I don't get it, why buy a €5000 Brioni or Kiton suit when you can go bespoke?

[Fred49]

Or maybe MBT or some other big mombojohambi tailor? Curses

 

[Fred49]

Probably have double sided bread with cheese too?

 

[LA Guy]



Mmmm...thinly sliced Fra Mani mortadella sandwich.

This. I could eat this.

 

[SirGrotius]

I don't trust my own selections enough! Haha. Just kidding. It's about the whole experience.

 

[Fred49]

I have a frightening cycling in Germany story dealing with the above meat pile and why you should be careful where you eat it.

 

[patrickBOOTH]



I have a frightening cycling in Germany story dealing with the above meat pile and why you should be careful where you eat it.

I am careful before I dive into any meat pile. I've got stories too.

 

[iroh]



To address the bolded point first - yes and no. There are a lot of blogs out there, and certainly, a few of them have outsized impacts on tailoring brands. And "that guy" recognition is not insignificant. For every 100 "that guy" recognition, there may be one new client. That's may be enough impact to keep one firm afloat while another languishes. Certainly, I will not argue that small tailoring houses are probably less impacted by the internet than larger firms.
Fashion brands, for example are much more affected. There is a reason that brands throw clothes at celebrities, and it is not because they love them so much. In fact, that system has become so sophisticated that instead of just lobbing product at celebrities in hope that something will stick, or just taking them around to a look room, where they essentially shop for free, there are personal shoppers whose jobs it is to "buy" free stuff for celebrities. Everyone gets a kickback.
To illustrate the impact of the internet, let's take a specific example, from the shoe world. Trickers has emerged as a leader. Now, they are good, but there are equally good shoemakers that are not doing nearly as well, nor are as well known. A large part of that has been due to some strategic alliances with very well publicized retailers who are great marketeers for Trickers. In return, there are options that Trickers keeps exclusive to those retailers.
It's not that hard to understand. You just have to look at the growth of internet sales, and the increasing impact of the internet, in general, and combine that with an understanding of the differences between the internet and "traditonal" media, where few voices have a a lot of impact. Unlike traditional media outlets, the internet can better be regarded as a lightning fast, global, word-of-mouth system. And since word of mouth is important for small businesses, it can affect tailoring houses as well. I think that it is reactive, and honestly, silly, to insist otherwise.

i don't really understand this trickers fad, they make such ugly boots, trickers consistently makes some of the ugliest boots known to man, *consistently*, that is quite the achievement by itself. have people gotten used to seeing utterly beautiful clothing, accessories, items, shoes etc, that they think wearing somethign different and ugly such as a trickers shoes to stand out and be different will make them look better?

 

[dopey]



lol. It's actually counting unique IPs, so, certainly there is overlap, and I believe that there is some algorithm for lowering the impact of proxy IPs. So, the tracking system is not perfect, but it is not as easily to skew as you might think. And... everyone uses Google analytics, so, at very least, you have a pretty good sense of relative impact.

