Rory Duffy Bespoke - A Savile Row master tailor in NYC

It's been awhile since I perused or posted on this forum, but I wanted to help spread the word about Rory Duffy--the Henry Poole-trained winner of the 2009 Golden Shears Award on Savile Row who's hung his shingle in Brooklyn. He's making me my first bespoke commission--a 3B single-breasted sportcoat with box-pleated open patch pockets in a lightweight RAF blue flannel--and I'm filming the whole process in detail for a series of web videos I'll be posting soon. We just had the baste fit last week and it's absolutely gorgeous. Having trained at Poole, Rory cuts a classic Savile Row coat--close, fitted, and soft, with a generous and slightly roped sleeve head. The extent of drape is contingent not only on the customer's taste, but on his body and posture. Trousers are trim, side-tabbed, and fishtail brace-cut.

Rory is the only Row-trained master tailor working in NYC, and I'd like to help raise his profile enough to keep him here. He's passionate about his work, with a missionary zeal about raising awareness of handcraft tailoring, and young enough (30) to be that lifelong tailor we all dream of having. He's a great guy to boot, and I would recommend that any New Yorker considering going bespoke get in touch with him.

His website is: http://handcrafttailor.com/

I don't doubt his talent, but he seems to have hopped around quite a bit - Reeves, then some venture with Pisano, and now on his own?

If Rory is on his own, who makes the suits for David Reeves now?

He worked for Reeves, and he did a stint with Flusser. Not sure about Pisano. I've spoken with him about the pros and cons of the frontman/tailor dynamic, and without casting aspersions, I think it's safe to say that Rory prefers to work for himself because he's his own best advocate for his clothing. Stylists offering various grades of "bespoke" services have never been uncommon in NYC; Rory offers a rare opportunity for men here to develop their own easy and direct relationship with a Savile Row master tailor and be confident that the work they'll get is on par with the finest Row houses at a much lower cost.



agjiffy said:

If Rory is on his own, who makes the suits for David Reeves now?

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No idea.

Like I said earlier, I don't doubt Rory's skill or the value proposition offered, but it's worthwhile to note that he was an apprentice at Poole until 2009 (the oft mentioned Golden Shears is an award for apprentices only).

Given that, I would be hesitant to state that his work compares with the finest on SR.



Eustace Tilley said:

Like I said earlier, I don't doubt Rory's skill or the value proposition offered, but it's worthwhile to note that he was an apprentice at Poole until 2009 (the oft mentioned Golden Shears is an award for apprentices only). Given that, I would be hesitant to state that his work compares with the finest on SR.

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Fair enough I suppose, but seven years of training and apprenticeship and four years as a master tailor are nothing to dismiss lightly; I'm not sure that decades of experience necessarily outweigh the passion and perfectionism which drives young artisans with something to prove. In any case, this is all academic until you actually examine the quality of Rory's clothes--which he'd be very happy to arrange.

It's also worth mentioning that Rory's training as a master tailor, if relatively fresh, was also more in-depth than anyone here (Logsdail, for instance, was trained as a cutter) and most on the Row. This is a very rare bird we're talking about here.

It's perhaps a function of the small world of bespoke tailoring that it's hard to promote one maker without being taken as denigrating another, and I don't mean to do that. Obviously Logsdail and many others cut exemplary clothing. I just don't think Rory's youth should count against him here; he's paid his dues and he's mastered his craft to an extent very few have, even on the Row.



Montauk said:

It's also worth mentioning that Rory's training as a master tailor, if relatively fresh, was also more in-depth than anyone here (Logsdail, for instance, was trained as a cutter) and most on the Row. This is a very rare bird we're talking about here.

It's perhaps a function of the small world of bespoke tailoring that it's hard to promote one maker without being taken as denigrating another, and I don't mean to do that. Obviously Logsdail and many others cut exemplary clothing. I just don't think Rory's youth should count against him here; he's paid his dues and he's mastered his craft to an extent very few have, even on the Row.

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I don't know Mr. Duffy at all and, thus, have nothing good or bad to say about him or his skills. I have worked with a fair number of tailors, though, and will state for the record that, in my experience, Len Logsdail is as good as it gets. The man knows his stuff and produces extraordinary clothing. Obviously, there are issue of stylistic preference that might incline a person to one tailor or another -- if you're looking for a jacket that wears like a cardigan with lapels, Len is probably not the right fit for you (although he probably could make it) -- but Len's chops are undeniable, and I can't imagine coming across someone with a more "in-depth" understanding of the trade than he has.



gherrmann said:

I don't know Mr. Duffy at all and, thus, have nothing good or bad to say about him or his skills. I have worked with a fair number of tailors, though, and will state for the record that, in my experience, Len Logsdail is as good as it gets. The man knows his stuff and produces extraordinary clothing. Obviously, there are issue of stylistic preference that might incline a person to one tailor or another -- if you're looking for a jacket that wears like a cardigan with lapels, Len is probably not the right fit for you (although he probably could make it) -- but Len's chops are undeniable, and I can't imagine coming across someone with a more "in-depth" understanding of the trade than he has.

