What is HAND MADE?

[Costi]

Greger,

Adapting a stock pattern to "fit" a customer is the very essence of made-to-measure (MTM), as OPPOSED to bespoke. I think we shouldn't mix them up. An adapted stock pattern cannot fit as well as a fully individual pattern, except when it so happens that a specific customer's measures and features are very close to those on which the stock pattern wa developed. That's chance, not good tailoring practices. A cutter who doesn't have the practice of drawing patterns will one day find himself in front of a customer with a body that can't fit in any stock pattern (unusual size, physical diformities etc.) and will either have to make compromises (less than ideal fit) or refuse to cut for him. I've seen both situations happen!
I agree with you on fittings. The basted fitting and forward fitting are usually requried for a new customer. For established customers, sometimes just the forward fitting is enough. Some tailors even make a new suit with no fittings for old customers, but I dont' think it is the best practice.

[Gruto]

An idea: why not define a handmade or bespoke suit here at the London Lounge?

Great idea! We have such a treasure of collective and shared information here that we could well write an Encyclopedia of the Apparel Arts, so giving a definition shouldn't be all that difficult. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a garment to be called "bespoke"? Let's first agree on this and then we can move forward to formulating the text of the definition.

NECESSARY conditions:
- individual pattern drawn by a trained cutter on the basis of an individual's measures and physical features observed
- styled according to the customer's express desires
- sewn by one or more trained tailors, using mostly handsewing (needle, thread and thimble) except on long seams where a single needle sewing machine may be used (I think we shouldn't limit "bespoke" or even "handmade" to 100% handsewn garments)
- at least one fitting needed to make all necessary adjustments to the garment
- finished by hand (buttonholes, sewing the buttons, ironing), without the aid of industrial machinery (buttonhole machines, button sewing machines, flat presses)

We shouldn't make this too restrictive, but not leave out important aspects, either. We mustn't forget that some features (such as turning in the seam allowance along the trousers' legs and handsewing it in place), while adding to the (perceived) QUALITY of the garment, are not NECESSARY conditions for a garment to be called "bespoke".
What else? Are these conditions also SUFFICIENT?

Costi, on second thought it is a little difficult. Afterall nobody has really done it before. We can define all kinds of demands in relation to "Maker", "Materials" and "Process", but I doubt it will of much use. There is too much art in tailoring. I don't know.

[David Hober]

Gruto,

I tend to agree with you that it is hard to make exact descriptions of bespoke.

We have been making clothes for 50 years in our family business and our definition is a very simple one:

Listen very carefully to the client, ask questions and advise them, then make the requested item. The final product is finished when the client is happy.

That is it - nothing else is important at the end of the day.

[Costi]

So we are just adding a couple more veals to the mystique of "bespoke", declaring it an indefinable art that is beyond concepts and words... Why, that's precisely the game of those word twisters we criticize. Defining bespoke in a rational manner will not take anything from the artisic side of tailoring. It takes a minimum of encyclopedic spirit to bring some reason to this matter.

[Greger]

Costi, I don't think you understand how tailors use patterns. Nor do you understand how close patterns can be. Just to make a stock pattern one size bigger you move a line out 1/8" and another and one 1/4", you can be off more than that in a hand drawn pattern for the customer. Anyway, the stock pattern is a guide where certain points are use and the rest does not mean anything. MTM is more dependant upon the pattern and won't change some of the points and follow the lines to much, unless the customer happens to be in the presence of a very good cutter who has an agreement with the manufacture to sew it up with those differences (that is a very nice m2m, but not tailored). It is actually m2m that uses some of the cutters methods, thought not much. Harry Simons, a tailor and cutter who wrote some books in the 1920s, says something like, "We finelly have accumulated enough pattern manipulation techniques to do m2m". All of these manipulations come from cutters, that is a cutter here and cutter there and so on as a secrets excaped. When you look at some clothes of the past, some cutters, because they couldn't read (reading wasn't common then), used stock patterns they bought from somebody who knew how to make them, or they got the stocks from who they learned from. And from these stock patterns they made garments that didn't even look like the pattern. Because, if you understand how to use certain points the rest is your imagenation. So, it is tailors who used stock patterns centuries before there ever was m2m. Must remember there wasn't paper like there is now. Large pieces of paper would be rare and not cheap and tailors are towards the bottom of the food chain, why else would they be working into their eighties. If your cutter has a block, he to, may manipulates it to create variouse other coats. Some cutters can take your lounge coat block and turn it into a shirt, any shirt, vest, any vest, overcoat, any overcoat, body coat, any body coat, cape or cloak. How many m2m people can do that? Even your block has problems-it is only one side of your body. What about the otherside? A lower shoulder? Broader or narrower shoulder and so on. Is he not cutting the other side like m2m and you only have one fitting? And then there is the tailoring. Did the tailor stretch or shrink this side enough? Each side is different. Cloth can be very different under the iron than another cloth. Maybe two fitting is better here, too.