Manufacturers certainly pay attention to bloggers and large forums. The fact that an internet sensation like Nick Wooster can get a group of the 20 top tailors and other influencers (the picture of Kanye sitting next to Mariano Rubinacci is priceless) into a restaurant together to document the entire affair, that speaks volumes to the impact of the internet. At Pitti and at other tradeshows, there are entire sections devoted to outreach to bloggers. Isaia held a very nice party for larger forums (mainly, that was us), and bloggers. Great fresh mozzarella. My only complaint is that it was that there are very few women with blogs about menswear, so the thing was a bit of a sausagefest. I'm not sure if there are dividing lines among youth/mature, because, even on the forum, the generational lines are increasingly blurred, but there is definitely very little dividing line between low and high cost brands.
I guess that the one thing that I have noticed is that younger brands are more adroit in taking advantage of newer media. Oh, and Italy, because of Berlusconi, has been a little behind in their use and understanding of the internet. So, Italian brands with no significant presence outside of Italy have suffered because of this.
Some retailers are definitely affected by having been on featured in prominent blogs. For example, "Tie your tie" is a tiny shop in Naples. It's the size of a New York apartment. In St, Marks place. Over a curry house. But, it has been featured prominently in The Sartorialist. There was a thread not so long ago that questioned whether certain tailoring houses were legitimate, and cited that their goods were not sold in top "luxury stores", like "Tie your tie", which was quoted prominently, and only mentioned on Styleforum, and then the author asked if we could enlighten him.
This was someone writing form East Asia, which a significant fact. In those developing economies, where luxury brands have traditionally dominated the high end market, there is a growing hunger for the next echelon of goods, and because a lot of the smaller, truly high end stores, and tailors, do not have large, or any, marketing budgets, a mention by a prominent blogger (in the case of Simone and Tie your Tie, that prominent blogger was Scot Schuman) can really make an impact. While I was in Tie your tie, there was a guy who had flown in from Hong Kong for a fitting.
Re, trends, like always, the relationship between the street and the runway (or even the tailoring houses) seems to be an Ouroboros, which is nothing new, except that the "street" has expanded to include bloggers and forums, and that there are often financial agreements, which previously did not exist. For example, I'm going to assume that Caruso did not give Andy Gilchrist a tour of Europe just because he is a good guy, though I do not doubt that that is true. And Michael Williams (A Continuous Lean) is actually 1/2 of a PR firm, and other bloggers also are the digital media reps for large companies.
Some do, and some don't. Luca Rubinacci, for example, is pretty vocal about the bloggers and forums, with a love/hate relationship with both, and he is the heir apparent of a very old, venerable tailoring house.
Well, until we DT'ed it, Foo's thread on Ambrosi was the number 1 or number 2 google hit on Ambrosi, and I know that Ambrosi was not happy with this, at all, and claimed that he could suffer financially, so yes, chatter, good or bad, on a large forum, can help or hurt a tailor. I know that there are some who would like to believe that tailors live in a rarified world where only the opinions of several rich men matter, but I don't think that that reflects reality.

I thought of this discussion when I saw this article:
From the WSJ

One Handsome Relic

By SUMATHI REDDY


H. Herzfeld is not a place where you're likely to find Occupy Wall Street protesters. Step into the shop, barely noticeable on a busy East Midtown block, and you enter Old New York.

You see, it's a haberdashery—a purveyor of only the finest of the fine for those whose sartorial tastes tend toward cashmere and bow-ties and Panama hats.


Steven Holz, Michael Goldberg, Jonathan Cline and Ira Rothstein at H. Herzfeld Fine Men's Haberdashery in Midtown.

It is the kind of shop where the proprietor—in this case Jonathan Cline—will always be there to greet you at the door. And the tailor—Ira Rothstein—can size you up for a custom-made suit down to a quarter of an inch.

"Without the tape measure," he boasts.

The always-dapper Gay Talese is said to be a regular here. The white-suited Tom Wolfe has been in, too. Mr. Cline says Paul Newman stopped in a couple of times; the last was when a customer asked him for an autograph.

The late pianist Vladimir Horowitz was a steady customer, his cuffs different sizes because his stronger piano hand had a larger wrist. And Joe Namath once came and bought the largest pair of gloves the store ever carried.

Things don't come cheap here. A pair of Swiss underwear can run you $85 for briefs and $95 for a ribbed undershirt. (There's another brand for about half the cost, Mr. Kline points out.)

There are Carpincho hog skin suede gloves for $425. The highest-quality Borsalino hat, à la "Mad Men," costs $650. And the famous British Brigg umbrella starts at $295, though the coveted Whangee handle (made from the root of a type of Bamboo) is about three times as much.


"This venerable enterprise which has existed for so long is kind of a little bit of a victim of the new world," said concerned customer Michael Goldberg, wearing a bowtie from H. Herzfeld Haberdashery.

