RTW in London

[storeynicholas]

Apparently, somewhere in the world a child dies every twenty seconds owing to a lack of clean water.

NJS.

I surmise that money is only part of the problem. Political and bureaucratic ineptitude and corruption are huge impediments in many instances. India springs to mind as an example, and I am not sure if deficiency of funds is a plausible excuse for them in recent years... That said, I sense that we might be precariously positioned on a slippery slope with this tangent...

s

This might lead into politics and we shouldn't go there but I think that we should probably agree that a sense of proportion, a sense of balance and a lack of ostentation are a part of the essentials for an elegant life and so too is a consideration for others - to the extent that one should always consider whether a massive surplus of personal funds, that might be spent in wanton self-indulgence, could find a better use. Some countries don't govern themselves very well (in fact, in the light of recent events, very few do) but there are charities to help to fill the gaps and the victims of mismanagement and corruption should not become the victims of avoidable thirst and starvation.
NJS

[sartorius]

I surmise that money is only part of the problem. Political and bureaucratic ineptitude and corruption are huge impediments in many instances. India springs to mind as an example, and I am not sure if deficiency of funds is a plausible excuse for them in recent years... That said, I sense that we might be precariously positioned on a slippery slope with this tangent...

Yes indeed. It may improve NJS's mood still further when I tell you that the customer in question had apparently not even been near the tailor's shop. I'm told he was measured up by someone at his convenience (he is not english and lives abroad) and just sent a photo of himself to the cutter to "help" him.

Anyway, the other point I should make is that this person (whose precise identity I don't know, but, by inference from his "position", which I do) is not "young". So, let's not generalise. Otherwise things really will deteriorate...

[storeynicholas]

I surmise that money is only part of the problem. Political and bureaucratic ineptitude and corruption are huge impediments in many instances. India springs to mind as an example, and I am not sure if deficiency of funds is a plausible excuse for them in recent years... That said, I sense that we might be precariously positioned on a slippery slope with this tangent...

Yes indeed. It may improve NJS's mood still further when I tell you that the customer in question had apparently not even been near the tailor's shop. I'm told he was measured up by someone at his convenience (he is not english and lives abroad) and just sent a photo of himself to the cutter to "help" him.

Anyway, the other point I should make is that this person (whose precise identity I don't know, but, by inference from his "position", which I do) is not "young". So, let's not generalise. Otherwise things really will deteriorate...

One wonders, in the light of shredder's well-made point and your further information, whose money this fellow is spending.

[YoungLawyer]

Has anyone used/known anyone who has used Roderick Charles MTM service? In the (perpetual?) sale there, it seems like reasonable value (£500ish) - but what would the result be like?

I appreciate that this is a departure from the 'bespoke only' mindset of many members of the forum; I'm after something servicable, but nonetheless reasonable value, for business, so that I can afford to start other bespoke projects.

[JRLT]

I had some experience of London MTM when I was younger and cash was tighter.

I don't know anything about Roderick Charles other than having walked past the shops every now and then, but for London MTM I'd say Norton & Townsend are the best of the bunch. They're one of those visiting outfits who'll come to your office with their swatch books etc.

But, as other posters have recommended, you can get true bespoke for not much extra cost. For example, Connock & Lockie and Sims & McDonald (both on Lamb's Conduit Street) can do a two piece for around £1k, which is only a few hundred more than you'll pay for MTM.

[alden]

the E Tautz name has been revived under Norton's - to sell RTW at between £2000-£3000. I am not sure where this must put the cost of Norton's fully bespoke now.

It’s much worse that that, the E Tautz line is “handmade RTW” by Cheshire B in England. The primary function of hand sewing it to improve fit, comfort and style of a garment and then, if this is done sufficiently well, it will also greatly improve aesthetics. The idea of handmade RTW does not make a great deal of sense as the handwork cannot have an effect on fit, comfort or style.

