Bespoke Cutter And Tailor

Quote from: Hendrick on April 16, 2025, 04:38:10 AMActually, the once "revolutionary" streetstyle has become just as banal as the bourgeois style it has fought to do away with...

When Vivienne Westwood died I watched a documentary about her on TV that was reshown as a tribute. What struck me was just how contemporary the original Kings Road Punks now look. Westwood's once shocking ideas have been totally assimilated into mainstream fashion and nobody bats an eyelid these days. Exposed zips, T-shirts with slogans, ripped cloth... all normal.

Quote from: Gerry on April 16, 2025, 06:04:11 AMExposed zips, T-shirts with slogans, ripped cloth... all normal.

Meanwhile, someone walking around in a stroller and striped trousers is considered weird.  Or at least pretentious.

Deja vu all over again.  The French Revolution replaced silks and satins with what had been equestrian sportswear.  The cultural revolution of the late 20th century replaced the suit with what had been workwear.

When I was a boy, the ushers in our church wore boutonnières on their suit jackets.  Today I'm usher captain and wear a polo shirt with the church logo.

What I've been told is tailoring began with pad stitching, sewing before then followed what people wanted.
Many people copy others fitting into the crowd (like some birds).
Tailoring probably started in Italy, the French influenced it.
Beau Brummell pursued a different direction that the English followed and then the others. The story of clothing is change.
I tend to think that men get hot and pushed the upper fronts to the sides and tailors started to make them fancy and people started calling them lapels. Styles and fashions often came from the customers with tailors contributing.
Mass-production came along and they pushed style and fashion changes to give people a reason to talk and belong and pay money. If customers don't agree with the ideas the Mass-producers can "loose their shirt", many have. Big city tailors could be specialist, and many were. Read that Henry Poole set up two other tailor shops, one for younger people-fashions, another for the middle-class and he inherited his dad's shop and made the front door on Saville Row.
The middle-class tried to copy the wealthy, but with less money. All of this is bespoke, Bespoke quality varies according to pay.
Bespoke just means the definition in the dictionary of custom, but aimed at clothes.
In England they downgraded the word custom, concerning clothing, to what the US calls made to measure, "House Styles" is just a marketing scheme, styles are always changing, not as fast as fashions.
A suit can be a fashion or style.
Back in the 60's men in their 20's, 30's and even 40's would sneak into work wearing fashion suits and get caught and sent home to change into a style suit. As a boy I'd hear stories of these younger men being told they can't wear fashions to work. Fashions were a distraction, so they rushed home and changed.
"Bespoke" was part of the method of climbing the ladder.
In the US the word was "Custom", each country has their own name.
When it comes to quality this varies hugely from tailor to tailor, company owners vary, the tailors they hire vary.
Small community tailors have to make a huge variety of clothes to stay in business. Big city tailors if good can specialize.
If you were good and liked making top dollar White Tie Coats that's all some did, they had enough customers they never needed to make cheaper coats. Trousers, vest, shirts other people made, when being around this quality only the coat maker is called a tailor.
If you go back to the community tailor they made all kinds of clothes and quality, lumberjack, barn, mill, skiing, horse riding, mountaineering, children's, farmers, etc.
Today's world how many women, home sewers, make tee shirts in 30 minutes or less?
Bespoke quality is basically fit, some are not very good, Apprenticeship has many lessons.
Valuing clothes is learned.

Lot of different rabbit holes we could go down there.  I'll pick one:

Quote from: Greger on April 19, 2025, 11:50:29 PMValuing clothes is learned.

Who is left to teach the value of good clothing, and who wants to learn?

Mark Twain once wrote of Wagner's music, "It's better than it sounds".  To those not into it, it's just a lot of noise.

I'm told Jackson Pollock's artwork is brilliant, but to my untrained pedestrian eyes it looks like mulitcolored dog vomit on a wall.

My grandnephew couldn't be bothered to wear a suit for his high school graduation picture.  He didn't own one; the family had to rent one.  He absolutely refused to put on a tie.  To him it was just a hot, uncomfortable, ridiculous, archaic costume.  The results fit his attitude.  I believe the photo he picked for the class book was taken in a hoodie and backward ball cap, so he felt "natural".  And I'm sure he's far from the only one in his class.

I just don't see your vision of the "community tailor" being viable in the current century.

Quote from: jruley on April 20, 2025, 11:08:11 AMMark Twain once wrote of Wagner's music, "It's better than it sounds". 