As might be guessed, these are tough times for H. Herzfeld. The fourth-generation independent shop whose roots stretch back to 1890 in Germany is holding on, a relic of a bygone era.

That's where the Committee to Save Herzfeld comes in.

Convened by Michael Goldberg, executive director of the National Basketball Coaches Association, the small committee of customers is working to help the struggling business makes its way in the 21st century. Mr. Goldberg has a motive: He's a longtime regular who's been hooked since the day his wife bought home a green Pringle cashmere sweater as a gift for their first wedding anniversary.

"This venerable enterprise which has existed for so long is kind of a little bit of a victim of the new world," said the fashionable Mr. Goldberg, dressed in a royal-blue sports jacket and bow-tie.

"Old-fashioned haberdasheries are closing all over the country," he added. "People are shopping differently….There's a niche for this particular type of store, especially in New York, where there's a small cadre of people that really want to dress well."

H. Herzfeld has 15,000 of those. Customers whose names, contact information, sizes and preferences are painstakingly typed out and fill eight rolodexes. They include men from as far as South America and Europe, who stop in a couple of times a year when they are in New York.

But since the fall of Lehman Brothers and the Bernie Madoff scandal, business has dropped, though really the gradual decline of business dates back to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

It used to be, Mr. Kline said, that "whenever my business went up the stock market went up, and whenever my business went down, the market went down."

"What recently happened was the market went up and then our business started going up, which is the opposite," he said. "What was isn't anymore."

Indeed.

H. Herzfeld was founded by Mr. Kline's father-in-law's grandfather, Alex, in Hanover, Germany. Mr. Kline showed a scrapbook filled with black-and-white photos of the original storefront and its founder.

Under his son, Hermann Herzfeld, the shop thrived until World War II, when he and his family were forced to flee to South America. They relaunched the shop on Madison Avenue in 1949. Someone anonymously mailed them the scrapbook years later.

Eventually, Mr. Kline's father-in-law, Wolfgang Herzfeld, took over. The Madison Avenue shop expanded five times before business began to decline and the high rent forced it to move to its current location.

Much of what Mr. Herzfeld sells is imported from Europe. There are items made in Italy specifically for the store.

Shifting cultural trends are noticed here. When the television show "Mad Men" soared to popularity, there was an increased demand for hats and double-breasted suits.

Soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks took place, no one bought anything except one item: Trafalgar braces (suspenders that come in different prints).

Recently, customers are more apt to buy sports jackets than suits. Fashion trends have changed and Mr. Kline realizes the store must, too.

Even his most loyal customers realize that.

Richard Parkoff, 63, has been shopping at Herzfeld's for 44 years.

"Their merchandise was always the best," he said. "It was from the old country, from the old time….It was just a nice way of shopping, which has been lost."

"I don't know how much of that clientele is left that can sustain a business like that," he added.

Mr. Parkoff said he still shops there. The other day he called in an order of 55 to 60 handkerchiefs. They were sent right away. He trusts the staff to pick out ties for him and others.

"Maybe their time has come and gone," he said. "I can't tell you. It would be sad."

Meanwhile, Mr. Goldberg is banking on finding a new investor. The committee is in the process of raising $150,000 in short-term capital to tide the business over. And the shop is planning special events and to introduce some new inventory, even possibly (gasp!) a women's line.

The modern-day haberdashery may never again be the same.

Herzfeld is a great store that stocks high-quality items selected with a good eye. It is not unlike Tie-Your-Tie in that respect, only the grandpa shuffle is less enticing than the Florentine swagger. In time past, Herzfeld would be a great place for people to learn about MC from people who had been around and knew what they were doing. I think that, today, younger people might find the prices and atmosphere intimidating and looking online to be a lot easier. Will's site is a lot more accessible for many people - you get the same direction from a knowledgeable person, but you can take it in at your own pace and without fear of looking stupid to the screen. The prices may be similar, but there is less concern about walking out of a website if you can't afford anything. There are a few great places like Herzfeld left in NY (some still secret, but thriving), but I wonder for how much longer. The species is on the watchlist.
For reasons I can't explain, there are tons of places like this in Italy.

