In our world of instant access to information, Smith and Co (Woollens) barely exists. There is little information about the company or its products available online. It has a London office in a basement near Savile Row, and owns W. Bill's, the fabric house known for its amazing selection of tweed, and which is also located in a (different) basement near the Row.
Now this would hardly be worth mentioning except that Smith's produces some of the most interesting cloth available to the bespoke tailoring trade. I took delivery of a suit in their Solaro mid-weight this spring, have the pictured blue/gray high twist 11 ounce Finmeresco on the way, and the cloth for a third, a mid-gray cut length of their 15 ounce Whole Fleece, is sitting at Davies & Son in London.
That there is something called Whole Fleece says a lot about Smith Woolens. Whole Fleece is a cloth made the way cloth was made before the Supers came along. Instead of removing all the fine wool from a shearing to make a modern light-weight, and I mean that in more than one sense of the word, cloth, Smith wove the entire fleece into something far more beautiful - substantial but soft cloth with a great hand. And instead of producing a book of twenty varieties, Smith offers the four plain weaves in the typical British palette in the second photo: mid gray, dark gray, charcoal and navy solids.
The next time a table laden with fabric books is at hand, ask to see the Smith's.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Ask to See The Smith's
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4 comments:
Beautiful suit! I love the color. I can't wait to see the finished product.
that suit needs shape, specially on the arm and waist. maybe an overcoat can look that big.
i been having doubts about those english tailors visiting tha U.S. it's not the way a tailor should work, i'd like to see my tailor at least once a week. those twice a year visits are dubious, not a lot of work can be done in so little time. not even time to chat about the latest cut or fashion.
i won't even get into the financial question.
Your opinion is always welcome of course, and you are not required to like my suits but he is hardly a visiting tailor. I am at his office in the photo.
I see him several times a year, and we don't chat about fashion because I don't care about fashion.
Seeing any tailor weekly would be a bit much even for me.
Does Tom normally have pockets cut in for a basted fitting? I thought that they were normally left out until after the first fitting, but I could of course be wrong about that.
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