Measure of a Man

by Martin Greenfield

Later, I learned that President Clinton had referred Ruff to me. Great salesman, President Clinton.

  One of my closest Democratic client friends was the legendary Bob Strauss. The last American ambassador to the USSR and the first to post-Soviet Russia (under the Republican George H. W. Bush), chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Middle East negotiator, cofounder of the powerhouse law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—Bob did it all.

  Strauss was a likeable, straight-talking Jewish Texan whose father had emigrated from Germany and ended up in New York. Bob’s mom thought he would become Texas’s first Jewish governor. As influential as Bob was, that would probably have been a demotion.

  Bob loved fine suits and had more than enough money to afford them. In 1985, he called me a few weeks before President Ronald Reagan’s groundbreaking for the U.S. Holocaust Museum. “Get your best suit ready,” he said. “I’ve got you and Arlene front-row seats to the Holocaust Museum groundbreaking ceremony. I’ve taken care of everything. A limo will pick you two up and take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “Bob, I don’t know how to thank you,” I said, my voice cracking.

  “Marty, are you kidding? It’s my absolute pleasure.” He meant it. Bob was the consummate giver. He loved nothing more than to give unexpected and meaningful gifts to his friends. As it turned out, his gift proved far more special than even he intended. During the ceremony, an old rabbi got up to make some remarks. His face looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  “I know that rabbi from somewhere,” I whispered to Arlene. The rabbi continued speaking. He explained that he had witnessed the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust firsthand as a chaplain in the U.S. Third Army, which liberated Buchenwald. No way, I thought. It can’t be him. And then, as if God Himself were winking down at me, the rabbi told a story that I knew well. After the liberation, he recounted, a young boy had asked him a question he could not answer: “Where was God?”

  “It’s him!” I said excitedly to Arlene. After the ceremony, I found the rabbi. “Rabbi Schacter, my name is Martin Greenfield. I was at Buchenwald. I was the little boy who asked you the question.”

  Rabbi Herschel Schacter told me he lived in the Bronx. We stayed in touch until his death in 2013. Every time we visited, no matter the occasion, we relived the story together. But standing there at the Holocaust Museum dedication, which had turned into a Buchenwald reunion, with tears streaming down our faces, all we could do was hold onto each other. I didn’t want to let go of him. He didn’t want to let go either. To experience once again that connection, to stand with the man who had held me as a boy when my spirit had been shattered by the Nazis and their lust for death and darkness—I felt as though I’d been kissed by an angel.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SUIT MAKER TO THE STARS

  In the early years, Kalvin and I were too poor to own a television. The movies, however, we could afford. I learned a lot about America through cinema. Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando—these actors molded my image of the American male and how he should dress. Even before Eddie Cantor set up my first trip to the West Coast, I’d been captivated by the magic and mystery of Hollywood. That interest only intensified the more I understood the intersection between film and fashion. Celebrities didn’t just want to look fabulous, it was their job to look fabulous—both on camera and off. That made the entertainment industry a promising market for my handmade menswear.

  That’s even truer now. Today’s high-definition movies and televisions put tremendous pressure on directors and costume designers to make sure every stitch is period perfect. Modern audiences are unsparing in detecting and publicizing design flaws.

  Period directors and costume designers love our team because we share their passion for accuracy and excruciating attention to detail. We are able to re-create the suit styles of the past because we’re among the only companies that practice the handcrafted techniques from a hundred years ago. It’s all done right here in Brooklyn.

  Mind-boggling amounts of historical and archival research go into world-class costume design. But when it all comes together, the payoff can be exhilarating. That was certainly the case when we worked with the costume designer Catherine Martin, whose husband, Baz Luhrmann, directed the 2013 film The Great Gatsby. Catherine got in touch with us in 2011 and asked us to help craft all the suits, vests, sport jackets, formal wear, and slacks for the film’s three male leads, Leonardo DiCaprio (Jay Gatsby), Tobey Maguire (Nick Carraway), and Joel Edgerton (Tom Buchanan). Our pattern maker, Billy Hinkle, and my son Jay worked closely with Catherine’s team to create dazzling designs true to the period.