 

[matt1]

They buy a Brioni or Kiton because they can and they choose to. Really a personal preference.

 

[iroh]



I thought of this discussion when I saw this article:
From the WSJ

One Handsome Relic
By SUMATHI REDDY
H. Herzfeld is not a place where you're likely to find Occupy Wall Street protesters. Step into the shop, barely noticeable on a busy East Midtown block, and you enter Old New York.
You see, it's a haberdashery—a purveyor of only the finest of the fine for those whose sartorial tastes tend toward cashmere and bow-ties and Panama hats.
Steven Holz, Michael Goldberg, Jonathan Cline and Ira Rothstein at H. Herzfeld Fine Men's Haberdashery in Midtown.
It is the kind of shop where the proprietor—in this case Jonathan Cline—will always be there to greet you at the door. And the tailor—Ira Rothstein—can size you up for a custom-made suit down to a quarter of an inch.
"Without the tape measure," he boasts.
The always-dapper Gay Talese is said to be a regular here. The white-suited Tom Wolfe has been in, too. Mr. Cline says Paul Newman stopped in a couple of times; the last was when a customer asked him for an autograph.
The late pianist Vladimir Horowitz was a steady customer, his cuffs different sizes because his stronger piano hand had a larger wrist. And Joe Namath once came and bought the largest pair of gloves the store ever carried.
Things don't come cheap here. A pair of Swiss underwear can run you $85 for briefs and $95 for a ribbed undershirt. (There's another brand for about half the cost, Mr. Kline points out.)
There are Carpincho hog skin suede gloves for $425. The highest-quality Borsalino hat, à la "Mad Men," costs $650. And the famous British Brigg umbrella starts at $295, though the coveted Whangee handle (made from the root of a type of Bamboo) is about three times as much.
"This venerable enterprise which has existed for so long is kind of a little bit of a victim of the new world," said concerned customer Michael Goldberg, wearing a bowtie from H. Herzfeld Haberdashery.

As might be guessed, these are tough times for H. Herzfeld. The fourth-generation independent shop whose roots stretch back to 1890 in Germany is holding on, a relic of a bygone era.
That's where the Committee to Save Herzfeld comes in.
Convened by Michael Goldberg, executive director of the National Basketball Coaches Association, the small committee of customers is working to help the struggling business makes its way in the 21st century. Mr. Goldberg has a motive: He's a longtime regular who's been hooked since the day his wife bought home a green Pringle cashmere sweater as a gift for their first wedding anniversary.
"This venerable enterprise which has existed for so long is kind of a little bit of a victim of the new world," said the fashionable Mr. Goldberg, dressed in a royal-blue sports jacket and bow-tie.
"Old-fashioned haberdasheries are closing all over the country," he added. "People are shopping differently….There's a niche for this particular type of store, especially in New York, where there's a small cadre of people that really want to dress well."
H. Herzfeld has 15,000 of those. Customers whose names, contact information, sizes and preferences are painstakingly typed out and fill eight rolodexes. They include men from as far as South America and Europe, who stop in a couple of times a year when they are in New York.
But since the fall of Lehman Brothers and the Bernie Madoff scandal, business has dropped, though really the gradual decline of business dates back to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
It used to be, Mr. Kline said, that "whenever my business went up the stock market went up, and whenever my business went down, the market went down."
"What recently happened was the market went up and then our business started going up, which is the opposite," he said. "What was isn't anymore."
Indeed.
H. Herzfeld was founded by Mr. Kline's father-in-law's grandfather, Alex, in Hanover, Germany. Mr. Kline showed a scrapbook filled with black-and-white photos of the original storefront and its founder.
Under his son, Hermann Herzfeld, the shop thrived until World War II, when he and his family were forced to flee to South America. They relaunched the shop on Madison Avenue in 1949. Someone anonymously mailed them the scrapbook years later.
Eventually, Mr. Kline's father-in-law, Wolfgang Herzfeld, took over. The Madison Avenue shop expanded five times before business began to decline and the high rent forced it to move to its current location.
Much of what Mr. Herzfeld sells is imported from Europe. There are items made in Italy specifically for the store.
Shifting cultural trends are noticed here. When the television show "Mad Men" soared to popularity, there was an increased demand for hats and double-breasted suits.
Soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks took place, no one bought anything except one item: Trafalgar braces (suspenders that come in different prints).
Recently, customers are more apt to buy sports jackets than suits. Fashion trends have changed and Mr. Kline realizes the store must, too.
Even his most loyal customers realize that.
Richard Parkoff, 63, has been shopping at Herzfeld's for 44 years.
"Their merchandise was always the best," he said. "It was from the old country, from the old time….It was just a nice way of shopping, which has been lost."
"I don't know how much of that clientele is left that can sustain a business like that," he added.
Mr. Parkoff said he still shops there. The other day he called in an order of 55 to 60 handkerchiefs. They were sent right away. He trusts the staff to pick out ties for him and others.
"Maybe their time has come and gone," he said. "I can't tell you. It would be sad."
Meanwhile, Mr. Goldberg is banking on finding a new investor. The committee is in the process of raising $150,000 in short-term capital to tide the business over. And the shop is planning special events and to introduce some new inventory, even possibly (gasp!) a women's line.
The modern-day haberdashery may never again be the same.

