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February 9, 2023
Another newsletter - another video - I just love these things.
I suppose it's no secret now that I'm hooked on Instagram Reels, and they have my number...fabrics, fabric stores, tailors, tailoring, jets landing and taking off (usually on carriers - what can I say, I always wanted to be a pilot) and church organs! Eclectic at the least!
But this guy from Savile Row (the penultimate place for a gentlemen to get a custom-made/bespoke suit), is a delight. I think he's just starting with social media cause he talks about how busy he's been the last 6 months. He went to America in November and every since has been busy which he loves, but he's also had new clients and young clients which means that he's educating them, and we're along for the ride.
A couple of places where he starts with the width of the lapel.
Then he goes to where the most attention should be.
But the real meat of this video is he has cut an armhole very high, and he purposely bastes in the sleeve and then he's going to reshape the armscye (armhole) on the body, and will pin in the sleeve head to match where it should be.
Yeah - this is where a mannequin is the best. I do a class on mannequins, which is the Uniquely You. Because of the pandemic, they've stopped making them and they are extremely hard to come by, which is unfortunate. But if you have to have one for fitting an armhole, you can get one of those dial-o-matic ones. You have to remember that the rest of the mannequin may not even come close to your body, but to have something to "hang" a jacket, dress, top,
blouse on, you can use them. They aren't pinnable, but you can hang a garment on them. If you do find an Uniquely You mannequin in your size and your in my area, you can come to one of my classes. if you're not in my area, contact me anyway and we can work out some Zoom classes to help you fit the cover so you can have a pinnable working mannequin.
In this case the tailor is using the customer's body. This is exactly what I do with my clients and what I recommend for you all. What you can do is pin in your sleeve head into your armhole on a mannequin in your muslin, mark the seams and take your muslin apart and voila - a gorgeous pattern with all the info of your sleeve, armhole and shoulder placement just right.
The reels are from Steven Hitchcock, Savile Row Master Tailor. He's a blast to watch, and without making the video too much longer, when you watch some of his reels here's some other things to look for:
- Look at his space, he's standing - this is one of the major differences from tailors and dressmakers - they stand we sit.
- In one of the videos, he's got on a shirt and his pants. Notice what a large middle he has, but when he wears his jacket how trim he looks. This is the sign of a great fit and proportioned flattering look.
- The fabrics are to die for - I wish I could send each and every one of you a sample of the type of fabrics he's using. The weight on these fabrics is about the weight of a linen mid-weight fabric. Not only that but you will hear "fine twist" or "hard twist" talking about the fabric. This is a twist of the yarn that is woven to make the fabric, means that it's been
twisted and twisted and is very smooth. It's really a remarkable fiber and makes a remarkably light weight fabric.
- Notice that he cuts an armhole as high and as small as possible, THEN he adjusts it to the clients.
- Also notice that when he's adjusting the armhole he's very particular about the "width" of the jacket in front so as not to make the body at the armhole pucker.
- He also talks at the end about anchoring the jacket from the under arm to the seat of the back of the collar. This is important in bespoke men's jackets, but not so much for we ladies. We're used to more space in there, but the point is taken that when we are doing tailoring, that the fit
should be a little closer, than if we're making a summer cover shirt.
Here's a little video (having trouble with my video editor, so had to make it too small, but it's a look) that shows you just what's all in these videos this particular tailor does. I find this tailor to be really open and educational about what he's doing, maybe because he's just now branching out, or maybe because that's
his nature. But face it - we none of us popped out of our mothers' wombs knowing what looked/looks good and what doesn't. And it's so nice to have someone of such training show what is really nice - for a change. Unfortunately we don't get this as much as we should in ladies' fashion - I wish we did.
But we sewists know the difference. I hope you enjoy these as much as i do, and I'd like to set up a Zoom where we go through these so that you all can see what all these tailors are going to make their clothes so fine.
BTW the costs on a jacket can range from $5,000 to $7,000 which is really very reasonable considering that he measures, cuts, fits, styles, flatters and finishes all the suits himself. Frankly I'm shocked cause I thought they would be a lot more. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if that price was the "low end" because some of those fantastic woolens would run about $120 to $200 a yard, and the cashmere could easily be in the $500/$600 per yard, and you'd
need 5 or so yards to do a suit or an over-coat, so that would eat up your profit fairly nicely.
Enjoy!
The SewingArtistry Resource Library is designed to contain information to not only make your sewing better, but to aid you in fit and flattery of your shape, size and style. Check it out.
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