First bespoke suit: Firenze via Ōsaka
I feel with you, it's not a total failure. You learned a invaluable lesson.
John Kent
Steed
Graham Brown.
All fine, honest, capable tailors.
Their style is the style for you.
Steed
Graham Brown.
All fine, honest, capable tailors.
Their style is the style for you.
Bird
Where is home? Are you actually based in Sydney? If you are, I’ve heard good things about Zimma, although no first hand experience of my own.
Where is home? Are you actually based in Sydney? If you are, I’ve heard good things about Zimma, although no first hand experience of my own.
Bird
One of our members whose clothes are consistently excellent has them made by a tailor in Sydney. Tchoy can probably give you more information about them.
https://www.instagram.com/thefinerycompany/
This 30s style Polo coat is exemplary:
IMG_5867 by banjo888, on Flickr
You might also consider a Skype consultation with Old Henry. He makes the style of clothing a Gentleman is proud to wear.
Keep swinging for the fence!
Cheers
One of our members whose clothes are consistently excellent has them made by a tailor in Sydney. Tchoy can probably give you more information about them.
https://www.instagram.com/thefinerycompany/
This 30s style Polo coat is exemplary:
IMG_5867 by banjo888, on FlickrYou might also consider a Skype consultation with Old Henry. He makes the style of clothing a Gentleman is proud to wear.
Keep swinging for the fence!
Cheers
I am not in the least circumspect about "Italian" tailoring, au contraire, I am bullish about it and a lifelong customer.Alden: I think I understand what you are saying. Certainly, I prefer a coat that lacks the ostentation of ‘fashionable’ Neapolitan tailors. I do not find Ring Jacket’s styling to be ostentatious, and before that I wore Borrelli, which was likewise not over-styled (overpriced, perhaps, but that’s another story...)
I suppose that what I think of as Italian style is the 3-roll-2, open quarters, and barely padded shoulders and sleeveheads. As well as a certain proportion in the coat.
What I am warning you to avoid is the "new" Neapolitan tailoring and the branding tailors took up about fifteen years ago. It is not a question of being ostentatious. It's a question of being loud, ornate, overtly Baroque, gaudy, gilded and generally speaking in poor taste.
This exaggerated style was devised to attract foreign clients to Naples from other Italian sartorial centers. And the strategy has been wildly successful. But the product is something you will wear around the Via Chiaia for a week and that's about it. The rippling effusive sleeveheads, ornate stitching, long skinny and then suddenly wide lapels, the low button point, the equally low rise trousers...etc will look more Barnum and Bailey than Brooks Brothers when you get home. 
And that suit will radiate in the closet for a few decades before someone releases it from its time capsule with a comment like, "I wonder what Grandpa was smoking back then??" And speaking of time travel, I wish I could take all LL members back to the streets of the Spanish Quarter the way I knew them in the 1970s. I have never seen anything like that and never will. The streets were teeming with amazing tailors making clothes that rivaled anything. By the time I got back in the late 90s, almost all of that natural elegance and excellence was gone. The very last of that breed of tailors was passing on and taking their skills and sensibility with them. Then in 2006 or so a group of entrepreneurs realized how to use the internet to attract foreign clients who would normally go to Rome, Milan or Florence for their clothes. That is when photographs of wildly ornate clothing appeared out of nothing. And these photographs did catch the attention of people in Osaka, Kiev and Indianapolis in a way that a superbly crafted but elegant coat could never do. Neapolitanesque fashion was born. The hype installed around it, writers were paid to conflate it, magazines were born in Asia to inflate it..and the rest is History.
When I was writing about Naples in 2004, I was describing the glowing embers of the last bits of the previous generation. And I counseled readers to "get their tailoring now" because it soon would be gone. Sadly my prediction was spot on.
Bird:
Checking back in . . . . I was trying to be gentle and selective in my comments as it's your first bespoke outing. I was concerned I might have been too harsh, but clearly I needn't have worried.
I do know the feeling. Allow me to share a story. As I've written here before, I had my first bespoke jacket (recently relocated to a good home via the LL Goodwill) made in 1984 by John Kent at the old Hawes & Curtis. It was classic and beautiful, and fit my then-beanpole physique perfectly. After a few years and some gym time, it needed easing in the body, so I contacted John Kent's solo business (Hawes & Curtis having folded before the name was revived for 'fashion' shirts) to see if he could alter it. Mr. Kent was apparently having health problems, and I was directed to the (soon to be infamous) Darren Beaman to do the alterations. After a long delay, they were done competently, so I inquired about a new suit. Beaman said that Mr. Kent was not cutting anymore, and that he was taking all Kent's customers, and would be happy to make a new suit—my first bespoke suit. This was about the time the LL was coming on the scene.
