Tailors: The Next Generation (A Simon Crompton Symposium)

[vida]



They don't need an online presence, but here are the candidates: Chris Despos, Lenoard Logsdail, William Field, Enzo Caruso, Nino Corvato.

Fair enough, but it seems they must not want extra exposure. I'm sure Rubinacci, Sartoriaripense and Liverano have plenty of business but they are all over the Internet. Perhaps it is just their own penchant for marketing. I don't think I have ever seen a photo of any of the American tailors either alone or with clients (during a fitting or even the shop interior).

 

[Griffindork]



They don't need an online presence, but here are the candidates: Chris Despos, Lenoard Logsdail, William Field, Enzo Caruso, Nino Corvato.

Can't forget Frank Shattuck.

 

[lordsuperb]



Fair enough, but it seems they must not want extra exposure. I'm sure Rubinacci, Sartoriaripense and Liverano have plenty of business but they are all over the Internet. Perhaps it is just their own penchant for marketing. I don't think I have ever seen a photo of any of the American tailors either alone or with clients (during a fitting or even the shop interior).

Does this make them less of a tailor if they don't advertise their products?

 

[vida]



Does this make them less of a tailor if they don't advertise their products?

Well no, of course not. But it does underscore their invisibility...

 

[lordsuperb]



Well no, of course not. But it does underscore their invisibility...

http://www.styleforum.net/t/447277/newcs-bespoke-adventure

A happy Despos customer........

 

[dieworkwear]



Well no, of course not. But it does underscore their invisibility...

Logsdail has done a bunch of work for movies. He made the suits for Wolf of Wall Street, American Gangster, The Good Shepherd, Great Gatsby, Frost/ Nixon, and maybe a dozen more. He also has a very active Twitter account, where he post his work (or someone on his staff does, anyway). A couple of blogs have interviewed him, such as The Simply Refined



Chris Depos has a very good reputation on this board and others. Some of his clients have posted their suits here. He's been mentioned in Flusser's books as being one of the top tailors in the US.

JefferyD does amazing work, although I don't know if I would consider him primarily a bespoke tailor. He obviously can do the work, but as far as I know, he doesn't make suits for individual clients. He works as a patternmaker (although he's done bespoke suits as side projects for his blog).

Nino Corvato made some of David Letterman's suits. He was also the subject of a recent documentary on bespoke tailoring, Men of Cloth.

Frank Shattuck was recently covered by Anthony Bourdain in his Glenlivet webseries. (Although, I don't think he takes clients at the moment).

Raphael Raffaelli has been talked about here and AAAC, although I think he's retired now.

Enzo Caruso has been covered on a few blogs, as well as Ask Andy. Jack Taylor, another famous LA custom tailor, made for a bunch of Hollywood stars. He was interviewed by Style.com back when the site was still around.

Some people in Los Angeles have talked about Richard Lim at High Society. My friend Jesse wore a Richard Lim suit in one of his Put This On episodes.

I think you're just comparing these people to the highest-profile tailors, such as Liverano, A&S, and Rubinacci. Lots of tailors in the world who don't get as much press as those companies.

 

[CharlesGoyer]

I'm a north american tailor in Los Angeles, and I was at this event. It was very good. My first Pitti Uomo, as I am just getting my business started. You can see some of my work at charlesgoyer.com.

 

[CharlesGoyer]

Richard Lim is very good. I made trousers for him a couple years ago. Enzo is very good. He used to help me fit my suits when I first started. Len Logsdail is really good. I think he's more of a cutter than a tailor, but I've been to his workshop. Many of the others you've mentioned aren't around anymore.

 

[David Reeves]



I'm a north american tailor in Los Angeles, and I was at this event. It was very good. My first Pitti Uomo, as I am just getting my business started. You can see some of my work at charlesgoyer.com.

Good luck to you Charles.

 

[NycLondon]

Beauty can take many forms: 1. hand made for me (but not exclusive); 2. traditional forms (i.e. SF); 3. the avant garde (not SF); 4. exclusive and rare (Paris or Milan runway); 5. haute couture ( 6. pure creativity.
Pick your poison.

 

[Musella]

This cast represents the future of bespoke tailoring - strewn across the globe, with a large diversity of backgrounds, but with an increasingly homogenous product.

But the most striking thing about the assembled coats was that the borders of the various tailoring traditions seem to have blurred. Whereas the six coats of the senior tailors at last year’s symposium could be associated with their makers immediately, the coats by the young tailors would be harder to place. And not only because these tailors have not yet achieved the renown of the older generation.