  Gatsby was shot in Baz and Catherine’s home country of Australia, so measuring Leo, Tobey, and Joel took place during a narrow window when all three were in New York for screen testing. I sent Jay to do all the measuring and fitting. While measuring Leo, Jay and Catherine’s team got into lengthy discussions about the precise shade for Gatsby’s famous pink suit. Catherine also decided that the lining of one of Joel’s jackets should feature a Skull and Bones motif as a nod to the character Tom Buchanan’s Yale roots. During a recent fitting in Boston for Joel and Johnny Depp’s forthcoming film Black Mass, the first thing Joel mentioned was how much he loved his Gatsby wardrobe and all the little details. The Skull and Bones lining in Joel’s jacket appears in the film only for a blurred second. But the point was that no detail was too small to scrutinize. Catherine and her team were our kind of clothing people.

  Originally, we expected that Catherine would want the kind of accurately styled 1920s clothing we had made for projects like Boardwalk Empire. But Catherine envisioned more modern suits with 1920s details and styling. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure at first that was the way to go. Sticking with the tried-and-true Brooks Brothers designs of the era seemed a safer course. But her instincts proved to be spot-on. When we watched the film and saw Baz’s directorial fusion of old-school extravagance and new-school edge, Catherine’s vision made perfect sense. The Academy thought so, too. Catherine took home the Oscar for Best Costume Design.

  A fun offshoot of our collaboration on Gatsby was getting to dress Baz as well. One of the highest compliments a designer or director can pay is to ask you to make clothes for him personally after the designs have been completed for the film. In May 2014, Baz was in town and called to see if we could make tails for him to wear to the 2014 Met Ball. His invitation from famed Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour clearly specified that it was a white-tie affair. Baz needed an incredibly fast two-day turnaround, so we told him to rush over to Brooklyn. It was great visiting with him in the wake of Gatsby’s success. Baz was thrilled with the tails we made him and ended up giving Leo a run for his money in the elegance department.

  Creating period clothes for films like The Great Gatsby is always an exciting challenge. Working with kindred sartorial spirits who share our obsession with hand-tailored perfection makes the process all the more rewarding. One of our longest-running period collaborations has been with HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City. Terence Winter, the show’s creator and one of its executive producers, combines a rare panoramic vision of the project with attention to details. An accomplished screenwriter (twenty-five episodes of The Sopranos), he was nominated for an Academy Award for The Wolf of Wall Street screenplay. We knew he’d demand the best.

  Winter’s commitment to precision paid off. Boardwalk Empire took home the Golden Globe for Best Television Series Drama. In 2011, Martin Scorsese, one of the show’s executive producers and directors, also won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. Through Boardwalk Empire’s pilot and five seasons, we dressed 173 characters and made over 600 suits. Our work was made much more manageable by the show’s talented and hardworking costume designer, John Dunn, who came to us with piles of research—mug shots of gangsters, clothing catalogues from 1917 and 1918 (because people in 1920 wo
uld likely have worn clothes from a few years prior), colored drawings and silhouettes from the period (there weren’t color photos back then) with the fabric swatches still attached. You name it, John had it.

  The jackets of that period, longer and higher waisted, were fitted in the shoulder, as they are today, but featured a natural, rounded shape. Pants were trim in the leg, like today’s styles, but had much higher waistlines and button flies. Fabric selection was the hardest part. We searched the world for vintage fabrics, like tweeds and heavy worsted wools, to remain true to the period.

  Under John’s careful eye, the finished suits impressed even Scorsese. When Jay went to the studio during the filming of the pilot, John approached Jay and said Scorsese wanted to speak with him. “Is everything okay?” asked Jay.

  “Oh yes,” said John. “He loves everything and wants to tell you so. I’m a little stunned, though, because Scorsese seldom interacts with anyone but his inner crew on set.”

  Scorsese greeted Jay and complimented him on how beautiful the clothing was. He must have meant it. In 2011, we made suits for another of Scorsese’s films, The Wolf of Wall Street. When Leo DiCaprio looked in the mirror during a fitting, he said, “My right shoulder looks lower than my left.”

  “That’s because it is,” Jay replied matter-of-factly, and kept fitting him.

