I thought this was going to be an article about whether buying clothes was worthwhile and in the blink of an eye, I prepared a counter rant. However, I see it is just about diminishing returns. How many real custom tailors are there in the USA? It is no surprise that this is a frustrating business.

Apres moi, le deluge.

The article frames the issue from a tradesman perspective rather than the service rendered. And what is the service rendered?
1-Is it to have as many people as possible dressed with competently made clothes? If so, all hail mass production.
2-Is it to have as many people as possible dressed to their own wishes rather than uniform mass produced garments? If so all hail the marriage of digitized production lines (i.e. MTM) and the marketplace. But as they say, there's no accounting for taste.
3-Is it to have as many people as possible exercise taste, discretion and a devotion to handcraft in their clothing choices? to paraphrase Thomas Sowell, economics is the study of the particular allocation of relatively scarce resources that are also valuable for other uses. It looks like "other uses" are preferred to acquisition of finely tuned garments.

I would venture to say that compared to yesteryears multitudes more are being serviced by option one, option 2 was hardly known to the masses even if one's own mother was a productive seamstress, and option 3 is available today to a man of my station in life as a more than a once in a lifetime event.

As for the relative station in life of the vestment makers, what was that saying again about the cobblers family were the last ones to get shoes? And in the heyday of bespoke tailoring our Haitian hero would have been a lowly paid employee, surely never a master of his destiny, however hard won. Dress the classes, live with the masses; dress the masses, live with the classes is an old chestnut that our Haitian hero is embodying.

Crying for begone halcyon days of this or that is as silly a pose as Marie Antoinette and other courtesans dressing up as "peasants" at the Versailles gardens to experience a soulful return to nature.

Last edited by Chévere (2012-09-08 08:31:51)

FNB said:
"And the client has to listen to the tailor. I've seen my tailor pushed to make things I sense he isnt comfortable with and it warps the harmony of his basic design aesthetic. Customers with little knowledge and big ideas are often responsible for the train wreck suit."

Curiously, despite the fact that as a Plastic Surgeon I wear the tailor's hat, when it comes to clothing I have developed vast expertise in the little knowledge and big idea department contributing vigorously to the sad excess of train wreck suits. And coming here doesn't seem to help, except in feeding the illusion of exhilaration prior to the moment of impact, when my daughter says, Oh Dad, you're not wearing that are you?

Yesterday winter returned here for a few days 15C. I took a late train at 9 am to city. Somehow on local platform fell into conversation with a woman in nondescript drab parka, sneakers, jeans backpack etc and another bloke about australian noir crime novels. She was reading a book.

The bloke was mid 50s? had on a black DB suit, pinkish shirt, red striped tie with exact matching pocket hanky. Black slip on shoes - loafers I think people call them. He was neat, suit wasn't too shiney, fitted better than most but very so so.

Despite committing a range of sins against iGent think -he actually looked better than 99% of other men. Naturally I was sure my pocket hanky, grey tweed herringbone sport coat, OCBD university stripe blue shirt and knit tie were smarter but...

In the City /CBD 98.67% of men who wore a suit were wearing a dark suit, mostly ill fitting, light blue, white or check shirt and NO TIE.
I don't like it.

At Flinders Street station I noticed a bloke 40+ - he looked Malaysian to me (don't ask why I decided he was malaysian - I don't know) in a cranberry or wine coloured suit, possible with some polyester in it, single breasted peak lapels, sharp square / angled "modern tweaked" front bottom, pink shirt, pink red tie, black shoes. The suit was reasonably well fitted, slim and clean. Against all rules - he looked better than most too.

Its a funny old world isn't it.

Last edited by fxh (2012-09-13 22:48:47)