In Manly, under a low overcast sky, we had walked along the sickle-shaped beach and the choppy Tasman Sea, past overweight young mothers in straining sweatpants and sulky, narrow-eyed surfer boys in hoodies and baggy board shorts. John and Bruce had followed me into a surf shop and stood near the wetsuits with their hands clasped behind their backs while I hastily picked out T-shirts for my daughters. The kid behind the cash register stared at them as if they were alien beings.
But John Cutler is used to being stared at. In fact, he seems to relish it. On one of my last mornings in Sydney, I meet him at his apartment in Potts Point, on the quarried ridge above Woolloomooloo Bay. The plan is to take a long walk following the contours of the harbor through the Botanic Gardens, past the Opera House, along Circular Quay, and up to Observatory Hill Park, overlooking the water and the muscular arch of Sydney’s famous bridge. I notice that most of the people strolling the paved shoreline walkway, or sprawling on picnic blankets or sitting on the sea wall in the milky winter sun, are wearing jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers—myself included. It makes perfect sense: who wouldn’t want to be comfortable and have well-cushioned feet? But, as a group, we look unkempt, rumpled, and dull.
John Cutler, on the other hand, is marching along under the hoop pines and giant figs in bright-fuchsia trousers, of a fluttery wool faille, and a dark-pink-and-white checked cotton shirt. He has on matching suede shoes and is carrying a walking stick. Almost everyone we pass looks him up and down. A few people comment on his ensemble.
“Do you enjoy that?” I ask. “Being looked at?”
“It’s not that I think I’m good-looking. I’m not good-looking,” he says. “But I dress the way I feel. If I’m feeling chirpy, I like to show it with color. And I guess I’m saying, ‘You can do this, too.’ I want to challenge people’s perceptions, get them out of their comfort zone. People say, ‘But that’s not normal.’ I don’t care if it’s normal or not. I believe in the individual, rather than the masses. The masses are made up of individuals, but they don’t realize it. Most of them just fit in.”
We walk on, past outdoor cafés and souvenir shops selling boomerangs and Ugg boots. Near the ferry docks, an Aboriginal man, with a painted face and bare feet, is sitting on an overturned plastic crate playing the didgeridoo. The long wooden wind instrument emits a froggy vocalized drone, like an aural toothache. In a while, I get up the courage to ask John how he feels about being the last in the long line of Cutler tailors.
“What makes me sad is not the name Cutler going away,” he says. “It’s the trade. I can’t see that the old skills can be taught sufficiently well for real tailoring to continue.
“But things change. You go back to the days of the dandies or the French courtiers. People wouldn’t have a clue in the world now how to do all that. It’s the same progression. Maybe one day we’ll have spray-on suits. You get up and you go to the bathroom, you do your stuff, and you spray something on you. Virtual suits. I mean, who knows? Who knows. I think it’s time. The world changes, and you have to change with it.”
After the first fitting, the coat was disassembled, pressed, and remarked. Then John handed it back to Leng and Genaro. He knew they were relishing their freedom. There were no time or cost constraints. The challenge was simply to produce their very best work.
The inside and outside of the pockets were constructed; the silk lining was cut and stitched into place. The facing was attached and the back seam finished. Then it was all put together again for a second fitting. Keith returned, and the coat was marked for slight adjustments and sent back down to the workroom.
There was not much left to do. The side and shoulder seams were finished, the pads were put into place, and the sleeves were made. The collar was hand-shaped using a heavy iron—the goal was a rounded fit without any bubbling. The undercollar and the sleeves were basted into place.
Keith came back for a third fitting, to double-check the balance of the sleeve and to make sure that the height and the fullness in the collar were perfect. To allow for Keith’s lower shoulder, John felt that the right sleeve needed to be pitched slightly back.
Back in the workroom, Genaro finished the sleeves and the collar and made the buttonholes. Then he used a beeswaxed four-cord thread to attach the navy buttons. He sewed on the gold plaque and chain, and then gave the whole thing one final press, using a sixteen-pound iron. The overcoat was done.