  On other occasions, historical costume design research has hit much closer to home. When we made Denzel Washington’s suit for the film The Great Debaters, I patterned the styling of Denzel’s jacket after the coat I wore in one of a handful of Grünfeld family portraits that survived the Holocaust. It was true to the film’s time period, and it worked. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Denzel is a beautiful guy.

  Jay, Tod, and our more than a hundred Martin Greenfield Clothiers employees work out of the very same GGG factory I got my start in. I work six days a week. Someone recently asked why I still put in so many hours. “I don’t want to miss out on all the fun!” I told him. You see, unlike in the old days, celebrities, directors, costume designers, political leaders, and pro athletes all come directly to the factory for fittings. As one client put it, “I love coming to the factory for my fittings, because I never know whom I’m going to run into.”

  Rising stars in men’s fashion vie for apprenticeships with us. Building a company filled with world-class tailoring talent is one of my greatest accomplishments. It was always my goal to be a faithful steward of the GGG production model that Mr. Goldman imparted to me. That means building young tailors from the ground up and not rushing their training. It takes an extremely dedicated person to make it through the years of hard work we put them through. For that reason, I try to give my talented tailors the chance to interact with celebrities. These opportunities are an important part of their apprenticeship and allow our company to cultivate superior craftsmen from within.

  Besides all that, it’s also a whole heckuva lot of fun for them. Some of my fondest memories from my early days in the business are of the excitement that came with the chance to meet with stars like the fellows in the Rat Pack. As I mentioned, I met and made GGG tuxedos for Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Well, I say tuxedos—they were technically costume tuxedos. Sinatra and many other entertainers of the era often asked us to make their jackets with no pockets, just dummy flaps. That made their clothes a “costume” and therefore a tax write-off.

  Still, in those early days at GGG, access to stars was limited because measuring was done at the business office on Fourteenth Street, not at the factory. On special occasions, however, Mr. Goldman allowed me to offer white-glove service by hand delivering suits to stars. One of those deliveries was to another member of the Rat Pack, Dean Martin, and his costar, Jerry Lewis.

  I’d worked for a week making tuxedos for Dean and Jerry Lewis. Like most of the biggest entertainers of the era, they wore GGG. Mr. Goldman informed me that Martin and Lewis would be appearing together at Paul “Skinny” D’Amato’s famous 500 Club in Atlantic City, one of the Rat Pack’s favorite haunts. Mob guys loved the joint as well.

  When I arrived at the 500 Club, I couldn’t find Martin or Lewis. I asked a worker to point me to the owner. “Skinny’s playing cards in the back,” he said. “Go on in.” I walked into a small room that looked like a scene out of a movie, with tough men seated around a poker table under a cloud of cigar smoke.

  “Can I help you?” said Skinny.

  “Yes, sir. I’m here to deliver Mr. Martin’s and Mr. Lewis’s tuxedos. I’m from GGG.”

  “Great. Let me see if I can find them,” he said getting up from his chair. “Here, kid, take my hand and raise him.”

  Skinny handed me his cards. In the center of the table sat a big pot of money. I don’t recall the exact cards, but Skinny’s hand was strong. My competitive spirit kicked in. I figured I could win the pot for Skinny.

  I raised.

  The other guy raised.

  I raised back and held my breath.

  My opponent took a long look at his hand—and folded.

  “Nice work,” one of the men said to me. I raked in the money and started sorting it for Skinny before he walked back in the room.

  “You won! Nice going, kid! I couldn’t find Dean or Jerry. I’ll get them the suits.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, disappointed that I wouldn’t meet Martin and Lewis after all. “Please tell them if they desire any alterations, Mr. Goldman said we are happy to make them right away.”

  “Great.”

  I got up from the poker table and started walking toward the door.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Skinny yelled. “You forgot your tip.”

  I walked back to the poker table.

  “That’s your money. That’s your tip.”

  He handed me the stack of bills. It was more than I made in a week at the factory.

  Not all our experiences dressing celebrities have had happy endings. The saddest involved a special series of secret costumes we made for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

  In May 2009, Zaldy Goco, a fashion designer from Chelsea, New York, showed up at the factory. Zaldy was in charge of Michael’s costume designs for his This Is It tour. He said he wanted us to create something magical for Michael. And he needed it in a rush. “I need you to make two unique suit costume designs and two backup duplicates,” Zaldy explained. “We need them no later than the end of June.”

