What Will You Do When Your Tailor Retires?

[HappyStroller]

Sir, I can only concur with your wise advice, which I thank you for giving to me. My provision of specimen SR clothing is more or less to enable a local tailor elsewhere in the World (in my case, the up and coming city of Shanghai) to know exactly what my specifications are and also have a concrete idea of the exact style to follow.

Yes, the only way to have a good frock coat, etc., is to commission an actual SR bespoke. But I have changed my mind about visiting London this Summer as the British Pound is still not cheap yet. Perhaps after the stock markets of the World peak and crash this coming Autumn, and recession really hits England, it may be the right time to pay Savile Row a visit in May/June next year. Then I'll be able to drop into John Lobbs for a pair or two of formal button boots for both morning and evening wear.

...<snipped>...
HS, much can be learned by examining finished garments, but only so much.
...<snipped>...
A ready-to-wear suit built to a stock pattern may be constructed to the highest standard but will look terrible on anyone who does not exactly conform to the stock pattern block. And even then it will not look as good as a well-tailored suit because RTW garments generally involve less shaping of the cloth. A young tailor who works with a great cutter and/or coatmaker to solve the specific problems presented by hundreds of individual clients of all shapes and sizes will develop skill that no amount of "reverse engineering" of finished garments will provide, because without knowing anything about the client for whom a garment was made, it's nearly impossible to evaluate why it was cut, built, and fitted the way it was.

[Costi]

HS, as I had the chance to mention in an interesting thread started by NJS on the influence of politics over dress, mid-nineteenth century marked the westernization of dress in the history of Romania: people slowly transitioned from the long and fully cut oriental robe to the western-European trousers, frock coats and, later on, jackets. Local tailors, untrained in these “modern” cuts, were unable to satisfiy the new demand; as a result, a great number of skilled, mostly Jewish tailors (but also some Germans and French) seized the opportunity and set up a thriving business in Romania (or, for precision’s sake, the territories that would later on become Romania). As more men would abandon the traditional dress and take over the modern one, these newcomers drove right out of business many local tailors who couldn’t adapt. This comes to corroborate couch’s assertion that tailoring requires at least a few years of apprenticeship and, moreover, if a tailor has learned to make a certain kind of clothes, it is very difficult, if not impossible (even he sees and touches examples) to learn how to tailor a different kind.
I see no reason to being so thrilled at the prospect of a drastic recession hitting the UK – instead of paying a visit to SR next year, you might be paying your respects to it, in full “mourning” dress, complete with all black waistcoat, button boots and top hat – if there will be anyone to make them. However, given SR’s long endurance and the relative financial stability of most of its clientelle irrespective of the economies’ ups and downs, I don’t expect you will find Lobb any thriftier than it is now.

[DFR]

Find and train a new one - I will continue to need suits from time to time..

[storeynicholas]

Die. Just die. nothing else for it. But on the subject of wigs, mentioned above, they are still in daily use in the higher Courts in the UK. They are not the powdered wigs mentioned but they are still wigs: the no-nonsense forensic bar wigs (needing no curling or powdering), invented by the old firm of Ede & Ravenscroft, who have made all the coronation robes since the coronation of William & Mary in 1689. Barristers, until recently, had sole right of audience in the hIgher courts, upon the basis of reasons of independence from their clients. The centuries' old reasoning for the retention of an independent bar has, along with much else, buckled under purely commercial pressures in the modern britain which Harold Wilson began to fashion and which the Thatcher and Blair years have very nicely finished to a point of utter perfection of selfish indulgence. Accordingly, solicitors and employed lawyers have also now been granted rights of audience in the higher courts. Given the opportunity to abolish wigs as part of the costume, what did modern briatin do? - it retained them - but prescribed that the legion of new lawyers with the right of audience may wear them too!! Good for someone's business, no doubt (and good for them) - but what a nonsense!!!!
NJS

[sartorius]

My tailor is due to retire next year and is already now only working a three day week. His employers have said that he can continue if he wishes - so perhaps it is down me and his other customers to make sure that he is kept sufficiently busy to continue...