Keith arrived for the final fitting. John smiled broadly as his client slipped it on. The fit, the drape, the silhouette, and the workmanship—all superb. If this was the last garment he ever made, John Cutler could die happy. Keith invited the tailor to dinner at his waterfront house in Mosman, on what was known as Millionaire’s Mile. When John arrived, Keith had a bottle of champagne for him, brought up from the wine cellar—something extra-special.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
I am in the high-ceilinged lobby of one of Vancouver’s swankest hotels, which occupies the first fifteen floors of a skyscraper. Massive crystal chandeliers, which would look a bit much hanging in Versailles, illuminate groupings of square-backed chocolate-brown leather couches and chairs. Black lacquer screens and big-leafed potted plants are strategically placed in corners on the parquet sandstone floor. One wall is dominated by a two-story-high Chinese-character painting, done on rice paper in what looks like the single stroke of an ink-dipped mop.
There is no front desk. Instead, members of the staff escort guests to their suites for a private check-in. I am not checking in, I tell the young man who has glided to me as if wearing small hovercrafts for shoes. I am here to see a resident. He shows me to the elevator that will take me to one of the building’s top-floor penthouse apartments. This is where I will find Keith Lambert, who has invited me to visit while John Cutler is also in town. John had flown in from Sydney the day before to deliver some new clothes to his client.
This is where I will find the vicuña overcoat. As the elevator rises, I feel nervous and jangly, as if I were about to meet in the flesh someone with whom I have been carrying on a lengthy and intimate online relationship. I knock on Keith’s door, and in a moment he appears and invites me in. Keith, a tall, fit man in a tweed jacket and striped tie, is holding Rosie, the dog, under his arm. He is soft-spoken, very polite, and obviously a little wary about having a writer in his apartment, wanting to see his clothes.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows is a sweeping view of the city, the harbor, and Vancouver Island. Tiny black-and-red-hulled freighters dot English Bay, blue under a bluer sky. In the apartment, giant ceramic vases sit beneath abstract paintings hung on mocha-colored walls. A glass vase of yellow and lavender tulips is centered on an antique-looking Chinese table. Built-in lacquered shelves hold low stacks of oversized books. I can read some of the titles on the bindings: Porsche. Fois Gras. Bulgari. Vogue.
I greet John Cutler, who, in a black jacket, white silk vest, lavender tie, and striped trousers, could be dressed for his own wedding. After a moment or two, John steps to one side and says, with a sweep of his arm, “Here it is.”
The vicuña overcoat is draped across the back of a dark-brown rattan sofa. One edge has been turned back to expose the blue-printed silk lining.
“The coat,” I say.
I reach for it, saying, “Can I …?” Without waiting for an answer, I stroke the soft nap, touch a button, and then open up the coat to take in the full glory of the lining. I rub a finger lightly across the letters “J. H. Cutler” on the engraved gold plaque.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Why don’t you put it on for her?” John says, and hands the coat to Keith. John buttons it for him, and brushes some lint from one shoulder. I ask Keith to pose for me, which he does sheepishly, grinning, with his arms hanging straight down. I snap the picture.
“Could I try it on?” I ask. Keith
takes off the coat and holds it out for me. My arms slip along the liquid lining in the sleeves and the coat settles on my shoulders. I look down at the buttons, slide my hands into the pockets, then pull them out and run them down the coat, feeling the plush.
“Beautiful,” I say again. I can’t believe I have it on.
“The coat!” I say, wrapping my arms around myself, with the long sleeves flapping.
John and Keith beam.
Before Keith can back his Porsche Cayenne out of his parking space in the underground garage below his building, he has to first spread a small white towel across his lap. Rosie sits here while her owner drives. The towel helps protect Keith’s trousers, which are bespoke and made by John Cutler, who is now in the backseat.