Unlike many others who had been enticed by online comment about Mr. Beaman, I eventually did get a finished suit. As a relative novice (when I'd had the blazer made in 1984, I'd put myself entirely in Mr. Kent's hands—which I later learned is exactly the right approach to an experienced master) I was uncertain about the suit Beaman made; it didn't fit me the way Kent's blazer had when new, but it seemed at least wearable. I'd selected the old 12-13-oz Lesser Lumb's Golden Bale worsted flannel; gorgeous cloth.
So I wore it for the first time up to town for a LL get-together with manton, collarmelton, bry2000, Mark Seitelman, Terry Teplitz and a couple of others involving a trip to Tip-Top fabrics in Brooklyn and a very hedonistic lunch back in Manhattan afterwards. All the time the guys were eyeing the suit, and eventually one of them asked me who made it. I told them, and manton walked completely around me as if sizing up a side of beef and said, "Well, you can keep the pants." Mark was a little kinder, but I knew manton was right, even if it felt like a gut-punch.
Fortunately, the suit cloth was charcoal gray, so the two pairs of trousers have served well as odd trousers ever since. Collarmelton introduced me at Poole to his cutter Phillip Parker, and thanks to Michael, etutee, and the LL crew, the cutters at Poole, and later Edwin and Matthew at Steed (and a lot of study), I have a growing wardrobe of well-cut clothes and enough knowledge and confidence to experiment with a local tailor.
That first New York trip was almost 15 years ago. With the good counsel you've received in this thread, you'll get there too.
Checking back in . . . . I was trying to be gentle and selective in my comments as it's your first bespoke outing. I was concerned I might have been too harsh, but clearly I needn't have worried.
I do know the feeling. Allow me to share a story. As I've written here before, I had my first bespoke jacket (recently relocated to a good home via the LL Goodwill) made in 1984 by John Kent at the old Hawes & Curtis. It was classic and beautiful, and fit my then-beanpole physique perfectly. After a few years and some gym time, it needed easing in the body, so I contacted John Kent's solo business (Hawes & Curtis having folded before the name was revived for 'fashion' shirts) to see if he could alter it. Mr. Kent was apparently having health problems, and I was directed to the (soon to be infamous) Darren Beaman to do the alterations. After a long delay, they were done competently, so I inquired about a new suit. Beaman said that Mr. Kent was not cutting anymore, and that he was taking all Kent's customers, and would be happy to make a new suit—my first bespoke suit. This was about the time the LL was coming on the scene.
Unlike many others who had been enticed by online comment about Mr. Beaman, I eventually did get a finished suit. As a relative novice (when I'd had the blazer made in 1984, I'd put myself entirely in Mr. Kent's hands—which I later learned is exactly the right approach to an experienced master) I was uncertain about the suit Beaman made; it didn't fit me the way Kent's blazer had when new, but it seemed at least wearable. I'd selected the old 12-13-oz Lesser Lumb's Golden Bale worsted flannel; gorgeous cloth.
So I wore it for the first time up to town for a LL get-together with manton, collarmelton, bry2000, Mark Seitelman, Terry Teplitz and a couple of others involving a trip to Tip-Top fabrics in Brooklyn and a very hedonistic lunch back in Manhattan afterwards. All the time the guys were eyeing the suit, and eventually one of them asked me who made it. I told them, and manton walked completely around me as if sizing up a side of beef and said, "Well, you can keep the pants." Mark was a little kinder, but I knew manton was right, even if it felt like a gut-punch.
Fortunately, the suit cloth was charcoal gray, so the two pairs of trousers have served well as odd trousers ever since. Collarmelton introduced me at Poole to his cutter Phillip Parker, and thanks to Michael, etutee, and the LL crew, the cutters at Poole, and later Edwin and Matthew at Steed (and a lot of study), I have a growing wardrobe of well-cut clothes and enough knowledge and confidence to experiment with a local tailor.
That first New York trip was almost 15 years ago. With the good counsel you've received in this thread, you'll get there too.
Last edited by couch on Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dear Bird,
You have my sympathy. It's such a pleasure when a bespoke garment comes off right, and such a disappointment if it doesn't. I'm sure most of us here are well acquainted with both of these feelings.