[Sator]

Sator

How do tailors score on the Australian immigration system. I have heard a number of London tailors talk about moving out to Australia. Now if you can persuade the government that bespoke tailors should get a decent number of points you problem may be solved.

Culverwood,

would you kindly direct these tailors to this LL thread:

http://thelondonlounge.net/gl/forum/vie ... 7559#33567

Some of my worst fears have been realised, as my bespoke tailor has lost his main tailor in the business thus putting the future of the whole enterprise at risk

If any of the Hong Kong based members are reading this could you please direct me to places where it would be worth advertising for a job (in Chinese)?

[storeynicholas]

But - hey - anywhere in the tropics is great; provided that there is the custom - well - there's Savile Row, England where (as someone once said), the English summer begins in the last week of June - only to end in the first week of July - compared with the tropics - where summer never really ends - and where every night is Friday Night - and every morning is - Saturday morning............come on down - as the water's lovely.............save your soul alive - and save a business too. Sounds good to me......
NJS

[RWS]

But who wears a suit in Rio¿ (Forgive me the inverted question mark. I´m in Buenos Aires, typing blind on a keyboard with all markings worn away. It´s a long and not very interesting story.)

Seriously, though, I spent seven hours this week trapped in the airport in Sao Paulo. Not a pleasant experience, all in all, but I was pleased to see quite a few Brazilian businessmen still wearing coat and tie.

[doccol91]

for a lot of us in NYC, we might just find out: I just saw on Vincent Nicolosi's website that he is retired.

Anyone know anything about this?

[storeynicholas]

But who wears a suit in Rio¿ (Forgive me the inverted question mark. I´m in Buenos Aires, typing blind on a keyboard with all markings worn away. It´s a long and not very interesting story.)

Seriously, though, I spent seven hours this week trapped in the airport in Sao Paulo. Not a pleasant experience, all in all, but I was pleased to see quite a few Brazilian businessmen still wearing coat and tie.

RWS - How did you invert the ??
NJS

[NCW]

But who wears a suit in Rio¿ (Forgive me the inverted question mark. I´m in Buenos Aires, typing blind on a keyboard with all markings worn away. It´s a long and not very interesting story.)

Seriously, though, I spent seven hours this week trapped in the airport in Sao Paulo. Not a pleasant experience, all in all, but I was pleased to see quite a few Brazilian businessmen still wearing coat and tie.

RWS - How did you invert the ??
NJS

Keyboards are different in each country; in São Paulo there will be a key for '¿' because the Spanish need this key (they enclose questions like so: ¿Question?).

I myself am typing with X11 compose on an English keyboard, so I can use easy mnemonics to enter any character: Alt+"+o=ö, Alt+-+a=ã, Alt+#+f=♮, Alt+s+s=ß, Alt+-+d=đ, Alt+o+e=œ and so on. I can even in fact type polytonic Greek and Hebrew effortlessly (Ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη takes only one keypress per letter and one per mark).

[couch]

On a Mac keyboard with a standard character set it's option-shift-?.

[marcelo]

Keyboards are different in each country; in São Paulo there will be a key for '¿' because the Spanish need this key (they enclose questions like so: ¿Question?).

Even considering that the number of Spanish-speaking persons circulating everyday in the premises of the international airport of São Paulo is likely to be high, I do not think that this sort of keyboard is supposed to be used there.

[DonB]

But who wears a suit in Rio¿ (Forgive me the inverted question mark. I´m in Buenos Aires, typing blind on a keyboard with all markings worn away. It´s a long and not very interesting story.)

Seriously, though, I spent seven hours this week trapped in the airport in Sao Paulo. Not a pleasant experience, all in all, but I was pleased to see quite a few Brazilian businessmen still wearing coat and tie.

RWS - How did you invert the ??
NJS

For what it's worth: when using Microsoft Word, one can add symbols to a word document using the insert menu. This menu contains the option 'Symbol'. Once the symbol is inserted into the word-document, it is quite easy to copy paste it into a reply.

Regards,
Don