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May 25, 2005

u.s. visit June 9th-16th finalised

[UPDATE: My next scheduled visit to the USA will be mid October, 2005. The itinerary will be very similar to the one below. Please feel free to drop me an e-mail if you would like to make an appointment. Thank you.]

The details for my US visit in two weeks have been finalised.

Here is the itinerary for available appointments:

New York:
The Hotel Benjamin.

Thursday June 9th: 3-6pm
Friday June 10th: All Day
Saturday June 11th: Morning

San Francisco:
The Campton Place Hotel.

Monday June 13th: All Day

Chicago:
The Hotel Seneca.

Wednesday June 15th: All Day
Thursday June 16th: Morning

If you want to meet up in any of the cities, please contact me here, or probably best to contact me on my mobile once I'm actually in the States:

-Dialing from USA & Abroad: +44 7811 388 536

-Dialing from UK: 07811 388 536

For further reading about visiting Savile Row tailors in New York/America, please read this earlier post of mine.

Thanks again, and I hope to see you there.

[BACKGROUND:] The "About Thomas" and "Why Use Thomas" pages.

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May 23, 2005

names in a hat...

(A coat waiting to go to the finisher- the tailor who does the buttonholes and final sewing. Notice the "hanger" pinned on the out breast pocket. It's presented to the finisher that way, who'll sew it into the inside of the collar for hanging the coat on a hook etc.)

I have to thank the readers of English Cut for the deluge of requests for my suit. And as I feared, it's been well nigh impossible to choose who to despatch my old friend to.

So I imagine you've guessed it, all the names are in a hat and the best man or woman wins.

I'll post the state/county and country of the new foster parents sometime next week. So if you're in the same neck of the woods you can keep your eyes peeled.

Posted by tom at 9:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2005

you never know who's talking...

(Me having a guick break, with my trusty state-of-the art sound system and a great view of Warwick Hall's pretty flowers)

It’s funny how things from the past can do two things- (A) come back and haunt you, or (B) come back and help you.

Last week I measured up a new customer, who has a senior position with one of the largest and most successful oil companies in the world. He was a very charming fellow who only knew about me through reading English Cut.

He chose me not just because he felt I could give him true bespoke (which I certainly hope I can), but the deciding factor was that he is originally a Cumberland native, like myself. So that put his mind at rest. People go with who they know.

As we were discussing the final cloth choices on his two suits, we stood by the window looking out onto sunlit Savile Row and Anderson & Sheppard's old premises. When my customer told me which line of business he was in, I remarked that when I as working at A&S I used to cut for the chairman of his company, in other words, his boss.

He than stood back in astonishment. I didn’t know if this meant he thought his boss was the best dressed man on the planet, or the worst, so I was fairly nervous there for a moment.

But then he told me the story. When he first started working with the chairman several years ago, he was in a business meeting on a private jet somewhere over the Atlantic. When my customer had finished discussing some business details, the chairman leaned over the table, took off his glasses and said, referring to his accent, “You sound just like my tailor.”

So be nice to everybody. You never know who may be talking about you.

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May 19, 2005

loving home wanted...

(me on the right, wearing my favourite suit)

A few weeks ago I posted this pic of one of my customers and his new sparkly coat, with me there next to him.

That blue, 10oz I’m wearing (the cloth is from from H.Lessers) is a
dear friend of mine. It’s about five years old, but still has another ten years left in it, at least.

This little gem is getting a little neat on me these days (a combination of going to the gym and filling out a bit with age) and rather than let it out, I thought I’d offer it to one of my readers at English Cut. I get a lot of kind e-mails from readers who would love a hand-made suit, but they’re still at college or simply don’t have the funds as yet.

Why am I doing this? Well, sadly I haven’t managed to find a wife to compete with my love for tailoring and taking my sailboat out on the weekends, hence, no sons. And I’m still looking for that right apprentice to take over from me in twenty years. So in essense, I don’t have the customary persons in my life to hand it down to.

The suit measures are approx. 38” chest, 33.5” trouser waist (high back, must wear braces) and a 31”inside leg. The style is a classic single-breasted, 3 button, rolling through as you can see on the photo. It's got practicly nothing in the shoulders, typical of what I like. I would imagine its would be pretty good for someone if you took a 38” regular off the peg.

