The Suit That Couldn’t Be Copied

July 26, 2016 5:08 PM

A New Yorker article on a tailor (cutter), bespoke clothing, desire and wealth.
posted by andrewcooke (23 comments total)

I'm an amateur sewer myself, and nowhere near skilled enough to consider myself even a modest tailor. I also lack a certain imagination to really design anything interesting, but reading about clothes from the point of view of an author, like this one and like me, who can just see that there's something wonderful a little out of their perception is very gratifying.

Thanks for the post.
posted by bswinburn at 5:26 PM on July 26, 2016

"It seemed to make him more of an artist in my eyes, similar to writers I know who get reviewed on the cover of the Times Book Review but sometimes walk across Manhattan to save subway tolls."

This is all kinds of great. Thanks very much, andrew.

"...interest in clothes started because of a description of St. Mark’s Place in a music magazine. He took from it a sense of people making things, of clothes and music as aspects of self-expression."

Fantastic. He was inspired by Trash and Vaudeville. Fantastic.
posted by mwhybark at 5:31 PM on July 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

I enjoyed this thoroughly. Thanks for posting it.
posted by GrammarMoses at 6:06 PM on July 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can someone explain what's going on below the shoulder blades in that first pic? Because I'm confused
posted by thecjm at 6:48 PM on July 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fascinating, I wish I could see this guy in action.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:02 PM on July 26, 2016

My god, that Bentley jacket is amazing.
posted by mhoye at 7:11 PM on July 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can someone explain what's going on below the shoulder blades in that first pic? Because I'm confused

Agreed. There's a weird humanoid shape in the middle of his back from the way the fabric is straining. That suit is too tight, crumpled, and is hanging in a very unattractive way. Plus it looks like the kind of thing that Prince Charles would wear, which is not a plus point for me.
posted by w0mbat at 7:11 PM on July 26, 2016

Gieves and Hawke house style is rigid, military, emphasis on roped shoulders, so what we might see as tight is deliberate (whether it's attractive is a different question).

If you like this kind of thing, you might want to start reading Permanent Style. That's where I get my vicarious bespoke fix.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:25 PM on July 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

i_am_joe's_spleen that link is great! Any other resources where I can learn more about tailoring suits? Books? Definitive blog posts? In particular, anything from the perspective of making them and not buying them.
posted by pmg at 7:36 PM on July 26, 2016

From the front, that suit looks fine. The lapels are a bit too huge for my taste, but I see what it's up to. From behind, it makes him look like a bobblehead.
posted by thecjm at 7:51 PM on July 26, 2016

Drool. I adore the bentley jacket. Really amazing work.
posted by drklahn at 7:53 PM on July 26, 2016

I loved the way the article pointed out that the Savile Row cutter and assistant prof at a public university who placed a piece in the New Yorker both make lovely things for rich people but aren't rich themselves. The thing that separates the New Yorker from a Savile Row suit is that even though those luxury car and fashion/jewelry ads aren't for me, I still get to read the articles.
posted by sy at 8:07 PM on July 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

A forum that's all about the nitty-gritty details of suitmaking: Cutter and Tailor
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 8:22 PM on July 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

sy, among the things that I particularly admired about the article was the manner in which the author continually cycles through themes of globalism, both of the economic and consciousness variety. In the piece, his written voice is that of a subcontinental member of the global creative class struck by lust for an example of his birth region's former colonial conqueror's method of displaying privilege, which proves unassimilable. He certainly knows what he is doing, as you note: he's a master of his craft. The St. Mark's kicker is killer, by god, killer!
posted by mwhybark at 8:36 PM on July 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's not updated much anymore, but Thomas Mahon's English Cut blog is fascinating. You have to go a few years back, but there were multiple little pieces on cutters and other members of the community, on the slow death of the Savile Row community (he himself is based out of Cumbria now), and the occasional picture of some of his work (including a batshit insane sequined suit for a longtime customer which I am too lazy to dig up right now).

