Last edited by Oldfruit1 (2013-01-03 09:38:32)

Time for me to retell one of my stories: Yet again.

I still have a Navy Blue wide spaced pinstripe vest from a 3 piece DB suit of my fathers.
It has his name on it and the date - 1949.
He was just married in his early 30s.
It was MTM by Fletcher Jones an old Australian clothes maker.
I remember him telling me he always had 3 fittings. He had left school at 14 - the most educated of his family of 12, been a labourer and later a self taught carpenter.

He told me that in his early 20s he was an itinerant worker around farms, no fixed address across Victoria, humping his bluey as we say, and around the Warrnambool district - Fletcher Jones would come along traveling to wherever he was working and measure him up for his suit and also subsequent fittings. This was in the 40s.

He regarded a suit as a fact of life. And a properly made one at that.

None of that family had ever finished secondary school. None owned a house

The previous generation couldn't read or write - all the men had suits.

I've always held that the suit is probably the most democratic of outfits.

I know my missus is secretly jealous of my shoe collection and the strange way, that through purchasing quality merchandise, the shoes last longer than a season.

Her recent foray into Italian designer plastic shoes that imitate real leather, yet never require polishing, is an apt case in point. A mere morning's wear and she feels like she has swimming pools on each foot.

As usual, Filmnoir has nothing useful to add...

I think formby's comments are a little stereotypical...At the top end of all luxury goods hand made is important--as is custom, bespoke or whatever you like to call it. I know many a Italian that like the so called english cut. So it doesn't really work out as neatly, but one thing is for sure SR bespoke is overpriced. It would be silly not to think so, SR firms are brands--not as tacky as gucci or filmnoirbuff but it is still a brand