of wool in a different scale print used to trim the end of the sleeve seam (under the buttons) and a contrasting ruffle sewn inside the sleeve. On the other hand, the modern silk print sheath dresses are junk and would be better bought at H&M for a fraction of the price.

It appears from the images posted that this particular designer favors exaggeration of certain elements to achieve a particular "look". As with "looks" in general, for any particular woman, it will either work or not.

Exempli gratia: this one is clearly for a rather slab sided woman with weak shoulders




while this one, with the outsized pocket flaps exaggerates the hips



this one with the high waist, and hacking pockets also accentuates the hips and probably the backside




What they all have in common, due to their accentuation, is the fact that they treat the wearer as incidental to the garment. The "look" is the "look' and either it flatters the wearer or it looks awful. I've seen this methodology of accentuation from various haute couture designers over the years and it either works or it doesn't. Well executed couture shouldn't depend on exagerated cuts, but rather flatter the positive attributes of the wearer in a subdued way. In this way it is, or should be, similar to men's bespoke.