Talking about Bespoke Suits with Leon Powell of Anderson & Sheppard
For the next few weeks, we will be publishing a series of interviews in conjunction with Items: Is Fashion Modern? and the related free online course Fashion as Design. Though the exhibition closed in January 2018, the course will continue to be active, serving as a platform to invite new dialogue around questions raised by the exhibition. Enroll in the course at moma.org/fashionasdesign
Coat cutter Leon Powell of Anderson & Sheppard spoke with MoMA last summer about bespoke suit tailoring and care.
A bespoke suit is crafted to the individual’s requirements. What we’re trying to create is a second layer to mimic the individual person’s physique.
It starts in the fitting room. Anderson & Sheppard have coat cutters and trousers cutters, so two individual people take the measurements to start off with. I’m a coat cutter so I look after everything waist up. That could be the measurements from a waistcoat to a jacket, single breasted or double breasted, through to an overcoat, dress wear, morning suits, and so on. I’ll take usually around 25, 27 measurements. We’re looking at the posture and the stance of the individual. Most people are not symmetrical, maybe one arm might be slightly longer. That is not uncommon. This is the whole idea of bespoke, creating something to the uniqueness of the individual person.
Everybody who walks into a fitting room instantly sucks in their waistline, puffs out their chest, stands very much to attention. Sometimes we will watch a customer leave because what we’re after is them being relaxed, in their normal working environment, their day-to-day environment.
We’ll take that information and translate it from the information on measurement sheets, and using rock of eye and the formula that is passed on from generation to generation and taught in-house, we will have struck out a [suit]. “Rock of eye” is an expression that means using the chalk in your hand and the eye to visualize the line and draw it freehand. There’s a flow and softness to it, which relates to the manufacture and the actual style.
Anderson & Sheppard are known as the civil tailors. Our origins are in soft tailoring, not in military tailorings, like some of our competitors. So instead of a more rigid, firmer chest, there is that fluid, flowing motion throughout the suit, which takes us in a different direction to some of our competitors. That’s the beauty of bespoke tailoring, and the clothing industry in general: there are no rights or wrongs. The individual finds the style that they require and wish to wear. There has to be diversity and choice for the customers.
The front-of-house gentlemen will discuss a number of factors to get a feel for what the customer’s after. Does the individual want single-breasted or double-breasted? What working environment is it for? Is it a bit more relaxed, casual, or more conservative? From there, they can start to give a vast selection of cloth that might be appropriate to the individual.
The customer will choose the fabric weight, and if they require a plain cloth or a pattern. For instance, we’ve got a blue herringbone. You’ve got what we call fancies. You’ve got flannels. You’ve got hopsacks. You’ve got stripe, what we call a double stripe. We’ve got a single pinstripe and a chalk stripe. You could have a Prince of Wales. We could have a Glen Check. We work with several reputable cloth merchants who weave their own bunches of cloth, and supply us with an extensive range of several thousand cloth samples from British and European merchants as well. And that’s just the worsteds.
We use a soft canvas throughout the jacket, which keeps this nice, soft, relaxed, draped feeling. The high armhole helps keep the collar up on the back of the neck and in conjunction with the drape through the front and the slightly fuller chest, the drape through the back gives a nice range of movement. That range of movement does not affect the front of the jacket. So when I move my arms to pick something up, what your work environment is, this part of the suit is staying planted to the chest because what’s flexing and pivoting is the drape around the armhole.
“The man wearing the suit” is something that’s always bandied about in the tailoring industry. In other words, the gentleman becomes comfortable in his own skin. He looks stylish because he’s relaxed. It’s not too contrived, it’s not too rigid. He just goes about his normal daily business, and there’s an elegance, and an individual kind of swagger to it.
Once we cut the jacket and trousers, then the trimmer will trim the suit with the necessary materials that are required, from the canvas to the linings, buttons, and button twist. If it’s a three piece, there could then be three tailors, a coat maker, a trousers maker, and a waistcoat maker. Then you will have a professional presser and a professional finisher who puts the buttonholes in. There could be apprentices in the background observing this and learning as well. All the time, the cutters are monitoring and performing quality control, checking everything, overseeing the entire process of the team. It’s very much a team effort.
Some of our customers might be wearing suits that are 20 years old. They’ll bring them back here for what we call general repairs, a bit of care and pamper to the suit. We’ll go around and check things in the suit because over time things do get a bit of wear and tear. We’ll do repairs, and we might take it in for them if they’ve lost weight. That’s the principle: you can wear the suit now, you can wear it in 10 years’ time.
Some people might take their suits to dry cleaners. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that if you do it occasionally. Unfortunately, if you dry clean a suit continuously, that’s not necessarily a good thing over an extended period. Dry cleaning uses chemicals that strip the natural oils from the cloth and flattens the natural elasticity of the fibers. So instead of the fabric having a bit of spring in it, everything’s crushed flat. Suits, especially blue suits, can start to shine a little bit.
We do a sponge-and-press service in which we re-professionally press a suit for customers. It’s a bit more traditional. We put a lot of steam into it to try to revitalize it or wake it up. A lot of marks can be removed with just a bit of gentle care with a brush unless there’s a stubborn grease mark, an oil mark. A bit of tender loving care with a brush, a good old pressing system, and a bit of time and effort can bring suits back to life quite well.
I love suits and I know these are polar opposites, but I also love my denim. And I tend not to wash my jeans. We say, “you’re in your own holes and tears.” I like them with the general wear and tear, and with the oil and grease on them. Once you get enough motorbike oil on your jeans, they become waterproof.
Savile Row Suit, 2017, by Anderson & Sheppard was acquired by MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design.
Enroll in the online course Fashion as Design to learn more about designs, meanings, and impacts of the suit over time.