Herzfeld is a great store that stocks high-quality items selected with a good eye. It is not unlike Tie-Your-Tie in that respect, only the grandpa shuffle is less enticing than the Florentine swagger. In time past, Herzfeld would be a great place for people to learn about MC from people who had been around and knew what they were doing. I think that, today, younger people might find the prices and atmosphere intimidating and looking online to be a lot easier. Will's site is a lot more accessible for many people - you get the same direction from a knowledgeable person, but you can take it in at your own pace and without fear of looking stupid to the screen. The prices may be similar, but there is less concern about walking out of a website if you can't afford anything. There are a few great places like Herzfeld left in NY (some still secret, but thriving), but I wonder for how much longer. The species is on the watchlist.
For reasons I can't explain, there are tons of places like this in Italy.

great article. i don't understand how such a store can go out of business, are the CEOs/owners paying themselves $250,000 salaries and the profit is in the negative at the end of the year. perhaps they should work for $1 like google's CEOs. i mean the store buying a shirt for $40 and sells it for $100, is it that hard to stay in business, rent is prolly the most expensive cost they have, they should move to a lower rent place. i think there are 2 problrms, lack of customers willing to buy old world style clothing, everything is more street nowadays, i mean who wear a pocket watch right, MC clothing is going extinct. and the second is the internet store, whree you can get the same item but at a LOWER price, i mean if you have this option who would CHOOSE to buy at a retial store to get RIPPED off, am i right? third, who would really pay extra just for the sake of paying extra, i mean look you can buy a 3 pack of undershirts for $10 at walmart and they are just as good as those $95 you see at their store, i know cause i have "high end" underwear and "regualr" underwear, all just branding. and. i am seeing they need a $150,000 loan, that is shocking, do these men know more about clothes than how to run a busines, what could they possible need that much money for? did one of the owners need to settle a gambling debt with a loanshark because he spent too much money at the casino?

