The Hand Sewn Factor

[dempsy444]

HI all, I have a couple of long winded and naive questions that could be dangerously time consuming, so read at your own risk;)

I was looking at the Savile Row Bespoke Association website. On their "bespoke process" page a lot of emphasis is placed on hand stitching. By SRBA's standard, it sounds like the entire suit is hand stitched for the most part. I take it that if a tailor makes a custmom suit but not to these standars, they dont consider it true bespoke. There are of course many tailors who will make you a suit but like to use a machine as much as possible. It is often assumed on forums that hand sewing is superior to machine, which I don't doubt for a second, but I'm not sure I understand entirely what specific benefits it provides the customer over a "bespoke-like" suit made by machine. I'd be curious to learn what a hand sewn suit gives a customer that a machine sewn one doesn't, if you hold everything else equal. And if there are certain areas that can't be hand stitched or shouldn't? I wonder too how much extra time the hand sewing process adds to the making of a bespoke-like" suit vs. machine, all else equal?

I'm also curious to understand better how important the guts of a suit are relative to everything else like the cloth, tailor, fit, ect. Prior to my last suit, I never thought about what impact the quality of the interlining, padding, and canvas may have on the suit. How critical is this stuff relative to the other factors we think about like the experience of the tailor, the fit, the fabric, etc.?

Maybe you know a good book or artile that could help me with these question or could just offer your own view? Thans for your time.

[J.S. Groot]

Read Jeff Diduch's blog: http://tuttofattoamano.blogspot.com/

[old henry]

Learning how to make a proper handmade canvas took me years. And learning how to properly baste the coat front to the canvas, again, took me a long long time. Cranky, old men wanting me to do it right so that the gift they were given would live true in the gift they were giving to me. Your brain cannot know how to hand stitch. Your hands must know. I could not tell you anything about tailoring because I do not know. I would have to show you. To pad stitch a lapel your hands must know how to hold the canvas with the cloth to manipulate them to work together as one to roll forever. I turn and fell all of my facings by hand. To me , I find it to have a more rich thick look. But the tailors at Raffaels shop make the edge by machine and they are so so beautiful. They are paper thin and a pleasure to handle. I do my facings by hand because that is how I was taught by my old men. I dont know how to do it by machine.If a man needs a lot of fullness in the back I will sew the shoulder seam by hand to gather the necessary fullness. but other fine tailors, better than I ,do by machine. ..and on..and on..and on. But...But... hand sewn is hand sewn.. humanity..life..history..charm..FS

[dempsy444]

Thank you Frank. Well said.

I met an older Italian tailor in Buenos Aires a few years back. He was 80 years old yet made me two suits that were almost entirely hand sewn in only 9 days. I'm sure he had help. But to this day, I still appreciate the hand work he put into each, like the hand stitched lapel. I love the attached photo. You can see him standing on the stairs behind me to reach my neck during the baste fitting.

[old henry]

I love it

[dempsy444]

Read Jeff Diduch's blog: http://tuttofattoamano.blogspot.com/

Thank you J.S. Jeff's site is extremely informative, though I cant say I understand all of it.

[J.S. Groot]

...though I cant say I understand all of it.

Hopefully not. There ought to be some difference in knowledge between us and the tailors, I find