One of my tailors, Ron Hardy made (sewed) this for me and it's wonderfully soft and comfortable. It’s definitely been the favorite in my wardrobe so it’s seen a bit of action in its short life. This classic blue cloth from Lessers is great to wear, so I’m just going to make a new one exactly the same.

So if you’d like to e-mail me and convince me it’ll have a good home, I’ll even stand the postage to anywhere on the globe. It’ll be freshly laundered when it arrives. And even if the fit is not perfect, you can always say it was cut by the future King's tailor. That’s got to be worth a round of drinks, at least.

P.S. I don’t want to see it on E-Bay in a couple of weeks.

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May 13, 2005

american tour june 9th-16th

My New York visit next month has been extended. It's now a US visit.

I shall be visiting three cites in rapid succession: New York, San Francisco, and then Chicago. My plane ticket is already booked and paid for and I'm utterly thrilled to be going.

[UPDATE:] The hotels have all been confirmed and all details can now be found here.

[BACKGROUND:] The "About Thomas" and "Why Use Thomas" pages.

Posted by tom at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 9, 2005

straight or crooked...

(Mr Cinton in a very "straight" coat- lots of shirt visible.)



(Mr Stewart wearing a "crooked" coat- not a lot of shirt visible.)

Two rather strange tailoring terms are "straight" and "crooked" to describe a coat. I’ll try to clarify.

For what it’s worth I generally cut a "straight" coat. Which is how an Anderson & Sheppard coat was always described.

Obviously there are lots of details that give a suit a certain style that distinguishes it from others. This can be the cut of the silhouette, slim or relaxed. the construction of the coat, hard or soft etc. These are pretty obvious to even the untrained eye. How straight or crooked a coat is just as important and certainly makes a huge difference to how a jacket feels and looks. But is much more difficult to discern.

It’s a difficult detail to quantify and explain, so much so that I know of many trainee cutters who have struggled unsuccessfully in the past to get their head round the subject.

With the help of my drawings (please excuse the quality) I will try to show you what I’m on about. It’s all to do with the neck point position in relation to the front edge of the coat.

Basically the fit of a straight coat has less material forward of the neck point on the front edge. This gives the jacket a slimmer feel, showing more shirt, especially on a double breasted. Also another characteristic is that the collar although fitted well, sits lower around the neck. This again shows more of the shirt and gives a slimmer feel to the wearer. This cut gives the feeling of a more youthful cut simply because as we age we invariably gain a little in the front. We then obviously require more material to compensate, or less when we are slim.

A crooked coat has basically the opposite characteristics. The coat should always fit neatly around the collar, however it will generally sit higher, showing less of the shirt collar stand. Also even if the coat is slim through the side seams it will still be easy in the front. There will be less shirt showing, again especially on double breasted.

You can see classic examples of this in the photo of Jimmy Stewart above. The double breasted suits close very high, with only a few inches of shirt and tie showing.

There is nothing wrong with either of these styles. the only problem is when you have extremes. Especially if the coat is finished. A coat that’s too straight will always look tight and skimpy. Even if you let out the side seams, all that will happen is that the coat will have shapeless silhouette and still be tight at the front. It can not be easily altered as the front edges are finished. And the too crooked coat suffers from the opposite. No matter how you take in
the side seams, even too the point of being tight, it’ll still feel frumpy and big on the front. Again, if it’s finished, you’re stuck. You can’t trim the front edges because the buttonholes are in. Not very nice scenarios at all.

There are ways round this which has can be improve or cure the problem, but its way too complicated to explain. The reason why I’ve brought this matter up, is that it is another very small factor that makes a coat feel just right, or can make two coats that have the same measurements feel totally different.

To sum it up- a straight coat is a more youthful cut, and a crooked coat more mature.

So now, when you're having a fitting, instead of telling your tailor, "This sleeves are a litte short," or "The shoulders are a little wide", you can hit him with "This coat is a looked crooked" or "This coak is little straight". He might have heart failure.

Just please don't tell the tailor I told you all this, or I'll never be invited for a drink on the Row ever again.

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