 

[Texasmade]



great article. i don't understand how such a store can go out of business, are the CEOs/owners paying themselves $250,000 salaries and the profit is in the negative at the end of the year. perhaps they should work for $1 like google's CEOs. i mean the store buying a shirt for $40 and sells it for $100, is it that hard to stay in business, rent is prolly the most expensive cost they have, they should move to a lower rent place. i think there are 2 problrms, lack of customers willing to buy old world style clothing, everything is more street nowadays, i mean who wear a pocket watch right, MC clothing is going extinct. and the second is the internet store, whree you can get the same item but at a LOWER price, i mean if you have this option who would CHOOSE to buy at a retial store to get RIPPED off, am i right? third, who would really pay extra just for the sake of paying extra, i mean look you can buy a 3 pack of undershirts for $10 at walmart and they are just as good as those $95 you see at their store, i know cause i have "high end" underwear and "regualr" underwear, all just branding. and. i am seeing they need a $150,000 loan, that is shocking, do these men know more about clothes than how to run a busines, what could they possible need that much money for? did one of the owners need to settle a gambling debt with a loanshark because he spent too much money at the casino?

I didn't read the article but most store owners can't just pay themselves $1 a year. They have other expenses like food, shelter, medical/dental/vision insurance, etc that $1 a year doesn't cover. The Google guys and other CEO's can get away with this because those guys are already multimillionaires and the company picks up those things. If this were just a hobby of their's and they are already rich as ****, then they could get away with the $1/year salary.

I'm guessing these guys store isn't big enough to pick up all those extra living expenses. Also, my guess on the $150,000 loan might be to buy the inventory or put a deposit on the inventory since their working capital is probably pretty thin.

 

[iroh]



I didn't read the article but most store owners can't just pay themselves $1 a year. They have other expenses like food, shelter, medical/dental/vision insurance, etc that $1 a year doesn't cover. The Google guys and other CEO's can get away with this because those guys are already multimillionaires and the company picks up those things. If this were just a hobby of their's and they are already rich as ****, then they could get away with the $1/year salary.
I'm guessing these guys store isn't big enough to pick up all those extra living expenses. Also, my guess on the $150,000 loan might be to buy the inventory or put a deposit on the inventory since their working capital is probably pretty thin.

the 1 dollar figure was just an estimate, they can go as low as min wage or 1/2 min wage if they are on survival mode, clearly they are currently paying themselves too much if they are in the red at the end of the year.

$150k is a lot of money, that could pay for 10 years worth of rent, so what do they need that much for? they buy a suit for $500 sell it for $1500, easy profit, i have talked to some suit makers and they said between choices of clothes i can choose i asked if i choose the more expensive one(cause at the time i naively thought more $$$ was better) will the layman notice it, and they said no, so why would i spend a couple of extra hundred for something that looks exacly the same.customers are getting smarter, i can tell me my experience i bought a pocket square on ebay, $2 shipped across the world, will look just as good as a $100 pocketsquare from a mensstore that has to pay like $20 of that 100 towards rent, terribly inefficient, just like burning money if you buy that overpriced clothes. so i am not surprised if they are strugling. i dont' want to pay $100 for a $2 pocket square. i could buy a tie at the thrift store for a $1 and it will be just as ugly as any tie from any mensstore that costs $100. the twisted and mad marketing in fashion is amazing, getting people to spend $1000+ on pieces of leather called shoes.

 

[Fred49]

Am I mistaken or did you say that $150k would buy 10 years rent in NYC?

 

[patrickBOOTH]



Am I mistaken or did you say that $150k would buy 10 years rent in NYC?

I think he mistakenly hit the "0" key.

 

[LA Guy]



i don't really understand this trickers fad, they make such ugly boots, trickers consistently makes some of the ugliest boots known to man, *consistently*, that is quite the achievement by itself. have people gotten used to seeing utterly beautiful clothing, accessories, items, shoes etc, that they think wearing somethign different and ugly such as a trickers shoes to stand out and be different will make them look better?

I think that they are beautiful. If you think of "beautiful", as meaning elegant, then you'd be be right, they do not make elegant, dainty, shoes. But I don't want that. I want a pair of shitkickers that look rugged and tough, while being well made and of good materials. It has nothing to do with standing out and looking different. Of course, my style influences are probably different than yours.