Manself
You have my sympathy. It's such a pleasure when a bespoke garment comes off right, and such a disappointment if it doesn't. I'm sure most of us here are well acquainted with both of these feelings.
Manself
Sometimes, it is the shop with excellent RTW that doesn't translate to bespoke-- and that is a huge surprise. I remember there was an Italian clothier (just retired this year) in my town when I was in high school who had a very elegantly styled jacket that just happened not to fit my size perfectly. I didn't want much change at all-- and since he designed the original, I figured it wouldn't be too big a deal to have another one made just for me. We talked about price, etc., and got an order going. For some reason, the new jacket lacked all the poetry of the RTW. Objectively good workmanship, but somehow he overdid changes and made a few I wasn't expecting. So, off to NY and then London for suits. A pity. Lovely guy, with excellent quality stuff if you didn't mind it looking more Italian than New England.
Sorry to see a project go awry. Its not just the money - its the very personal planning and expectation that rides along with the process that makes it a small personal tragedy rather than a disaster.
I've had a few disappointments along the way and have done my utmost to learn lessons for future application. I think there are a few themes.
1 - In each case the mistakes are my mistakes, not my tailor’s. (I should say here that on the face of it I think Bird’s problem may also extend to contractual failures on the tailor’s part : and contract litigation is, IMHO, as much fun as you can have standing up, so give it a go). In my case, the features that disappoint have been my own insistence on some fopdoodle-ish feature (ticket pockets, velvet collar, etc...). I look back now and shudder a little at some ideas.
2 - If my tailor suggests something quite directly, ignoring it is generally a mistake. It’s not that he’s some tailoring philosopher-king (actually, thinking about it, he’s not far off), but like most artists, I perceive that tailors have an enthusiasm for things they see as being of aesthetic merit - and presumably vice-versa too. I now accept that his gauge of proportion and style are way beyond my own. I’m happy to leave such judgments to him.
3 - Particular danger attaches to the do-it-all suit or coat. If you want a suit for both town & country, to wear all year round, not too formal but suitable to pass as evening wear at a pinch, or a 3 season overcoat - you are going to be very disappointed. My more positive projects tend on the whole to have a narrow objective. My latest acquisition is a grey lighter weight whipcord jacket, to wear with flannels to work when a suit isn’t essential. It’s probably too formal for non-work situations : very limited in ambition yet a hugely satisfying piece.
4 - Hand made clothes often contain features that might be considered a fault in a factory made product. In many cases this is due to the fact that the garment is made to look good - on you - and not on a hanger. I had noticed that, when hung up, all of my suit and sport jackets had a curl in the left sleeve that wasnt matched in the right - but they match just fine when being worn. The reason? Turns out my arms (& shoulders) are different sizes. Who knew! (apart from my tailor).
So don’t let the disappointments knock you back - take your mind off it with a new commission from a different maker. If I lived in Sydney I reckon I’d have every suit in heavy linen!
I've had a few disappointments along the way and have done my utmost to learn lessons for future application. I think there are a few themes.
1 - In each case the mistakes are my mistakes, not my tailor’s. (I should say here that on the face of it I think Bird’s problem may also extend to contractual failures on the tailor’s part : and contract litigation is, IMHO, as much fun as you can have standing up, so give it a go). In my case, the features that disappoint have been my own insistence on some fopdoodle-ish feature (ticket pockets, velvet collar, etc...). I look back now and shudder a little at some ideas.
2 - If my tailor suggests something quite directly, ignoring it is generally a mistake. It’s not that he’s some tailoring philosopher-king (actually, thinking about it, he’s not far off), but like most artists, I perceive that tailors have an enthusiasm for things they see as being of aesthetic merit - and presumably vice-versa too. I now accept that his gauge of proportion and style are way beyond my own. I’m happy to leave such judgments to him.
3 - Particular danger attaches to the do-it-all suit or coat. If you want a suit for both town & country, to wear all year round, not too formal but suitable to pass as evening wear at a pinch, or a 3 season overcoat - you are going to be very disappointed. My more positive projects tend on the whole to have a narrow objective. My latest acquisition is a grey lighter weight whipcord jacket, to wear with flannels to work when a suit isn’t essential. It’s probably too formal for non-work situations : very limited in ambition yet a hugely satisfying piece.
