The Coat Route

In today's world of fast fashion, is there a place for a handcrafted $50,000 coat? When journalist Meg Lukens Noonan learned of an unthinkably expensive, entirely handcrafted overcoat that a fourth-generation tailor had made for one of his longtime clients, she set off on an adventure to understand its provenance, and from that impulse unspooled rich and colorful stories about its components, the centuries-old bespoke industry and its traditions, and the master craftsmen whose trade is an art form. In The Coat Route, Noonan pieces together the creation of the coat in question, tracing its elements to their far-flung sources, from the remote mountains of Peru, where villagers shear vicunas--whose soft fleece is more coveted and rare than the finest cashmere--to the fabulous Florentine headquarters of Stefano Ricci, the world's greatest silk designer; from the family-owned French fabric house Dormeuil, founded in 1842, which drapes kings,...