Row House Style For Er..Short / Rotund?

What you always wanted to know about Elegance, but were afraid to ask!
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:17 am

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor. I bet you that I know more about how to draft a pattern than he does. Nor would I trust anything carrying his name to be a proper bespoke garment. The fellow should be regarded as being more akin to a used car salesman.

Despite having done a lab based science PhD, I still find that drafting coat patterns is extremely mentally challenging - especially with things like body coats and with advanced pattern manipulation. Everyone seems to have a different cutting system, and it can be bewildering trying to figure out the best way to proceed. Thank God I don't have to read the chapters on drafting a corpulent pattern. It will take months and years of intensive study and practice before I fully understand it.

Sator
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 12:28 pm

*
Anonymous wrote:. . . . It will take months and years of intensive study and practice before I fully understand it. . . .
*
Are you considering a new career, Sator?

RWS

*Emphasis added.
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:09 pm

No new career, but as I am rather picky about how I like my coats to be cut, rather than being reduced to describing what I want, I am planning to go to my tailor with a pattern to say: make this up please! It adds new meaning to CMT :D

Of course, I will still need him to check over the pattern for errors in drafting, and make adjustments accordingly. It is like being the architect of your own house.

But, I can tell you it has engendered a great respect for the art and science of cutting. I now devour every text I can get my hands on, and study in detail the cut of every coat - bespoke, RTW and vintage/antique for added insight. It takes me about 8-10 hours to complete a draft for a body coat pattern. Lounge coats are a bit easier but once you start performing advanced pattern manipulations on the base pattern, it can mean many hours more work. You can see that I could hardly make a living this way. I can see how time pressures might lead a cutter to carelessness. I am hoping that the fact that unlike a professional tailor I can afford to spend hours and days fussing over every seam, every angle and every detail of balance to achieve a higher degree of fit. I will also have "muslin fits" (not of muslin but out of lengths of unwanted woollen cloth for target practice) to double check the fit too.

Who knows, one day when all the good tailors have retired or died, I will make up my own coats. For that, however, I will have to learn how to tailor as well as cut - be engineer as well as DIY architect.

Sator
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:18 pm

NOTE TO ALDEN: no LL Cloth Club bolts have been earmarked for target practice :)

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:58 pm

Anonymous wrote:Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor. I bet you that I know more about how to draft a pattern than he does. Nor would I trust anything carrying his name to be a proper bespoke garment. The fellow should be regarded as being more akin to a used car salesman.

Despite having done a lab based science PhD, I still find that drafting coat patterns is extremely mentally challenging - especially with things like body coats and with advanced pattern manipulation. Everyone seems to have a different cutting system, and it can be bewildering trying to figure out the best way to proceed. Thank God I don't have to read the chapters on drafting a corpulent pattern. It will take months and years of intensive study and practice before I fully understand it.

Sator
You forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor..? That's a bold statement. You never shy away from telling everyone how clever you are, so I would imagine you can explain or justify why you would try to destroy a man's reputation?
And yes, I bet you DO think you know more about how to draft a pattern than he does.
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:16 pm

Go see Ken Austin at Beneson & Clegg or Malcom Plews at Welsh & Jeffries. To technical cutters who now how to get around a belly.


Leonard
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:59 pm

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor. I bet you that I know more about how to draft a pattern than he does. Nor would I trust anything carrying his name to be a proper bespoke garment. The fellow should be regarded as being more akin to a used car salesman.

Despite having done a lab based science PhD, I still find that drafting coat patterns is extremely mentally challenging - especially with things like body coats and with advanced pattern manipulation. Everyone seems to have a different cutting system, and it can be bewildering trying to figure out the best way to proceed. Thank God I don't have to read the chapters on drafting a corpulent pattern. It will take months and years of intensive study and practice before I fully understand it.

Sator
You forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor..? That's a bold statement. You never shy away from telling everyone how clever you are, so I would imagine you can explain or justify why you would try to destroy a man's reputation?
And yes, I bet you DO think you know more about how to draft a pattern than he does.
I don't know anything about Ozwald Boateng's exact qualifications but he seems to attract enough custom from the younger crowd to be able to run the old A&S premises in Savile Row.
NJS
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:02 pm

Contrary to some of the responses, I sympathise with the original poster's question. A skilled SR tailor should of course be able to cut a suit to complement any frame, but it is an undeniable fact that each house has its own preferred style and persuading a house to deviate from it can be a difficult business. In my experience requests can be pooh poohed or conveniently forgotten unless rammed home.

But to offer the poster some constructive advice, if he is set on houses actually on the Row only, I would recommend Henry Poole. My experience with Mr Parker there was a much truer collaboration on the creation of a suit than I have experienced at certain other houses. In other words I would expect them to be flexible to the challenge of clothing the larger figure.
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 7:02 pm

Anonymous wrote:In other words I would expect them to be flexible to the challenge of clothing the larger figure.
I like this phrase very much!
NJS :)
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:21 pm

Anonymous wrote:
Sator wrote:Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor. . . .
Sator
You forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor..? That's a bold statement. You never shy away from telling everyone how clever you are, so I would imagine you can explain or justify why you would try to destroy a man's reputation?
And yes, I bet you DO think you know more about how to draft a pattern than he does.
Perhaps the author of this mean-spirited comment should remember that Michael Alden has asked that all comments subsequent to the initial in a thread in this "Anonymous" section of the Lounge be signed. Should a commentor stint at revealing his on-screen pseudonym, the reader may easily assume that even the writer has no confidence in his words.

