A True Bespoke Tailor

[hutch--]

This set of photos are from the workshop of an old friend of mine, Peter Argy who runs a traditional tailoring business in a shopping center near where I live. Peter is a second generation tailor following after his father and has been at his trade for over 40 years. Over time he has done the lot in the bespoke field, manufacturing, some ready to wear, a reasonably amount of made to measure and one of the few people who can be trusted to do alterations on very expensive clothing. He has for a long time also run higher quality retail from his shop but its now a fading market due to the amount of cheap Indo-Chinese imports so he is selling off the stock to concentrate on his main business, high end clothing. His mum is also very handy at alterations, about 20 years ago when I went up to Queensland for a holiday, I bought a pair of denim shorts from him that needed to be altered. His mum unpicked the back seam, did the alterations and they fitted just fine.

The overlocker looper thread collection.

This is an industrial Singer machine that as you can see is regularly used. It is a very strong machine and Peter uses it mainly for doing alteration to expensive designer jeans. Most of this work is done using #40 weight thread to match the stitching of the original jeans.

This is a very well used blind hemming machine which is very common with high quality tailoring work. Typically it uses a very fine thread like Serafil of matching colour when an alteration requires the height of a trouser leg or a skirt/dress edge to be raised.

This is a proper industrial overlocker and as you can see its set up with a single needle for 3 thread overlocking. No joy to set up but a fast, smooth and powerful machine that is mainly used for securing edges when hemming trousers and skirts.

This Consew machine is primarily used for sewing high quality garments. It has a narrow foot and produces very good quality stitching. As you would expect it is also a fast and powerful machine but it is well suited for professional quality work.

Now sad to say when I turned up today to take some photos, he had just closed the shop and changed so he could vacuum the floor and tidy the place up so he was not his normal impeccably dressed self. Next time I go down that way with a camera I will get his photo when he is dressed for business.

[Schneiderfrei]

Wow that is very cool Hutch

[Manuela in Hong Kong]

Love the magnetic seam guode on the Singer, I use those all the time... I admire the blind hemmer, but personally rather do hems by hand.

[hutch--]

As I am blessed with a non-problematic figure (straight up and down stick with no bad lumps on the way) I took advantage of Peter Argy selling off his ready to wear stock and bought a pure wool jacket that fitted well enough to look like the real McCoy. I actually got him to stand still long enough to get a photo of the jacket type I bought, a black pinstripe pure wool item that matches a couple of pairs of trousers I bought a while ago. While I generally dress like a sack of spuds, there are just occasional times when I have to look like a human being, this is the latest contribution to doing so. 

[Mr.gustavsson]

You can't really be upset with the bots when they dig up old nuggets like these.