More videos to follow my previous post. Thanks to Andrew Yamato and Rory Duffy The Making of a Coat #7 – Constructing the Chest from Andrew Yamato on Vimeo. The Making of a Coat #8 – Padding the Chest from Andrew Yamato on Vimeo. The Making of a Coat #9 – Making the Collar from Andrew Yamato on Vimeo. The Making of a Coat #10 – Darting the Canvas from Andrew Yamato on Vimeo. TheRead More
Year: 2013
Reposting some tailoring porn that I enjoyed, in case readers missed it elsewhere. They’re well-filmed and fun to watch. Andrew Yamato has been producing a series of videos highlighting the work of Rory Duffy, a Henry-Poole trained cutter and winner of the Golden Shears award. I’ll post only the videos here, but if you would like some insight into the filmmaker’s point of view, you can find it at A Suitable Wardbrobe. Sadly, one ofRead More
Claire Shaeffer is one of the most recognized authors on couture sewing so when she contacted me about her latest book, I was excited to see it. Entitled Couture Sewing: The Couture Cardigan Jacket, for legal reasons she probably can’t refer to it as a Chanel jacket, but I can. It arrived this week and while I am not finished reading it, a comment left on another post prompted me to get this out thereRead More
Three weeks ago I was contacted by a retailer. They had a photoshoot planned for this week with one of their vendors, but that vendor had abruptly and unexpectedly pulled out of their stores leaving them with nobody to dress the model. Three weeks is tough when we haven’t yet fit the person, but is doable. Then they dropped a bomb on me. Two, actually. Retailer-He’s a basketball player- he’s 6″11″. Me-Yikes. So how soonRead More
The job sometimes comes with fun little perks. I spent the weekend in New York, fitting the commentators for NBC’s football coverage. They now share studio space with Saturday Night Live so when we were done we got to tour the set, which was really cool. Next week I will be going back, to fit the guys from the EPL and NHL, and also to outfit the Olympics commentators.
I once wrote a rant about the importance of hangers to fine tailored clothing (you can read it here) Like any investment piece, it worth spending a little extra to take care of it, whether it’s a cover for your iPad or a case for your phone or a cover for your boat or classic car. Clothing is no different. Most hangers do not provide adequate support to the shoulder and collar and cause actuallyRead More
The statistics regarding return rates of online clothing purchases are pretty staggering but the reality of the importance of online shopping is such that they need to be addressed. The biggest obstacle is fit; when shopping in a store, you can try a garment on, even in several different sizes, and judge the fit before you buy. Shopping online is a crap-shoot; even if you know your usual size in garments, the garment you areRead More
190 people from around the world attended the four day IACDE event at the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston. Simultaneous translation was a must. We had factory tours of the Jospeh Abboud plant (shown) and the brand-new Southwick/ Brooks Brothers plant. The president of the IACDE, Joachim Hensch of Hugo Boss opened a series of excellent presentations and discussions on e-retailing and digitizing fit. Jessica Murphy, co-founder of True Fit Corporation, explained how their analysis toolsRead More
Just got back from my Boston trip. It was a really great time and I’ll be posting in more detail soon but I thought I’d put up a few pics for now. Lodovico Zandegu from Boglioli, Karen Alberg-Grossman from MR Magazine and me.And before anyone yells at me for wearing a notch lapel tuxedo, my old one doesn’t fit anymore so I had to take one out of stock and we didn’t have any peaksRead More
The explosion of e-commerce sites has created a dilemma of how to address fit in a virtual environment. The focus of next week’s convention of the International Association of Clothing Designers and Executives will be on this subject and I am sure I will have lots to report when I get back. One thing I will bring to readers now is that the methods of measuring garments used by sites like e-bay are driven byRead More