Anyway, cutters that use stock patterns may use them as a guide or for house style. If used only for a guide it may not even look at all, on the chalked cloth, like the pattern. Some of these cutters use stock patterns in a way where rock of eye does most of the work. How many m2m use a stock pattern that way? To be bespoke a stock pattern could not be used on the second coat (except by an expert). By then it would have been developed into a person pattern. So, yes, in todays world a personal pattern is required to be bespoke.

[David Hober]

So we are just adding a couple more veals to the mystique of "bespoke", declaring it an indefinable art that is beyond concepts and words... Why, that's precisely the game of those word twisters we criticize. Defining bespoke in a rational manner will not take anything from the artisic side of tailoring. It takes a minimum of encyclopedic spirit to bring some reason to this matter.

Costi,

I think that you misunderstand what I wrote, bespoke/custom made is not mystical it is very practical - but the number one key point is the artisan listening to the client. This is true for making clothes, building houses and doctors performing operations.

The second most important point is the skill of the artisan.

Next, is the materials that are being worked with - fabrics, equipment and so on.

Everything else is the small details which should be left to the artisan.

Discussions about paper vs computer patterns, blank pages to start or rough patterns, are fun to talk about but are only small details which will not effect the final outcome if you are working with an artisan.

In the end you should have something beautiful and well made which makes you happy.

[Greger]

Custom is taking home the oil painting. Where factory is taking home a copy of a painting. Both is about art. It is nice to have the original.

[David Hober]

Custom is taking home the oil painting. Where factory is taking home a copy of a painting. Both is about art. It is nice to have the original.

I am not sure what you mean but custom made and bespoke are exactly the same - in American English.

[Greger]

Custom is taking home the oil painting. Where factory is taking home a copy of a painting. Both is about art. It is nice to have the original.

I am not sure what you mean but custom made and bespoke are exactly the same - in American English.

I use the words interchangalbly, being the same word, just spelled different and pronounced different. As a boy I grew up with bespoke. It was when in my 20s when I connected the words as the same in clotheing. When in middle school, may have been when i first heard custom with clotheing and wondered if they were the same. I think custom tailored clothes and custom clothes may not be the same. It depends. One is steeped in the traditions of tailoring and the other may have learned in home ec at school. Both can do fine custom work. One will probably be of a higher qualitiy. To seperate the two I really like to hear custom tailor or bespoke tailor and the other as plain custom or bespoke. One has hundreds of years of tradition and learning and the other one doesn't.

[David Hober]

Custom is taking home the oil painting. Where factory is taking home a copy of a painting. Both is about art. It is nice to have the original.

I am not sure what you mean but custom made and bespoke are exactly the same - in American English.

I use the words interchangalbly, being the same word, just spelled different and pronounced different. As a boy I grew up with bespoke. It was when in my 20s when I connected the words as the same in clotheing. When in middle school, may have been when i first heard custom with clotheing and wondered if they were the same. I think custom tailored clothes and custom clothes may not be the same. It depends. One is steeped in the traditions of tailoring and the other may have learned in home ec at school. Both can do fine custom work. One will probably be of a higher qualitiy. To seperate the two I really like to hear custom tailor or bespoke tailor and the other as plain custom or bespoke. One has hundreds of years of tradition and learning and the other one doesn't.

Perhaps in some countries and cultures there is a difference but in America there is no difference.

Actually most Americans will never use the term bespoke at all. If they want a suit, car, house, shirt or tie exactly as they want it with numerous modifications they will use the term "custom" not bespoke.

We have many very experienced and demanding clients who know what they want in great detail and the process of making their visions is bespoke/custom made there is no difference.

At times we get hand or computer drafted designs made by our clients which it is our pleasure to use as a starting point but we always interpret the offered patterns and diagrams as we think it will work best. Starting with a blank pattern or a rough draft or whatever will all yield the exact same results if an artisan knows what they are doing. Saying that a design must be made in a certain way or on a certain street is only marketing...