Perhaps this is the homogenizing influence of the Internet. Tailors of previous generations might have but sparse opportunities to see the handiwork of their brethren oceans away. But today they can access pictures at any moment, likely have plenty of clients in common, and meet in person at events such as this one.

Sometimes it is better not to be able to read nor to understand english so you would avoid replying.
And, I know, a good business is made of both good and bad talking about you, so here it goes.
I'll permit myself to respond to this quotes made by an unaquainted who clearly demonstrate to be stucked on his own ideals.

First of all, you should had consider that the "young symposium" have been made of one part of young tailors without a background, young people that decided, from one day to another, to start their own business, after few years of studying and stitching, and, another part supported from a long tradition, that come with a very strong historical background like myself.
My father is one of the old tailors which you are talking about and our work one of the most respected by all of them.
Just only by saying this, you would be able to identify differences from one to another garment - there are things that obviously cannot pass unobserved.

I don't want to linger on technicals but just to mention a pair of them, we are probably the only one in the world to make a jacket that is not skinny tight and very very far from the RTW concept, becuase the forms of our jacket are achieved with the handwork and not by tightening the jacket on the chest or at the waist, our cut is more an elegant drape cut - all the other jackets had a very different setting that make our jacket very different from the others.
Secondly we make a unique shoulder, it is not roped, it is not sloped. It is rounded but with an anatomical shoulder concept of the homerus bone. Our armhole is the smallest ever with a fuller sleeve. Our front quarters are more closed and with a sobre vertical closure. Our lapels have a very slight belly, because in Milano we always had that " a very slight belly lapel shape".
Everything of these components are part of our historical heritage, it's our heritage and experience mixed together with our taste.
This is a unique mixture.

Of course, when you asked me during the Symposium if anything could be innovated, my response was no, because there is nothing that can be innovated. If you read the thousand books on the art of tailoring the reply to your question was there.
But obviously you are not well informed. So, if you want to make the work of "tailor journalist" and judge what should and what should not be, and what it is and what it was, please document yourself and present yourself with proper garments not with the things made by RTW.

In this world, everyone can express its own opinion and you decided to do it publicly here.
I decided to reply to this message not because I would take your observations into account, but only to let other people know that not always what it's being written correspond to the reality and, quite often, it happens that bespoke journalist unfortunately are not competent people that have the capacities to really understand this complex world, made of sacrifices and years of studies.
I replied because if everyone will stay silent, this message will be passed as "correct" when it is expressed by an incompetent person.

There are some people who can see the small things that make the world, others that, also if explained, will never understand them.

 

[unbelragazzo]



Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

Sometimes it is better not to be able to read nor to understand english so you would avoid replying.
And, I know, a good business is made of both good and bad talking about you, so here it goes.
I'll permit myself to respond to this quotes made by an unaquainted who clearly demonstrate to be stucked on his own ideals.

First of all, you should had consider that the "young symposium" have been made of one part of young tailors without a background, young people that decided, from one day to another, to start their own business, after few years of studying and stitching, and, another part supported from a long tradition, that come with a very strong historical background like myself.
My father is one of the old tailors which you are talking about and our work one of the most respected by all of them.
Just only by saying this, you would be able to identify differences from one to another garment - there are things that obviously cannot pass unobserved.

I don't want to linger on technicals but just to mention a pair of them, we are probably the only one in the world to make a jacket that is not skinny tight and very very far from the RTW concept, becuase the forms of our jacket are achieved with the handwork and not by tightening the jacket on the chest or at the waist, our cut is more an elegant drape cut - all the other jackets had a very different setting that make our jacket very different from the others.
Secondly we make a unique shoulder, it is not roped, it is not sloped. It is rounded but with an anatomical shoulder concept of the homerus bone. Our armhole is the smallest ever with a fuller sleeve. Our front quarters are more closed and with a sobre vertical closure. Our lapels have a very slight belly, because in Milano we always had that " a very slight belly lapel shape".
Everything of these components are part of our historical heritage, it's our heritage and experience mixed together with our taste.
This is a unique mixture.

Of course, when you asked me during the Symposium if anything could be innovated, my response was no, because there is nothing that can be innovated. If you read the thousand books on the art of tailoring the reply to your question was there.
But obviously you are not well informed. So, if you want to make the work of "tailor journalist" and judge what should and what should not be, and what it is and what it was, please document yourself and present yourself with proper garments not with the things made by RTW.

In this world, everyone can express its own opinion and you decided to do it publicly here.
I decided to reply to this message not because I would take your observations into account, but only to let other people know that not always what it's being written correspond to the reality and, quite often, it happens that bespoke journalist unfortunately are not competent people that have the capacities to really understand this complex world, made of sacrifices and years of studies.
I replied because if everyone will stay silent, this message will be passed as "correct" when it is expressed by an incompetent person.