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As I said before, no one is disparaging Logsdail's skills. I consider him the most preeminent bespoke tailor in NYC. He's also expensive, however, and someone looking for similar quality at a lower price would do well to consider Duffy.

In any case, my original point is that, like Logsdail, Duffy is here in NYC, and thus more accessible for potential clients to meet and evaluate than comparable tailors who pass through once a year or require a plane ticket and a translator. This town is big enough for them both.



Montauk said:

As I said before, no one is disparaging Logsdail's skills. I consider him the most preeminent bespoke tailor in NYC. He's also expensive, however, and someone looking for similar quality at a lower price would do well to consider Duffy.

In any case, my original point is that, like Logsdail, Duffy is here in NYC, and thus more accessible for potential clients to meet and evaluate than comparable tailors who pass through once a year or require a plane ticket and a translator. This town is big enough for them both.

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all fair points, to be sure, and I'm always happy to see another tailor setting up shop in nyc.

Rory may be great, but I just don't get all the hyperbole, just like I didn't get it when David Reeves used to post similar things. Every head cutter on the row that I know of (with the exception of Davide Taub, who may in fact be the best) visits New York regularly. I suppose if you've used Taub, John Hitchcock, Patrick Murphy and a couple of others that I'm leaving off, and you can think of some discernible reason why Rory fits in that camp, then I might be convinced. I also think that it is worth noting that cutting is a step in the process and perhaps the most important step, but it isn't the entire process. I have no idea who finishes Rory's suits, but I wouldn't underestimate the skill of the people up and down the production chain at the top houses on Savile Row.

A couple of thoughts.
Your enthusiastic, and somewhat hyperbolic, promotion is doing him a disservice. Fortunately, his website is a bit more reasonable in describing him and his background, even if it still reflects pride in his ability, as it should.
The clothes are cut here, but actually made in Ireland. That is interesting for no particular reason.
The blog looks like it has lots of nice photos and could be worth a read. I look forward to going through it at some point.

I wish him luck. I would also be willing to bet that he is a decent enough guy to be flattered to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Len Logsdail and would turn sick if he saw you trumpet his training over Len's (kind of like Brian Scalabrine pointing out he trained in college for four years as opposed to Kobe Bryant who missed all that training to jump to the pros from High School). At least I hope so.



dopey said:

A couple of thoughts. Your enthusiastic, and somewhat hyperbolic, promotion his doing him a disservice. Fortunately, his website is a bit more reasonable in describing him and his background, even if it reflects pride in his ability. The clothes are cut here, but actually made in Ireland. That is interesting for no particular reason.
The blog looks like it has lot so fnice photos and could be worth a read. I look forward to going through it at some point.

I wish him luck. I would also be willing to bet that he is a decent enough guy to be flattered to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Len Logsdail and would turn sick if he saw you trumpet his training over Len's (kind of like Brian Scalabrine pointing out he trained in college for four years as opposed to Kobe Bryant who missed all that training to jump to the pros from High School). At least I hope so.

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what he said.



dopey said:

A couple of thoughts. Your enthusiastic, and somewhat hyperbolic, promotion his doing him a disservice. Fortunately, his website is a bit more reasonable in describing him and his background, even if it reflects pride in his ability. The clothes are cut here, but actually made in Ireland. That is interesting for no particular reason.
The blog looks like it has lot so fnice photos and could be worth a read. I look forward to going through it at some point.

I wish him luck. I would also be willing to bet that he is a decent enough guy to be flattered to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Len Logsdail and would turn sick if he saw you trumpet his training over Len's (kind of like Brian Scalabrine pointing out he trained in college for four years as opposed to Kobe Bryant who missed all that training to jump to the pros from High School). At least I hope so.

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I see nothing in anything in anything I've written that could be described as hyperbole except for the remark that Rory's training was "more in-depth than anyone here"--a statement which I more or less immediately stepped back from in the very same post, and clarified in those following.

I'm writing only as someone currently in the process of having a coat made by Rory, and interested enough in sharing the details on the process to make videos I hope you will all soon be enjoying (and no doubt scrutinizing closely). I know much more about clothes than most, much less than some. I am knowledgeable enough to be impressed by artisinal pride, passion, and pedigree in someone so young, but perhaps naive enough to be somewhat breathless in its promotion, and for that I apologize.

As I noted earlier, this is small trade, and perhaps more cutthroat than anyone would like: this forum is certainly filled with threads more or less dedicated to trashing reputations. This is not one of them. Rory's a great guy who's become a good friend, and I'm simply doing what I can to get the word out about the quality of his work, notwithstanding his youth or "hopping around." My apologies in absentia to Len or anyone else if in so doing they feel I have maligned them or their work (not that Len pays any attention to SF or the #menswear blogosphere, because I've asked him). I simply believe that the relatively large bespoke market of NYC can easily accommodate a newcomer of Rory's skill and pedigree, at his price point, and that our bespoke culture is that much more robust for it.