There is a simple reason for this: it is our business and craft and in the end often no one will be happy if we delegate the meaning of bespoke to be anything other than listening to our clients.

The same goes for the design of fabrics. We often receive requests for bespoke silks and after listening we will make the final decisions on silk warp colors, the tightness of the weave, the finish and so on...

As an example last week a client who is experienced with silk design wanted a college striped silk with a pearl warp instead of a black warp. The thinking was that this would brighten the white stripes. This is true - but and this is a big point the pearl warp softens the reds and blues which are so important in classic striped silks. We did not agree with the pearl warp design.

What we did was to slow the design process down and have sample silk woven in England then flown to us in Bangkok where we reviewed the silks and then sent them on to the USA for our client to have a look. Afterwards I will call the gentlemen and discuss further the warp and color choices.

Is this part of the meaning of bespoke tailoring? Not strictly speaking as in doing it every time and adding it to a definition, but after listening to our client and his goals it was part of the bespoke process for this tie.

Again it was our decision based on experience. We design fabrics every month while our clients do it only at times if ever.

[Greger]

That is interesting that you will do bespoke weaving, which is a different category than tailoring. Weavers make cloth while tailors shape it into garments. Tailoring is in jackets and sometimes vest because of the pad stitching, so I was told. If you want to go looser, then toursers and shirts. Looser still would be any mans clotheing. We all draw our own conclusions, I stick with what I was told, though I will use the looser terms sometimes. Different groups of tailors will have attached different meanings, not to mention non-tailors. Who is right who is wrong? Well, sometimes it is personal, and some of the others aren't necessarily wrong. Further more, to add to the confusion, in the past, before all of the fancy machinery, manufactured was done by hand, including the pad stitching. Therefore to make sense of the old craft I put the two words together bespoke tailored or custom tailored to seperate this from everthing else. Factory products just can't be bespoke/custom tailoring. Some of those factory workers were just as good at what they did, but the garment as a whole does not earn the Title Bespoke Tailored or Custom Tailored.

In the past tie makers must have had a name to seperate them from everybody else, so they belonged to another category. I'm sure I heard of the name for those who made pocket squares (I have Irish blood and the Irish were know for their linen pocket squares). The old craftsmen were proud of their trade and didn't want to be called by some other trades category name. As these crafts disappear so do their names. As custom shoe makers are not custom tailors- they both sew. Those who work with fur, I don't think they like being called tailors, they have there own name, which they would much rather hear. Tailors use fur, too. But they don't belong to the other group. What is interesing about the past is so many or those names are being lost. It was neat to hear them and their importants explained.

Sometimes when I write I get ahead of myself and forget a word here or there, or several words, or a sentence got changed several time, so the finish sentence didn't make any sense, which create misunderstandings (those of you who type fast have no idea how lucky you are). In the large part I think we agree with each other.

[David Hober]

Gregor,

You write very well and make good points.

Custom weaving is not our main business and something that my wife's family was more involved with in the past. On my side of the family in the past we have made clothes mostly for women. And although we owned factories we have lots of tailoring experience for new designs and samples.

We will weave for a client ourselves by hand here in Thailand when time allows but lately we have mostly used mills in England, Ireland and Italy. As many gentlemen are used to the polished look of English and Italian silks.

I mentioned the bespoke weaving not because I consider us to be bespoke weavers (as we do not focus on this nowadays) but as an illustration of what bespoke clothing is to us - first and foremost listening and when needed going the extra mile for materials always with an eye to giving the client what they want.

This is also not uncommon for example in home decorating. When we do not have the right period furniture available for our French country house we will buy old wood and have the furniture made.

If waving a magic wand gave good results or hiring elves - we would do so. Actually I like the idea of hiring elves they work at night and are great at small details.

[Greger]

If waving a magic wand gave good results or hiring elves - we would do so. Actually I like the idea of hiring elves they work at night and are great at small details.

If you ever find some be sure to send me a pm telling me how to contact them. I hear they do very find work.

[storeynicholas]

Not only are elves fine and hard workers but they still believe in a management structure that involves more Indians than chiefs; there is never union disruption (as there are no unions) and they are cheap to use as their piece work rates are very low; owing to the reduced needs of their smaller size.
NJS

[David Hober]

Not only are elves fine and hard workers but they still believe in a management structure that involves more Indians than chiefs; there is never union disruption (as there are no unions) and they are cheap to use as their piece work rates are very low; owing to the reduced needs of their smaller size.
NJS

Leprechauns also have a magical reputation and would likely have good skills working with the finest Irish linen.