Carpu65 posted a page from an issue of the Tailor and Cutter magazine from 1954. It is an article by J. King Wilson on his recollection of the drafts of Frederick Scholte, the “inventor” of the Drape cut. He admits that his memory may be a bit fuzzy, but this draft is interesting nonetheless, for several reasons. He gives the size as a 40″ chest. The half waist is approximately 21″, one can’t say forRead More
Category: drape
The Wall Street Journal posted an article this week on the loosening up of the slim suit. http://online.wsj.com/articles/slim-suits-loosen-up-1416438021 One of the suit lines they mention is Todd Snyder White Label, something new to Nordstrom. I developed that fit for Todd (it’s being made in Chicago by Hart Schaffner Marx, the company of which I was VP Design until recently) and long-time readers of this blog (and StyleForum) may find this interesting since it involves aRead More
Wow. It’s been a while. Let me start by wishing everyone a happy new year!In the past six weeks I had been home all of five days, and non-consecutive ones at that so I’m way behind in all of my projects. The Ariston coat is long-finished but I need to photograph it and now I have a small pile of cloth to cut. J&J Minnis was having a sale- the Crown Classics bunch was beingRead More
Dropping the name Anderson and Sheppard into any serious sartorial conversation is like dropping a bomb; in the words of their former managing director, “You either swear by our coats or you swear at them”. For some reason, they inspire a lot of swearing. Founded in 1906 by Frederick Scholte’s undercutter, Per Anderson, the house has been fairly faithful to their house cut of a soft, draped coat. Depending on which sources you consult, thisRead More
Having worn the drape coat a bit I have noticed one thing about the comfort- it is markedly more comfortable in the chest, but that has nothing to do with the drape allowance (actually, the drape in the chest bugs me a little when I move my arm forward). Drape and soft tailoring have often been confused and I am inclined to think that the softness of the construction has much more to do withRead More
Coat’s done. Meh. For all the fuss they make over the comfort of drape, I expected the clouds to part, rays of sunshine to burst forth and choirs of angels to sing when I put this on. It’s soft, it’s light, it’s comfortable, but is it really all that much more comfortable than the starch and armor that I normally wear? No. In part, because of the sleeve. People have this funny notion about sleevesRead More
I have since found some things out about A&S and drape. I didn’t think that the full canvas would have been cut on the bias- Sator showed me a oage from Whife in which he indicates that it was, in fact, done on occasion, but I get the impression he did not favor it. Edwin DeBoise, of Steed (who is former A&S cutter) pointed out in a LL post that A&S only cut the chestRead More
I’m getting ahead of myself (again). The windowpane coat is finished but I’m going to wear it and abuse it for a while before making any further observations on it. On to my next experiment. A whole lot of fuss is made over the drape cut, some claiming it to be the ultimate in bespoke silhouettes and others deriding it as just bad cutting. Many people aren’t very clear about just what drape is, especiallyRead More