Thanks to Steve O. for the tip.
Demand Is Strong for Custom-Made Clothes – WSJ.com
Repost of WSJ.com
By NATHANIA ZEVI
ROME—Custom-made clothes—which were popular in the ’50s and ’60s—are making a big comeback in Europe.
“People have come to realize that the expensive designer suit they are used to buying is made to fit a thousand other people,” says Rome-based tailor Luigi Gallo, who has been in the trade for more than 30 years. “In addition, they’re paying a huge price for that logo sewed into the jacket.”
Amid the buzz of New York and Milan fashion weeks, designers have been saying they see a pick-up in luxury spending after the steep drop-off from the economic crisis. But many custom tailors say business held up even during the recession. Mr. Gallo says he has been swamped with orders for custom-made, or bespoke, suits, dresses, wedding gowns and raincoats. Predicting a boom in business, Mr. Gallo even opened a small tailoring school in 2007 to groom young artisans.
Business is thriving as well on London’s Savile Row, where an average of 10,000 hand-made garments are sold every year. The Row has seen a steady increase in business in the past five years despite the economic downturn. In 2010, order books swelled more than 10% from 2009, says Mark Henderson, founder and chairman of Savile Row Bespoke, a group of 14 companies formed to protect and promote the art of hand-crafted tailoring on Savile Row.
Mr. Henderson said he’s convinced the recession has made people question the true value of things. “People have started to look for real quality,” he says.
It’s an opinion shared by Simon Cundey, owner and director of Henry Poole, the first firm to open on the Row. “Customers like to see where things come from, how their suits are cut and sewed, in the exact same way they have come to appreciate seeing the kitchen of the restaurant,” he says.
Prices for tailor-made men’s suits in Italy, France and Britain range from €400 ($550) to several thousand euros. Mr. Gallo, sells men’s made-to-measure suits that range in price from €1,500 to €10,000. His women’s gowns sell for at least €1,800, depending on fabric and style.
By comparison, high-end ready-to-wear men’s suits start at around €1,000.
Silvia Venturini Fendi, head of the accessories department at Italian fashion house Fendi, a unit of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, says bespoke garments, with their fine materials and high-quality linings and stitching, are meant to hold up for years, the antithesis of faddish “fast fashion.”
Until the 1950s, high-end clothes were mainly designed and manufactured on a made-to-measure basis with garments created by tailors for specific clients and then hand-sewn by seamstresses. The mid 1960s, however, ushered in ready-to-wear collections, which were often machine-made and therefore less expensive. Ready-to-wear clothes remain the bulk of the fashion industry—even for exclusive designer brands such as Christian Dior or Valentino.
Small European tailors and artisans say they offer something that high-end brands can’t compete with: time and attention. A bespoke suit for both men and women needs at least 40 hours of work and has to be fitted at list three or four times.
Gaia Fredella, owner of a bespoke service in central Italy that produces dresses and casual clothing for women for between €200 and €700 says, “Many women turn to me because they have troubles finding ready-to-wear garments that fit them well or aren’t excessively trendy.”
In some cases, custom clothes can be cheaper than ready-to-wear, if the tailor doesn’t have a global name backed by a big advertising budget. Veronica Raccah, a 30-year-old social-studies researcher in Rome, says she stopped buying her cocktail dresses at Alberta Ferretti five years ago. For special events she asks her neighborhood tailor to create something in the exact size and color shade, though often inspired by the looks of top fashion labels.
“It’s a lot cheaper and I always have the perfect dress length so I can change from heels to flats when I dance,” she says.
“Dressing classically has nothing to do with big brands,” says Giuseppe Pagano, 32, a lawyer from Naples who favors custom-made suits. “What I want, instead, is a personal relationship with the tailor, an artisan that knows me, my family, and the kind of occasions I need suits for.”
Some big fashion houses, including Ermenegildo Zegna, have their own bespoke units. Ermenegildo Zegna’s Su Misura service established in 1972, lets the customer choose a garment’s fabric, color, style and details for a price 20% higher than that of a ready-to-wear item.
A made-to-measure men’s suit by Prada starts at €1,800, while a ready-to-wear one from the same brand starts at €1,000.
And last year, Roberto Cavalli launched Roberto Cavalli Exclusive Service, a bespoke service for hand-made cocktail, evening and wedding dresses. No item costs less than €30,000 even though ready-to-wear garments can cost the same price, a Cavalli spokesman said.
Bespoke clothing in Europe remains considerably more expensive than tailor-made clothes in Hong Kong or New Delhi, where a man’s suit can be gotten for as little as €200. Mark Leruste, a 26-year-old admissions consultant at French Business School INSEAD, has tried to bridge the Europe-Asia gap, although he’s not there yet.
His website www.mister-tailor.com was set up to let customers take their own measurements, following videos posted on the website, and order completely customized suits, overcoats and shirts. Though the company is based in France, garment orders are sent to China, where the clothes are made and then shipped back within three weeks all over Europe. But Mr. Leruste says he had to shut down his website in November, as it had too many flaws and couldn’t handle the number of orders it received in their first year. He hopes to get the site up and running again soon.
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