Spitalfields Life has also covered some of the tailoring life.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 9:05 PM on July 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

If only I'd known, as a lad, that there was an occupation I could take up that would lead me to be "Head Cutter"....
posted by pompomtom at 9:30 PM on July 26, 2016

Superb humblebragging on that Permanent Style blog: someone asks how much some shirts cost and the author replies

Bespoke shirts start at € 580, made to measure at € 460.
It surprises me quite how much it is every time.

Quite.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:33 PM on July 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wonderful! I recently splurged on gifting my husband a made to measure shirt from Gieves & Hawkes. He has a hard time with dress shirts as his body type does not fit the typical shape made for off the rack items. Knowing almost nothing about Savile Row I chose them because their address is 1 Savile Row and they were pleasant and helpful with my initial inquiries. Happy to hear that the history goes much deeper than that and they employ people like Taub.
posted by like_neon at 5:26 AM on July 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm just assuming that the suit looks much better in person because of the obvious bad quality of the top photograph. The point source lighting (looks like it's the room's track lights) raking across the suit exaggerates the lapel crumple and the distorted back. Better photographers keep a couple of Elinchroms in the trunk for when the available light isn't cutting it.
posted by w0mbat at 11:07 AM on July 27, 2016

The pic wasn't taken in a neutral stance and I'm sure Taub's suit looks better in person. There is some puckering between the shoulder blades and there seems to be inadequate adjustments for a prominent left shoulder blade. The Batman-like shape in the back is probably related to the traditional highly structured roped shoulders combined with a very aggressive waist suppression. While Taub's jacket seems to have some issues, I bet it drapes beautifully and looks great in person.

This is a suit he made for himself, for his own enjoyment and/or trying some new technique. As head cutter at Gieves and Hawkes, however, if he has anything left to prove he does it with the suits delivered to clients. I don't think any bespoke tailor could perform such magic when fitting themselves as the the author of the linked article describes watching Taub fitting a client.
posted by delegeferenda at 2:33 PM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I went through something similar in college, albeit it's a much lower-rent version of the author's lust for a good suit. I fell in love with a photo of one particular suit in a J Crew catalog, and wanted it copied by a tailor in Shanghai during the winter break.

It didn't turn out well, of course. We went to several fittings, but no matter how the tailor boasted of her persistence in getting things right, the suit just wouldn't hang right on my frame. My mom, who's a very experienced home sewer, could only wrung her hands because suit making was beyond her. The suit was quietly ditched after college when I realized that one doesn't need to wear a suit to job interviews for programmer jobs.

I still remember the tailor pretty well. She was a good-looking woman in her mid 40s. She was a pretty good saleswoman and told us she was a former gymnast in Yunnan and was trying to make it in the big city. She had also her teenage daughter helping out in her shop, though the daughter is much less assertive than the mother. I sometimes wonder if how long that tailor stayed working in Shanghai.

In short, I have sympathies for the nameless tailors in India and Vietnam in the story, even though they are far far less skilled than Taub.
posted by of strange foe at 3:29 PM on July 27, 2016

A few random thoughts. My grandpa was a tailor. He ended up as the cutter in a factory doing ready to wear -- a very serious job, because you are trying to balance getting the end product to hang right and look right, with minimising wastage of cloth. The pennies add up when you're making lots of one item!

Also thinking that back in the days before ready to wear was common, tailors were the only alternative to home sewing. A few would be very excellent and serve the aristocrats and the rich, but most would be middling to poor, both in terms of their skill level, and in the amount of effort they put into each garment. As the ready to wear became both cheap and good relatively, that top tier of tailors is left, and so that's why we think of bespoke as really excellent now.

I wonder about cheap Asian tailors. Their proposition, after all, is that they are cheaper, and serving people who can't patronise the best in developed countries. Hard to see how their standard could be the same, otherwise, they could break into luxury end of the market at luxury prices. They might be as talented if given a chance to shine, but I expect their model relies on doing less work or farming out to less-skilled pieceworkers wherever possible.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:34 PM on July 27, 2016

Better photographers keep a couple of Elinchroms in the trunk for when the available light isn't cutting it.

Clearly The New Yorker needs to step up they game with regard to sourcing top-tier creative contractors for in-Manhattan assignments.
posted by mwhybark at 5:34 PM on July 27, 2016