There are some people who can see the small things that make the world, others that, also if explained, will never understand them.

Hi Gianfrancesco, I didn't mean to say that the coats are all alike, but instead that they are more similar than previous generations of tailors, specifically the older tailors represented in Simon's previous tailors symposium. I tried to make that comparison clear in my article, but perhaps I didn't make it clear enough. I'm sure there are many differences in the techniques used by these younger tailors. I, and I'm sure many other readers of this thread, would be happy to hear you talk about them. But I still think that this group of coats is more similar than the previous year's group of coats, which included pieces from Edward Sexton, Cifonelli, Liverano, Panico, Richard Anderson, and Anderson and Sheppard. The last two tailors have a similar silhouette, but the others are quite different, both from each other and from the A&S/Anderson style. I don't think the coats from the Young Tailors Symposium are as different as those. Of course, people are welcome to disagree. There's no universal measuring stick for how different one coat is from another. But one way to judge is that even an incompetent imbecile such as myself can see the difference between an Edward Sexton jacket and a Panico jacket, whereas it requires more specialized knowledge to distinguish the Chan coat from the BnTailor coat. I've now set up a circular argument - Sexton and Solito are more different because to me they look more different. Maybe my fellow incompetent imbeciles can join in and say which they find more different so that we can add some information that isn't already contained in my argument. In any case, it surprises me that your reaction to the article is so negative. Not only because I don't view the convergence of tailoring styles as a good thing or a bad thing, but rather just a thing, and the overall tone of my article was, I think, quite positive. But also because I singled you out as wearing one of the distinctive garments at the event:

Among the group present, the coats that deviated the most in tailoring were not on the mannequins, but on the tailors. wearing. Davide Taub wore a waspish coat with crowned shoulders that recalled Cruikshank’s dandy drawings. Gianfrancesco Musella wore a coat of unique contours. Whereas the fullness on the other coast is sent to the sides, creating a rounded chest, in a Musella coat it is folded into a diagonal that points towards the shoulder. The overall effect is therefore more of a V than a U.

Not only that, I have previously singled out your work as distinctive:

I wore the Musella suit that I mentioned in my earlier post. EFV took a picture:

I won't bore you with the shortcomings of the Airbnb I foolishly chose for my stay in Florence. But that is the face of a sleepless night. Ignore that and look at the suit, which, whether you like it or not, is different from most of the other Naples-inspired jackets you'll see worn at Pitti. While the Neapolitan silhouette is rounded, this one is a sharp inverted triangle. Instead of the drape being pushed out to the sides of the chest, it is folded diagonally across the chest. Although the jacket's construction is light, the shoulder is quite extended - more so than any other jacket I own. These features together with the wide, bellied lapels make a silhouette that I find quite aggressive, and a little bit vintage.

and was glad to see Erik list the suit you made for me among his favorite five outfits of last summer's Pitti (full disclosure, since conspiracy theories seem to abound: I paid full price for my Musella suit and continue to enjoy it. Among the other tailors represented at this symposium, I also have a suit from Chan, for which I also paid full price, although I worked with Patrick Chu rather than Arnold Chang. I don't have any relationship with any of the tailors at last year's symposium, other than having interviewed Liverano once.). So I do find your work to be significantly different from the current international consensus, have said so before, and also said so in this article. I didn't ask you the question about innovation (I think it was Simon - I can check my recording of the event if it really matters), but I thought one of the most interesting answers of the symposium was your description of how you adapted an old sleeve pattern to a new overcoat. But if I had a dollar for every time I heard a tailor tell me that they make a suit with a higher armhole, fuller sleeve, and lots of handwork, I would have dollars enough to finance an entire closetful of Camps de Luca. I can also promise you that you are not "the only makers in the world to make a jacket that is not skinny tight." My jackets from Raffaele Iorio and Ciro Zizolfi in Naples are looser, as well as my jackets from Steed in England. Again, this isn't to say that your armholes aren't the absolute smallest, even among all the tailors who claim to have the smallest one. Or that your suits are not distinctive in other respects, which I have tried to note. But when I talk to tailors these days (or even RTW brands) and ask them what's different about their product, I hear a lot of the same things. And I see some of the same things, too. Some of that is because I talk mostly to tailors in Naples, but it's not only that. There is something of an international consensus, at least within this Pitti/Tumblr/Styleforum-aware subculture - high armholes, light construction, lots of handwork, at least some drape. There seemed to me to be less variation away from that consensus at this year's symposium than last year's. EDITS: This post originally had incorrectly listed Solito as a tailor in last year's symposium rather than Panico. I also added to the full disclosure my non-relationships with tailors in last year's symposium. Also added that I didn't ask the question about innovation.