        

Twain was very funny.

Quote from: Schneiderfrei on April 20, 2025, 12:26:25 PMTwain was very funny.

Twain on dressing for a funeral:

"Wear a frock coat and hat to a funeral.  Should the funeral be your own, the hat may be omitted."

Quote from: jruley on April 21, 2025, 04:10:25 AM

Quote from: Schneiderfrei on April 20, 2025, 12:26:25 PMTwain was very funny.

Twain on dressing for a funeral:

"Wear a frock coat and hat to a funeral.  Should the funeral be your own, the hat may be omitted."

The one funeral you won't miss...

Cheers, Hendrick

Quote from: jruley on April 20, 2025, 11:08:11 AMLot of different rabbit holes we could go down there.  I'll pick one:

Quote from: Greger on April 19, 2025, 11:50:29 PMValuing clothes is learned.

Who is left to teach the value of good clothing, and who wants to learn?

I just don't see your vision of the "community tailor" being viable in the current century.

The first person who Demanded a castle instead of a hut and workers figured out how to make the castle.

Second question) There are always those who want more than average. Some people want above average and start a business or two or three. Some achieve more.

Quote from: Greger on April 24, 2025, 03:39:14 AMThere are always those who want more than average. Some people want above average and start a business or two or three. Some achieve more.

I thought you were selling the notion that everyone went to the tailor, and everything was bespoke. Now you're saying that tailored clothing is for the above average.

Which is it?  You can't have it both ways.

When I was a boy, ordinary people did go to some tailors. It wasn't just for the rich.
So, yes, a whole community could.
When Mass-produced showed up it wasn't like everyone went to it and tailors were forgotten. Tailored clothes are comfortable, whereas, store bought is a cover.
If you always got comfortable clothes would you forget about them and buy cheaper uncomfortable clothes? Lots of people didn't. It depends on how you count value, money is not the only measure.
Today's sewing machines are very fast, 4,000 stitches is quick, 'Pedal to the Metal'.
All four leg seams is less than 4,000 stitches total, jeans are not time consuming.
It's like practicing the piano or violin or trumpet or oboe. Who can whip out 78 notes in the count of 1 - 2 without practice?  But you learn to move your arm, hand and fingers quick enough to be possible, plus all the details of quiet to louder etc.
There are all kinds of jackets, some have canvas in, different ways of putting canvas in, depends on how the garment is to be embellished and what the customer can pay for. This doesn't change the fit of the garment, it changes the looks.
There are tailors that will make for ordinary people and those that only pursue the wealthy.
Hostek said that he grew up dead center of Montana.
Draw two diagonal lines from corner to corner and there is a town really close.
I think he said that there was over 40 tailor companies, some had over 40 employees, most were probably making Mass-produced part (most) of the time.
That part of the country is wheat and cowboys, he had lots of cowboy paintings in his house.
This boot maker in central Oregon he made thousands of cowboy boots.
Cowboys would save their money and buy a pair of boots.
Lots of these boot makers were scattered across the west, Saddle makers too.
This one rancher, his ex wife caused huge loss for him, he always wore cowboy leather vest, none of them were the same. You can't find these in stores or the internet, someone made them for him.
Value isn't always measured by money.
Therefore, some people scarified their time for quality not found in the store or internet.
Fitted clothes don't rub as much. Rubbing is friction, friction wears out clothes.
You are right! ... there are less tailors.

Historically, at least in the UK, tailors catered to the different classes. Away from Savile Row, most high street tailors offered a cheaper product; and made-to-measure was always available from the larger chains of gents' outfitters. Tailoring in general was a low-paid profession, so prices could be kept affordable.

Even in the 1980s there were small, single traders who could knock up a decent garment for a reasonable price.
I know this, because I used one. I only ever had trousers made; and some basic alterations to coats. The trousers were totally machined, he worked to cloth and there were no fittings, which is how he kept costs down (though the cloth was always top notch). Obviously if something was totally amiss, he'd fix it (inlay was included), but amazingly I never had to ask him to do this. He had an uncanny knack of being able to get a really good result first time. If I were to inspect his work now, perhaps I'd find minor faults, but they'd only be that. Years of experience, I guess. Or he'd sold his soul to the devil.