4 - Hand made clothes often contain features that might be considered a fault in a factory made product. In many cases this is due to the fact that the garment is made to look good - on you - and not on a hanger. I had noticed that, when hung up, all of my suit and sport jackets had a curl in the left sleeve that wasnt matched in the right - but they match just fine when being worn. The reason? Turns out my arms (& shoulders) are different sizes. Who knew! (apart from my tailor).
So don’t let the disappointments knock you back - take your mind off it with a new commission from a different maker. If I lived in Sydney I reckon I’d have every suit in heavy linen!
I’d love for this fine fella to commission a suit from John Kent. Discover the charm of old ways.
so true, not every style suit every man.alden wrote:
I think a very sober, understated but strong, classically elegant ie Anglo/American suit (that fits you, made by someone who knows what they are doing) would be best for your look. (But above all it has to fit you before it can suit you.) I say that because I have never seen the strong Italianate typed style look good on anyone other than Italian locals or some very rare Asians. It looks horrid on me, so I have first hand experience
An informative and useful post by Melcombe. Thanks.
A look at his ‘themes’:
This is a tricky one because in my experience the salesman / cutter will not outright refuse custom so it’s up to the client not to push too hard, in practice.
I would add as a sub-type, projects ‘against nature’ (you know, ultra-light tweeds or too informally cut smart fabrics or for-business suits with excessively ‘interesting’ details / fabrics, etc.)
A look at his ‘themes’:
One sees some clear tailoring mistakes but in my personal case, I can’t say there has ever been an actual mistake on their part. A difference of interpretation, sure, but not a mistake. Maye I’ve been lucky.Melcombe wrote:1 - In each case the mistakes are my mistakes, not my tailor’s.
Amen to that. If the fellow making the garment is unenthusiastic about what you’ve asked, it will tell…Melcombe wrote:2 - If my tailor suggests something quite directly, ignoring it is generally a mistake.
This is a tricky one because in my experience the salesman / cutter will not outright refuse custom so it’s up to the client not to push too hard, in practice.
A rather subtle but very well observed point, in my opinion.Melcombe wrote:3 - Particular danger attaches to the do-it-all suit or coat … My more positive projects tend on the whole to have a narrow objective.
I would add as a sub-type, projects ‘against nature’ (you know, ultra-light tweeds or too informally cut smart fabrics or for-business suits with excessively ‘interesting’ details / fabrics, etc.)
I remember the first time I ran up against that. In college with a tailor in the back of one of the Regent St fabric shops (I know...). We were discussing a suit and I was wondering if I could get on-seam pockets for the trousers. He looked at me and said wouldn't I prefer "normal" trousers? Umm, yes, I would. No point taking him too far out of his comfort zone.Melcombe wrote:
2 - If my tailor suggests something quite directly, ignoring it is generally a mistake. It’s not that he’s some tailoring philosopher-king (actually, thinking about it, he’s not far off), but like most artists, I perceive that tailors have an enthusiasm for things they see as being of aesthetic merit - and presumably vice-versa too. I now accept that his gauge of proportion and style are way beyond my own. I’m happy to leave such judgments to him.
That generally served me well. This might sound strange, but looking at photos of yourself out and about can give a better perspective than looking at yourself in the mirror during fittings, the cutter is looking from afar and sees what others will see, and with the added experience, I tend to just go with him.Melcombe wrote:
I now accept that his gauge of proportion and style are way beyond my own. I’m happy to leave such judgments to him.
Dear Bird
I am sorry to hear your first attempt in bespoke haven't turn out as well as you like.
A good friend and a old tailor told me once consider your first bespoke commission as tuition fee you will learn much from it.
I am also from Sydney Australia I've had success with a few remaining bespoke tailors that are left, I am happy to discuss the pros and cons if you send me a PM.
As Michael mentioned I currently use Joe Ha from The Finery Company for my bespoke clothings judging with your stylistic choices he would be suitable for you.
http://thehounds.com.au/features-the-ho ... i-peacock/
https://www.instagram.com/thefinerycompany/?hl=en
I am sorry to hear your first attempt in bespoke haven't turn out as well as you like.
A good friend and a old tailor told me once consider your first bespoke commission as tuition fee you will learn much from it.
I am also from Sydney Australia I've had success with a few remaining bespoke tailors that are left, I am happy to discuss the pros and cons if you send me a PM.
As Michael mentioned I currently use Joe Ha from The Finery Company for my bespoke clothings judging with your stylistic choices he would be suitable for you.
http://thehounds.com.au/features-the-ho ... i-peacock/
https://www.instagram.com/thefinerycompany/?hl=en
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