We are going to do some shopping before lunch. Keith drives a few blocks to Holt Renfrew, an upscale department store in the heart of the city. We use the valet parking in the basement and take the elevator up to the menswear floor. An obsequious salesman, who seems to recognize Keith, escorts us through the Tom Ford, Zegna, Canali, Armani, Gucci, Loro Piana, and Balmain departments, stopping to discuss fabrics and stitching and silhouettes. Keith looks at a suit or two, and peruses some ties. I trail along, fighting the urge to check price tags. In a while, Keith has had enough and, he says, he wants to get back to the car to make sure Rosie is all right.
“I didn’t see anything that interested me,” he says, explaining why he’s leaving empty-handed.
Over lunch, I ask Keith if he gets compliments when he wears the coat or other Cutler-made clothing.
“No, not really,” he says. “I’m not sure any of my friends really get bespoke.”
“Do you worry about the coat when you wear it out?” I ask.
“If I can secure it, get a ticket at a coat check, I’ll hand it over. If I can’t, I’ll roll it up on my seat.”
The salads are cleared. We drink some wine.
“Tell Meg about the next one,” John says to Keith.
“Well, I have a birthday coming up,” he says. “And I have always had my eye on a second coat—especially now that I’ve relocated to Canada. I thought, Why not? I could buy a car, but I would only have the car for a few years.”
“Keith has asked me to make him another vicuña overcoat,” John says. “In the tan.”
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
OSCAR WILDE
Keith Lambert did get the tan vicuña coat made, in a style almost identical to the navy. John lined this one with Hermès silk scarves in a bright red, blue, and orange polo-pony print. Among Keith’s other notable recent J. H. Cutler commissions are a formal Scottish kilt ensemble finished with solid silver buttons and a dinner jacket in lightweight cream-colored wool. For an upcoming cruise vacation, John had suggested that Keith pair the jacket with matching cream trousers, and accessorize with a handmade Borsalino straw hat and Edward Green mink-suede shoes.
“For a more informal look, it works very well indeed,” John said of the outfit.
In mid-2012, the tailor got another call from his loyal client. Keith wanted to make sure John still had that length of black vicuña in the back room—the third and final piece of the vintage Dormeuil cloth. He said that he had been thinking he would like a full-length cape to wear over the kilt or a dinner suit.
For inspiration and guidance, John turned to his grandfather’s collection of tailoring books, and there, in one from 1870, he found instructions for the cutting and sewing of a gentleman’s cape.
“The author of the book suggested that an ideal fabric for the cape would be vicuña. So I knew it was perfect,” John told me on the phone.
Though he had yet to settle on a final design, he thought he would suggest to Keith that it be a reversible garment, one side the black vicuña and the other a vivid cashmere—perhaps red, yellow, or blue.
Meanwhile, in Florence things have been going very well for Stefano Ricci. On a hot June night in 2012, the designer celebrated his company’s fortieth anniversary by presenting his 2013 spring and summer collection in the West Hallway of the Uffizi—a first for the museum. Men in handmade slim white suits, black crocodile jackets, and safari-style khakis had stridden past Baccio Bandinelli’s muscular Laocoön and down the sculpture-lined makeshift runway while guests fanned themselves with programs. The climax of the show was the appearance of eight Masai warriors, draped in red cloth and wielding spears, who did a traditional jumping dance as Stefano and Filippo took their bows. Stefano, who had been made an honorary tribal chief in acknowledgment of his generosity to Masai villages, had flown them in for the show. Later, two hundred invited guests had dined under a new moon on the Uffizi’s terrace. Just before midnight, the group walked out to the Loggia dei Lanzi to see the dramatic debut of a computerized lighting system, donated to the city of Florence by Stefano.
The new Stefano Ricci Beverly Hills store opened in 2011, followed by boutiques in Zurich, Vienna, Abu Dhabi, Paris, Ankara, and Doha, among others, bringing the total to twenty-five—with more shops planned. Stefano has also started a new division designing interiors for luxury boats. His first project, a 230-foot mega-yacht to be exhibited at the 2012 Monaco Yacht Show, featured his signature dark hardwood, travertine tile, and orange crocodile-skin upholstery. And, in the fall of 2012, he announced that he would open a new atelier in Florence, where all sewing machines were banned. His only recent disappointment was his failure, on his last African hunting trip, to bag the elusive giant croc.