Quote from: Gerry on April 24, 2025, 09:13:46 PMEven in the 1980s there were small, single traders who could knock up a decent garment for a reasonable price.
I know this, because I used one. I only ever had trousers made; and some basic alterations to coats. The trousers were totally machined, he worked to cloth and there were no fittings, which is how he kept costs down (though the cloth was always top notch). Obviously if something was totally amiss, he'd fix it (inlay was included), but amazingly I never had to ask him to do this. He had an uncanny knack of being able to get a really good result first time. If I were to inspect his work now, perhaps I'd find minor faults, but they'd only be that. Years of experience, I guess. Or he'd sold his soul to the devil.

Sounds like a good guy to know.  Would he have described himself as a "bespoke" tailor?  How would established businesses have reacted if he had?

Would you agree with the following:

Quote from: Greger on April 19, 2025, 11:50:29 PMAll of this is bespoke, Bespoke quality varies according to pay.

Bespoke just means the definition in the dictionary of custom, but aimed at clothes.

Bespoke quality is basically fit, some are not very good, Apprenticeship has many lessons.

I've read that a long, long time ago, the term "bespoke" applied to the cloth itself, not to the garment.  A (presumably wealthy) client would visit the tailor, pick out his cloth - and nothing else was to be cut from that "bespoke" piece until his garment was finished.

People buying from "bespoke" tailors today are usually after a certain level of quality as well as a good fit and their choice of cloth and linings.  I don't know if there is an agreed definition within the trade, but if anybody can call himself a "bespoke tailor" then the term doesn't really mean anything.

Quote from: jruley on April 24, 2025, 10:53:09 PMSounds like a good guy to know.  Would he have described himself as a "bespoke" tailor?  How would established businesses have reacted if he had

The term bespoke simply wasn't used then. Obviously it existed but it was taken for granted that a tailor would be able to make what you wanted, using decent quality cloth which you had chosen and that they would make a pattern from scratch, individual to your measurements.
A tailor was simply a tailor. The word bespoke didn't come into it.
The term is prevalent now only to differentiate traditional tailoring from made to measure and ready to wear. And as I mentioned, traditional tailoring catered to all pay levels.

I don't recall there being alterations tailors around then, either.
Obviously dry cleaners would mend garments that they had damaged, but they didn't offer alterations as many do now.
If you wanted alterations done you went to a basic tailor and don't forget that many women sewed from home in those days and we're skilled at carrying out simple alterations, my mother certainly was, though it helped that she was a trained dressmaker.

I would also add that a lot of what is done by hand now was done by machine in the past. That much is evident from mid-century tailoring manuals and vintage pieces. Savile Row has to justify its high prices and differentiate its products from ready-to-wear, so it propagates the concept that hand-sewing is better (even though this isn't always the case).

This is an article about my old tailor (You have to keep scrolling down past the multitude of ads to read the whole thing):

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/tailor-george-saunders-picks-up-64020

Sadly he's no longer around, but he gained a lot of attention towards the end of his life on account of his shop being one of the few surviving back-to-backs in existence. The National Trust bought it, along with the other shops of that kind along Hurst street, dismantled them brick-by-brick and rebuilt them in another part of town. It's now a heritage centre:

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/birmingham-west-midlands/birmingham-back-to-backs/the-story-of-george-saunders

The Trust took a lot of liberties, recreating the shop how a 1940s/50s establishment might have looked, when in reality this was its appearance in the early 1980s, when I knew it:



Consequently, my brother didn't make the connection when he visited the heritage centre with his family. It didn't help that the guy was really taciturn: neither of us ever knew his name, despite being regular customers, so the sign above the door in the heritage centre didn't register (we only ever knew the shop as 'Stage 2'). My brother told me that when he stepped into the place the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He had a massive sense of déjà vu and found the experience genuinely unnerving. He started contemplating reincarnation. Perhaps he'd been there in a previous life? Which of course he had (sort of). When he was in the visitors' centre watching a video about the history of the street, our old tailor popped up on screen and the colour came back to said brother's cheeks.

There was at least one other tailor shop along the same street. It was more expensive and very snooty (they didn't want to know if you asked about anything more fashion forward). Neither shop had 'bespoke' above their door (despite what the National Trust recreation might lead you to believe).

Edit: if you expand the photo, he described himself as a 'Master Tailor' and the other window has the sign 'Suits and Shirts Made to Measure'. Which had a different connotation in those days: it generally meant 'made to fit' (what we'd call bespoke, perhaps with a few corners cut).