 

[Despos]

Spent time looking at the jackets posted here and have to say they each have a unique styling to them. More different than similar to my eye. Also have to agree with all of what Gianfrancesco had to say.

His jacket is more authentic to milanese cutting and tailoring but still reflects his own taste and styling. I have been in their workroom and really respect their work. Their is an elegance in Milanese tailoring that you don't find in other parts of Italy. It's my own personal favorite style of Italian tailoring.

It takes time and effort to discern the details that matter. I like what DWFII has said in shoe threads, something like, "no one can see the nuance or beauty in an object the way the person who makes it can" That's close to what I remember.

Lingered a long time on the Sartoria Cresent tumbler and Wow! This guy really gets it and is doing beautiful work.

 

[dieworkwear]

I don't think David's argument is whether the coats are similar to each other or not. Or whether Gianfrancesco makes distinctive coats.

His argument is that the difference between the styles in this generation of tailors is less than the previous generation.

We can agree Gianfrancesco makes distinctive coats, and that there are noticeable differences between the styles posted in this thread. David's central argument isn't about that. It's that the differences shown at the previous symposium are more noticeable. You need less of a trained eye to see them.

 

[unbelragazzo]

Maybe pictures from last year would help to show exactly how widely those coats varied. These pictures are all from Simon's blog.

Here's Sexton and Panico:

Again, I concede that the jackets in this year's symposium are not identical. Even that they have identifying characteristics so that an attentive observer, or even me, could spend a couple of minutes with each jacket, then look at a new round of jackets by the same makers, and be able to guess who made each one in the second set of jackets. But it would take some study of each jacket.

Here, there is no such difficulty. It smashes you right in the face who made which jacket. If I told you Panico made that Sexton jacket, or vice versa, you wouldn't say, "huh, I guess I got it wrong, or didn't look hard enough." Even if you're not an expert, you just wouldn't believe me. I don't think any two jackets among this year's group are as different as these two are. And again, just to emphasize, I don't think that necessarily makes the Sexton jacket better for standing out from what I've called "the international consensus." Or that the younger tailors do not "get it" or do "beautiful work." My style, such as it is, lies almost entirely within what is "StyFo approved." I am "dressed by the internet." Whatever pejorative you want to hurl at me. I appreciate the Sexton style, but I do not own anything like it and don't plan to. For this white DB in particular, although I acknowledge that it is a reference to the famous Mick and Bianca Jagger jackets, I think the tailoring is too stuffy for this style of jacket and the way it is presented, with the striped sweater (tee?) underneath.

Here's another pair, Richard Anderson and Cifonelli:

These silhouettes are, again, very different. You could trace just an outline of each jacket and it would still be very easy to tell who made what. But I want to talk about the styling too - in my original article, I talked only about tailoring, since it's a tailor's symposium, but most tailors nudge clients towards one stylistic choice or another, and I assume that all these tailors had complete control over what they made for the symposium and how to style it. The styling on this Richard Anderson presentation is absolutely not "StyFo approved." I would guess that many of the younger tailors would consider this look - a red pinstripe on a dark blue suit, matched to a red tie - to be garish. Again to emphasize that I do not ally myself with all these heterodoxies, I consider this look garish. (And if I were being picky on the tailoring, it looks like the top of this dart is not finished well.) But this look is one that you see pretty often on Savile Row. You'll even see people in matching tie and pocket square sets in bright colors (saw one in lime green once on a tailor at one of the Savile Row houses, though I forget which). A slightly more sedate version, but common all over London, would be a dark suit with a brightly patterned shirt - maybe checks or stripes - with a tie that matches one of the colors from the shirt.

The last two from last year were Liverano and A&S:

Of the pairs that I've presented, these are probably the most similar. I'm still not sure you could pick a pair out of this year's crop that are more different than Liverano and A&S, but again, maybe that's in the eye of the beholder and how much your eye is drawn to some details over others. Anyway, both shoulder lines are sloping, but the A&S seems more relaxed to me, with a fuller chest, and lower and less emphasized waist. Liverano is more sculpted and three-dimensional. Some of the difference between the two is obscured by A&S having brought a double-breasted, but Liverano's jackets tend to be significantly shorter than A&S, and the quarters more open.

I took the six jackets presented last year and put them into three pairs, each one of which I think is really strikingly different. I think if you do the same exercise for this year's crop, you'll be able to notice some differences certainly, but they will not be as dramatic. But by all means, have at it. I googled for other pictures of this year's outfits, but came up empty, so you'll have to make do with mine in the original post.