Napolisumisura is visiting San Francisco next month, and after I made my appointment I thought to get out the jacket they made for me last fall. Blasé as I was about the thought of beginning to work with another tailor last year, the construction of this jacket convinced me to give them a place in my rotation, replacing not one but two of the four firms I had been using. And, though it is not obvious, the reason is in the photograph.
I have written before that bespoke does not really mean the customer gets whatever he requests. He actually gets whatever his tailor is used to doing (remind me to one day relate the story of how, when asked for a smaller pocket inside my jacket that would hold my iPhone without letting it fall over, one of them simply sewed a bit of thread to divide the standard pocket at the top which made each side too small to insert the phone but left the pocket untouched otherwise so that any iPhone worth its salt will promptly fall on its side if actually placed within). This "used to doing" thing was once the bane of my existence with at least three Savile Row tailors who, asked to make a quarter lined coat for summer, would routinely deliver something half lined (not to overdo the parentheses, but global warming means there are signs that Britain is actually having summers these days and the residents will presumably begin demanding summer clothing - it will be a shame if they have to get it from the Italians).
At any rate, when I asked Napolisumiura to make a linen jacket I requested just a bit of Ermazine (a viscose somewhat lighter than Bemberg) in the sleeves and shoulders and self lining for the rest of the coat. That meant that the jacket's material would need to be turned over in front if I wanted interior pockets (something has to hold the pocket after all) but the idea is that linen breathes much better than viscose and the result is cooler wearing than a quarter lined coat. And, this being the way they do things in Naples, I actually got what I asked for.
They do not have Scottish winters in southern Italy and I will bet that there would be something funky about Napolisumisura's heavy tweeds (they have already refused to make trousers with an English back on the grounds that they do not know how), but for summer clothes I apparently no longer have any complaints.
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4 comments:
The real problem may be the inability to patronise local tailoring, where one can actually pop down (not by plane) for a few real fittings and nip such problems in the bud before the garment is finished.
Even before global warming we had summers in England, it's always been that way. I had many long hot summers as a child. Two weeks in the capital is not really adequate to judge this.
I was in London for a week this past July and it was perfect suit-wearing weather. Most of the time it was around 65 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to about 20-30 degrees cooler in New York. I have never used an English tailor, but I have used an English bespoke shirtmaker. I wanted him to make a cuff for me the same way he did on some shirts I've seen he made many years ago. And though he said he would it turned out being the same as the way he prefers to do it now. That was the only request I had apart from his standard style but it's not such a big deal.
"but global warming means there are signs that Britain is actually having summers these days"
Not for the last couple of years! I do have a couple of Italian inspired linen suits that I regularly wear June-August...but you must have a light raincoat and brolly handy!
Ian - or last summer, you needed a heavy raincoat, wellies and a sou'wester.
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