I suspect it is a defensive move given the lack of tailoring talent. If you are a tailors shop but lack tailor’s what do you do? You muck around in RTW, raise the price of your bespoke offering to the point that no one will see it as an option (and that is fine, because you can’t satisfactorily produce it anyway) and hope no one sees the desperate straits you are actually in. All the while you communicate, communicate and communicate.

Recently, fortunes are being spent on PR. It’s not a positive indicator at all.

A good thrash of an economic crisis is clearing the system of sub standard players.

Brandelli went to Kilgour to make a fashion house and a global brand. He didn’t accomplish either but helped repackage the company so it could be sold at a fortuitous moment for investors. Today, RTW fashion houses, pseudo fashion houses and almost fashion houses are falling like flies in a Baygon factory. When the world is flush with cash, marginal companies can flourish. But when the markets veer, reality comes back into focus and the return is to value.

Those of us who appreciate SR need to hope that some strong financial underpinnings find their way to buoy up the old houses, train new tailors and drive the traditional hand cut and sewn clothing trade forward. Note I did not use the word “bespoke.”

But the future of “real” tailoring is anything but certain for the reasons discussed above, reasons that apply to all the houses. Get your clothes now..

Cheers

M Alden

[rjman]

But the future of “real” tailoring is anything but certain for the reasons discussed above, reasons that apply to all the houses. Get your clothes now..

I agree completely. Everything we care about in clothing is only going to disappear or become exponentially more expensive.

A few other comments:

I think many tailoring houses are ONLY going to survive with the infusion of investor money: I believe Grant bought Nortons when it was about to go under. Many tailoring houses are supported by licenses elsewhere -- Gieves and Hawkes and Kilgour for decades had lackluster RTW licenses in the US; Poole has RTW in Japan and certain SR tailors are expanding in China and India.

I think the Tautz prices for RTW Cheshire Bespoke are unfortunately more or less in line with the prices Huntsman is charging for the RTW Cheshire B makes for it, and probably close to that which Chester Barrie charges on Savile Row. I think Alden makes a perceptive point that high-priced RTW permits houses to edge bespoke prices closer to the stratosphere. It also allows a tailor to get more press and retail penetration -- sadly enough, most fashion magazines are not going to give a classic tailor or shoemaker much press unless it announces something jazzy and new.

I am not certain that Brandelli came to Kilgour aiming to flip it. I think he enormously helped Kilgour raise its profile... it was already pushing its Chinese-made entry-level bespoke when he joined it, and I bet that the new investors are going to continue that focus. Brandelli was the first real Savile Row tailor to compete with RJ, Boateng and Hart in offering sharp, memorable design. That did draw more people to the Row, and possibly more bespoke customers.

But I side with Alden that what we crazy folks care about is disappearing. Not enough people know, care, or can afford this enough to support it, and they will only get fewer.

[Costi]

The biggest problem is not that prestigious bespoke houses venture into RTW to make a profit, but the fact that there are few (relatively) young tailors and the vast majority of old masters have no apprentices. There is no new generation of craftsmen to perpetuate the trade.
In a quarter of a century or so, a few young men will begin to study bespoke tailoring from old books and garments, much the way we study the making of the Pyramids today. Mr. Arty Gianni's heir will be Mr. Arche O'Logist. What a marketing gold mine: antique techniques revived at intergalactic prices...
I suppose we have to accept for a fact that bespoke tailoring will most probably never be again the mass pehnomenon that it was 150 years ago. It has the chance to remain viable if a new generation of tailors follows the current one, but this sadly doesn't seem to happen anywhere in the world, be it the UK, the USA, Eastern Europe or Asia. Tailoring is a tough job that takes a lot of time and hard work to learn and the rewards don't justify it by the current standards and expectations of the young generation.
But how come nobody is even cynical enough to realize that, in a decade or so, being a young but trained bespoke tailor will probably be a most lucrative business, because there will be so little competition? If not for other reasons (vocation, passion, interest), at least take up tailoring with this in mind.

[storeynicholas]

I certainly don't disagree with much (if anything) said in this thread. Surely, though, it comes down to a lack of awareness and education in potential customers - generally intelligent and well-off youngsters - who just don't take the time to learn anything that is not geared to their bank accounts - and whose minds are not directed to learn anything - about the best material things that they could get to enhance their lives?