RWS
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:33 pm

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Sator wrote:Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor. . . .
Sator
You forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor..? That's a bold statement. You never shy away from telling everyone how clever you are, so I would imagine you can explain or justify why you would try to destroy a man's reputation?
And yes, I bet you DO think you know more about how to draft a pattern than he does.
Perhaps the author of this mean-spirited comment should remember that Michael Alden has asked that all comments subsequent to the initial in a thread in this "Anonymous" section of the Lounge be signed. Should a commentor stint at revealing his on-screen pseudonym, the reader may easily assume that even the writer has no confidence in his words.

RWS
I agree - there is no reason why we shouldn't disagree but it should be open and polite and signed - especially when, in relation to comments directed at sator, he provides more free, detailed, information than just about anyone else - even if one occasionally disagrees - but that is to be expected.
NJS
Guest

Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:59 pm

Anonymous wrote: You forgot to mention that Boateng is not a tailor..? That's a bold statement. You never shy away from telling everyone how clever you are, so I would imagine you can explain or justify why you would try to destroy a man's reputation?
And yes, I bet you DO think you know more about how to draft a pattern than he does.
I take it you are a Boeteng client? It is well known that he is more of a "designer" than a tailor and cutter. More exactly, he is a shrewd businessman selling the so-called "bespoke couture" image (I thought couture was just the dressmaking equivalent of bespoke but whatever). If you think my words harsh then you should read what a fellow former Savile Row cutter and tailor, William Westmancott, had to say about him:

http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/foru ... stcount=61
Ozwald Boateng.

As well as being one of the most arrogant people I have ever met, he's a very sucessful businessman.

Here we have a designer, not one with great experimental, artistic or inventive ability, but rather one with a very sure business grounding. He takes very little risk.

His business follows a well rehearsed model. Take Tommy Nutter, Richard James etc. Classic Savile Row Style add a contemporary twist, don't make it too extream, but make it very distict.

Press Press Press

Dress some celebrities

Get concessions in luxury department stores.

Sell rights to highstreet stores to sell cheap diffusion range.

He's not a tailor, he may well know how suits are made, but not how to make them himself.

His clothing was made by the Cheshire Clothing Company that ran into financial difficulty and almost went out of business a few years back, the rumour at the time was that this was because they were owed lots of money by Oz B.

About a year ago Tony Lutwyche Co-bought The Cheshire Clothing Company and it became Cheshire Bespoke, who still make for Oz. B.

His signature cut is sharp and well styled, his use of colour is great and looks especially good on Black men who had often been ignored by mainstream fashion.

From what I've seen of it, his bespoke is not made in a traditional Savile Row way. Yes it is canvased, probably hand padded in the lapel etc. but it is made using production line techniques or ready to wear techniques, but hand done as opposed to machine handled.

These methods create very crisp, clean, sharp and neat looking suits with very neat hand finishing. Statistically you could claim they have all the same features of a Savile Row handmade suit, but one takes many times longer to craft, requires much more skill and will on the whole last many times longer.

Yes, Oz B. has bought media attention to Savile Row and helped in part make it 'cool' again which has helped all tailors get an increase in business which is a good thing.

But, he's running a very lucrative business that trades off getting press and while I have no problem with people doing this, I would just far rather see a genuine Savile Row Craftsman doing this who could bring money and much needed training to the Row.
The emphasis is mine. Here is an example of his work - or should I say, one of his "designs":

Image

I suppose some devoted Boateng client will probably point out to me that Mariano Rubinacci too is neither tailor nor cutter. Like Boateng, he too is just the proprieter, and although he knows how a coat is made, he cannot cut or tailor one himself. But I guess I shouldn't write things like that because it is a yet another monstrous and arrogant attempt my me to "destroy his reputation"...

Sator
Guest

Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:45 am

Anonymous wrote:Contrary to some of the responses, I sympathise with the original poster's question. A skilled SR tailor should of course be able to cut a suit to complement any frame, but it is an undeniable fact that each house has its own preferred style and persuading a house to deviate from it can be a difficult business. In my experience requests can be pooh poohed or conveniently forgotten unless rammed home.

But to offer the poster some constructive advice, if he is set on houses actually on the Row only, I would recommend Henry Poole. My experience with Mr Parker there was a much truer collaboration on the creation of a suit than I have experienced at certain other houses. In other words I would expect them to be flexible to the challenge of clothing the larger figure.
In fact, the "house style" mentioned is traditionally a consequence of the tailors in each house having their unique, often rival, ideas on what the optimal cutting system is. All the cutters in house would be systematically indoctrinated in the superiority of their in-house system of cutting. That is partly the reason they insist on sticking to their methods.

However, even then that begs the question of which cutter has the best approach to the corpulent cut. Whole books (cf T.H. Holding) have been written about how to cut for the corpulent figure. It remains unknown which cutting system on the Row or beyond is the best for the corpulent figure. Also, irrespective of how the cutter arrive there, provided the structural fundamentals of fit are right, details of style become only of very minor importance. For fit is what determines how well a garment looks much more than anything else.

So once again, I would say find the best cutter, able to consistently draft well fitting patterns for different shapes and figures rather than looking at the stylistic and cosmetic details that result from any cutting method. It's all about FIT, FIT, and FIT. All the talk of house styles comes to nought if that house's cutting system fails to consistently engender the structural fundamentals of good fit for all figures proportionate or otherwise.

As for Poole, I believe NJS regards them highly too. Is that right, NJS? So if considering someone on the Row, they should certainly be shortlisted and interviewed by the OP.
Guest

Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:27 am

Poole, Davies, Norton, Kilgour, Dege, VVelsh & Jefferies, Connock & Lockie (Bloomsbury) - and more - there are plenty to choose from and, unlike some others recently, I'd be surprised to see them let rubbish go out. At the end of the day, though, if one is a little fat, there it is!
NJS
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