  “That’s fast, but we can handle it,” said Jay. “Get him in here and we’ll measure him up.”

  “That won’t work. Michael doesn’t do Brooklyn.”

  “How can we make custom costumes if we can’t, well, measure him?”

  “Simple,” said Zaldy. “Michael is my size. You can measure me. If it fits me, it will fit him.” Zaldy was rail thin and looked about Michael’s height. “Here’s what I want to create,” he said, laying out sketches.

  He needed silk and wool fabrics featuring metallic buttonholes with dangling gold chains. He said the lining should be red and feature pictures of Michael moonwalking. Also, he wanted a blue Italian silk suit with a tapered waist, two inches of shoulder padding, and slanted flap pockets and peak lapels. “Piece of cake!” I joked to Jay.

  This was hardly our usual assignment. But then again, Michael Jackson was no ordinary client. The challenge of bringing Zaldy’s whimsical design to life excited our team. Zaldy has since gone on to work with Britney Spears, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Jennifer Lopez, and many other top musical talents. Judging from the creativity of his designs, it’s easy to see why.

  We constructed a muslin mock-up. Zaldy flew it to Los Angeles and sent us back faceless pictures of Michael wearing the mock-up. The photos were extremely helpful. They allowed us to modify the design and reconstruct the muslin to better fit his form. Zaldy took the updated muslin back to Los Angeles and flew back with a new set of pictures of Michael wearing the muslin. In early June, Zaldy did yet another cross-country muslin run and returned with yet more faceless photos—eight in all.

/>   In an all-hands-on-deck effort, our team finished two costumes with identical backups and shipped three of them to Zaldy by the middle of June. Michael wore them at a rehearsal two days before he died. The fourth and final suit went out June 26, 2009, just hours after Michael’s passing.

  We had hoped these would be the first suits we made for Michael. Instead, they were the last.

  Sometimes films require that we make clothes from less-than-fortunate fashion periods like, say, the 1970s. Take, for example, the 1970s suits we made for Ben Affleck in the Oscar-winning film Argo. The film’s costume designer, Jacqueline West, wisely didn’t allow corny bell bottoms and super-wide lapels to upstage the film’s characters. Still, for Affleck’s character to look true to the times, we had to create some ’70s styles. The suits we made matched the era perfectly but are hardly considered great looking today. Still, I was pleased that Affleck liked the clothes so much he kept them. (Our apologies to Jennifer Garner.)

  A similar thing occurred with one of the suits we made Al Pacino for his Oscar-winning role in Scent of a Woman. The designer sent cloth for one of Al’s plaid suits that was riddled with moth holes. When we pointed the holes out to the designer, she explained that they were intentional. The goal was to make the suit look old and worn. Thankfully, Scent of a Woman also featured some gorgeous suits that allowed us to dress Al stylishly. Given the film’s famous tango, we took extra care to create a suit that looked spectacular while still allowing Al to move freely for those all-important scenes. Afterward, Al said to me, “Martin, I’ve never danced in a suit like the one you made for me.” A terrific compliment from a terrific actor—and dancer!

  Part of the challenge in making suits for movie characters involves giving the director and costume designer the look they’re after while also meeting a star’s individual preferences and fitting needs. In 2010, we worked with the always wonderful costume designer Juliet Polcsa to create the wardrobe for Russell Brand’s character in the Arthur remake. The film called for Juliet to style Russell’s clothes with an aristocratic Savile Row flair. Russell, however, preferred low-rise, tight, skinny pants and shrunken jackets. Our team worked hard to marry the two by creating elegant clothes that also embodied modern style notes, including custom-tailored details like working sleeve buttonholes that gave Russell the latitude to irreverently unbutton and roll up his jacket sleeves during scenes. His character also needed a jacket pocket large enough to accommodate a flask. We made all his clothes for the film save the Batman suit. Juliet received high praise from top costume designers for her work. In her gracious way, she said she “couldn’t have done the film without [us]” and called our company “a national treasure.”