I recall a time when, most of my suits were not readily accessible to me and I had torn the trousers of a fine mohair Davies & Son suit, so I sent them to be invisibly mended and made do with a remaining much less good suit for the time that the repair took. I clearly remember receiving it back; immediately changing into it and feeling the difference: it didn't just fit where it touched; it was an outer shell of me - and I heard again the cutter's voice as he had called out my skeletal and bodily peculiarities - "drop on the left shoulder; prominent calves..." - other deficiencies of my person (no doubt encoded so that I was not offended); his re-measuring my legs "inside leg 32.5 inches - "that can't be right" - looking at my (then) spare five feet ten inch height (it was right) - and all the rest of it - several hours of my time alone - let alone theirs; my deciding on the specifics and the cloth, the lining, the buttons, then the fittings - and all the rest of it; taking it home; wearing it; the envious scorn of some of my friends; ripping it; having it restored and returned and, that same evening, being complimented by someone on it. I still have the coat and vest; the trousers did not outlive the rest and I mourn them still.

Now, some in 'the Row' are dragging factory stuff out of the boxes and shoving it on hangers and the customers are queuing up to buy it because - hey - "See the label" - flash open the coat "Yeah, it's Savile Row - bought it this afternoon, in between a meeting and a game of squash". Well, I'm sorry - but it isn't.

But the lack of awareness and education of potential customers is mirrored or encouraged (it is difficult to say which) by the desuetude of pride in a job well-done and a lack of foresight in what this means by some of the custodians of the skills involved in what we admire. If the reality is that they are going to start passing-off mass-produced RTW, made in a factory out of town, for the Real Thing and, for a time, no one notices that the prices are, more or less, the same, then, of course, because the profit margins in RTW are, probably much greater (at the same price per piece), bespoke will become a thing of the past.

I think that the answer mainly lies in education of the future potential customers as much as anything. If they started going in and saying: "What have you got for me between £2000-£3000, the honest answer, at least for the time-being, has to be:

"Well, sir, we have our latest line of factory-produced cat-walk-cut crap over here - [gesturing with a sneer] - or, [smiling], we can give you: the bees' knees; make you look like the cat's whiskers; have you dressed to the nines, sir, fully bespoke, in a very decent merino worsted, for, let me see - ah, yes - £2,550 plus VAT - unless you live outside the EU - and then we can drop the tax - but you can't have it today, sir. This will take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, sir, and neither are our suits. Now, would you just please sign our book?" Of course, he turns away from the clothes on the rail and, of course, he signs the book. He's just become: James Bond; Fred Astaire; Cary Grant; Ray Milland; Clive Brook; Rudolph Valentino; he's stepping in the footsteps of Brummell - and it is good. It is very good.

So it comes down to a combination of the need for education and information for the potential customers and a recognition by the businesses that well informed customers are not going to fall for the Armani-type 'lines' about the incomparable and supreme merits of cloth made from a nearly extinct sub-species of wild Kashmiri goat; pinching crocodile shoes and man-bags.

But we have to face the fact that the shops that we have enjoyed visiting are no more going to include many that are havens of slightly dusty, sherry-scented, tweedy fustiness, decorated with too many fading, old framed Warrants; places of turmoil and of unrushed, gentle industry - because, in any event, they are all fighting to survive in a society that has not (in my opinion and to say the least), improved very much - from over twenty years ago.

If anything is to be saved, the firms need to find PR companies that can evoke a gentle wistfulness for the light that is fading, with some guts and punch and thump against the forces that threaten to snuff it out.
NJS

[Scot]

The joy of the LL is that an innocent question about where to buy an off-the-peg suit can lead to such musing. But are we not being just a little too gloomy? Yes some houses have done what they feel they need to in order to pay their overheads and give their investors a return on their money. They may have cheapened the brand in the process but I am not sure that those who are taken in by RTW suits at £3k are really the customers who matter. They are in search of instant gratification. The discerning know better and the question is, therefore, from whence this supply of discerning customers comes.

