Craftmanship

I've long had a thing for craftsmen, and have mentioned it on this blog. Tailors, shirtmakers, shoemakers, weavers, cabinet makers - it is a sad thing that many of these honorable, ancient, professions are slowly fading from the world under pressure from industrial process.

In any case, this is all by way of saying that I had my first visit with a proper suit maker this morning. I realize that some might think it is all a bit of a waste, to pay so much money for a suit. Why, when you can get some suit with a big name label for less from Saks, and impress people when you let the label poke out from inside at some fancy meeting?*

Even putting aside the fact that the bespoke suit will fit properly, and the suit off the rack won't, I'm spending my money with the craftsman rather than the big store because, fundamentally, I'm a conservative person. I want to know that in a couple of weeks, the particular man that I met this morning is going to stand over a bolt of cloth that I chose, and he's going to think about my slightly sloping shoulders, and the fact that I'd like the suit for my wedding, and what I told him about how I'd like it to fit. And thinking about me, he's going to pick up a pair of shears and cut my suit out of that fabric, and then hand one part of it to a coat maker, and another part to a trouser maker. In doing all that, they're going to be replicating what they were taught during their own long years of apprenticeship, and what their teachers were taught before them by other masters. In turn, this fellow will teach someone to follow him, and proper tailoring will be conserved, and novelties ignored until they are no longer novelties but well-tested traditions themselves. Just as I might buy traditional farm raised pork because I value the existence of people who bother to traditionally raise pork, so I'll buy a traditional bespoke suit because I value the existence of people who take the trouble to make traditional bespoke suits. All the issues I care about with respect to food are part of the choices I've decided to make about my clothes, when possible.

And, of course, buying clothes from an actual living person is a lot of fun. As my tailor said today, describing the solid, dependable heavy English cloth I chose, "it's a safe as a house, this. Well, safe as houses used to be, leastways." I don't think you'll get that kind of color from the industrial made to measure at your local men's emporium, and you won't even save much money, to boot.

UPDATE: Why not do neither, and save all your money with a normal suit? That's fine, of course - formal clothes are just the indulgence I chose, rather than a big TV or a car, say, and if I am going to indulge, I feel strongly about indulging in a proper way.