In London, meanwhile, Savile Row tailors found themselves facing yet another assault from Abercrombie & Fitch. The American retail chain announced that it would be opening an Abercrombie children’s store at 3 Savile Row, right next to Gieves & Hawkes. The news spurred a group of well-groomed protesters wearing vintage bespoke suits to take to the street, chanting, “All we are saying is give three-piece a chance.”
The cheeky demonstration got wide press coverage—and helped persuade the Westminster Council to rule that the new store would not be allowed to play music that could be heard on the street and could not have customers park baby carriages on the sidewalk—but it did not stop A&F’s march on the Row. Many of the tailors were shaken.
As one said, anonymously, to a reporter, “I don’t think anyone objects to moving forward, but a chain store selling crappy clothes to ghastly people isn’t really the direction in which we should be traveling.”
Still, there was some reason for good cheer. Downton Abbey, the Emmy Award–winning British costume drama, took the United States by storm. By the end of its second season, in 2012, bespoke tailors and shoemakers said they were seeing a surge in orders from Americans who wanted the classic English country gentleman look.
Meanwhile, Frédéric Dormeuil took a sabbatical from the family business to enroll in a one-year intensive MBA program to be completed in Shanghai, São Paulo, and San Francisco. Dormeuil headquarters moved to a more modern facility, also in Palaiseau, France. Machines now cut basic fabrics; high-end cloths are still being cut by hand.
In Peru, Jane Wheeler moved CONOPA’s administrative operations to a new office, away from the university. The organization is being flooded with new projects.
“There seems to be a respect for CONOPA which [wasn’t] there before,” she told me in an email.
A two-month-long official census of vicuña was to start in the fall of 2012, the first since 2000. Wheeler said she expected the numbers to be up. Prices for raw, cleaned vicuña fiber were holding steady at about $650 per kilo. (English cloth makers, meanwhile, were paying $1,850 per kilo to their vicuña-fiber suppliers.) Jane has shifted her focus, for the time being, from vicuña to the endangered guanaco, South America’s other wild camelid, on a project funded by a mining operation.
In the mills of West Yorkshire, business has slowed down.
“We have had a good run—busy for nearly three years,” Bryan Dolley told me when I checked in. “We have seen it all before—the
re is a natural cycle. No one is panicking just yet.” Bryan himself is not going to have to worry about it. He is about to retire.
John Thompson, the engraver, is still working late into the night, though orders have dropped off in the past year. Peter is getting better at signet rings, and the elder Thompson figures his son will be ready to take over the business in two years.
In Halesowen, the old Grove button factory was finally demolished in July 2012, after residents complained that it had become an eyesore. A three-story residential-care home was planned for the site. Peter Grove’s button company is managing “to keep our heads above water.” Peter hired two new directors, whose expertise is in marketing, and is working to extricate himself from “the heavy responsibility of running and owning the business.”
“It is a long haul,” he told me, “but in the end it will guarantee the continuance of the business.”
As for me, I have become a scrutinizer of suits and overcoats. I exclaimed, no doubt to the annoyance of my family, “Great suit, Wills!,” when Prince William appeared on television in a bespoke beauty. I now pay almost as much attention to the cut of George Clooney’s tuxedo as I do to his face when I’m flipping through red-carpet magazine reports. In restaurants, I notice the unfortunate way some men’s jackets have ridden up behind their necks, and the way others strain at their wearer’s midsection. When I spot someone in an overcoat, I zero in on the buttons and find them, almost invariably, wanting.
I have also come to the realization that none of my own clothes really fit me properly. And I have been thinking it would be nice to order myself a bespoke garment someday, if I can ever afford it—a blazer, or maybe even a coat. I’d like to own something beautiful, made by hand, just for me—to know the bliss I heard in the voices of John Cutler’s clients when they talked about the way their clothes made them feel.
The Coat Route Page 19