My tailors, a small but well known firm on the row, offer only bespoke. For a little over £2.5k they will produce for you a beautiful 2 piece suit. The two cutters at the firm are first class, as are the craftspeople who put their garments together. The head cutter tells me that business is holding up well in the recession and this is all the more interesting given that they have a very limited overseas business. So it can be done. The cloud on the horizon is the one that Costi points to; where are the young cutters and tailors who will take over from the current ageing practitioners?

[alden]

where are the young cutters and tailors who will take over from the current ageing practitioners?

Scot.

This is the heart of the message.

For over six years on these pages, I have tried to promote the works of the “kids” on the bespoke block: Mahon, DeBoise, Tony Gaziano, Josh Byrne, S. Hitchcock, to name a few. And while these craftsman may not seem to be youngsters (sorry guys) they are absolutely adolescents compared to the average age of tailors, cobblers and assorted ebenistes, masons and candlestick makers. We are losing contact with traditional artisanal crafts on many fronts.

Young people are not stepping into the breech to learn these crafts because they are too daunting a challenge. “Most of the young people I have attempted to train, want to be designers after a few weeks. Tailoring does not work like that. It takes seven to ten years to learn the trade”, said one of the tailors mentioned above, one who has tried to train and develop new talent.

I was about to respond to RJs post saying that the state of affairs in Paris has degraded greatly since his departure with a few of the great old names giving up premises and retiring. In a few years "traditional bespoke" will not have a whisper of life in the city where Gabriele D’Annunzio, one of the greatest Italian dandies, came to have his clothes made less than a century ago. That is an amazing story.

Cheers

M Alden

[storeynicholas]

Maybe, those who find themselves jobless as a result ofthe banking fiasco might consider new careers actually producing something. But, again, the firms have to reach out to people - maybe at school careers' events and so on, offering holiday time job-learning experience too - and emphasizing the opportunities that exist. I am not sure whether any do this already but it seems to be the obvious way to attract apprentices.
NJS.

[rjman]

I was about to respond to RJs post saying that the state of affairs in Paris has degraded greatly since his departure with a few of the great old names giving up premises and retiring. In a few years "traditional bespoke" will not have a whisper of life in the city where Gabriele D’Annunzio, one of the greatest Italian dandies, came to have his clothes made less than a century ago. That is an amazing story.

Tell tell tell. Who? Is Djay retiring? The tailors at Arnys??

Maybe, those who find themselves jobless as a result ofthe banking fiasco might consider new careers actually producing something. But, again, the firms have to reach out to people - maybe at school careers' events and so on, offering holiday time job-learning experience too - and emphasizing the opportunities that exist. I am not sure whether any do this already but it seems to be the obvious way to attract apprentices.
NJS.

NFW. Learning the craft trades and actually practicing them is far too difficult and thankless. Not enough consumers out there know, CARE TO know and can afford the product. The population which can afford the product generally is not going to take the time to discriminate. The vogue is not for a garment which takes time made and sold by dour middle-aged men -- it is for something sold by hot young women (such as the factory-produced "bespoke" at Emma Willis), by a designer with cool socks (my own beloved RJ) or a worldwide known "name" which will impress women, colleagues and dry cleaners (Armani et al).

The bottom line is, no one else cares. It is going to go. Get it now, because you will not be able to in 20 years. (4 espressos.)

[storeynicholas]

As Dylan Thomas said:

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

[Costi]

Let's put a different perspective to this gloomy doomsday talk: what arguments would you use to advise a young man to take up tailoring? Not as in opening up a boutique and become the designer of factory-made clothing after a couple of years of "studying" in I-don't-know-what Fashion Academy in Milano or elsewhere. Tailoring, as in becoming an apprentice, learning the craft from a "master" by building up practical experience, sewing, than cutting etc.
How would you argue in favor of such a carreer choice in today's world? If we can come up with good arguments, maybe we can find the channels and means to promote them.