I Only Use The Finest English Cloth

When you finally decide to push the button and order a bespoke suit from a bespoke tailor they should be using the best quality fabrics and using the finest trim available from the best merchants in their fields. Bespoke suits are expensive, labour is the major cost because they need time and lots of it to create and turn something flat to a 3D shape. However, bespoke tailors cloth is also very expensive. For example I stock cloth that ranges from £50 per metre to £1,200 per metre.

Personally, I only use the finest English cloth from the best merchants in their field.

The picture below shows cloth bunches on one of the tables in my workroom. I have cloths that I can carefully match and tailor to your exact requirements for any occasion. If you choose a cloth that is more expensive than my standard cloths, then I adjust the price of your suit slightly to allow for the difference of the more expensive cloth. You must be careful when using visiting or ‘false’ tailors as these unscrupulous outfits have a tendency to, and will more often than not double the price of your suit if you choose a more expensive cloth. A classic example is choosing say a super 120’s cloth over a Super 100’s cloth, but in reality with most of the better cloth bunches the actual difference in cost is minuscule between the two cloths. for more information visit desmerrion.com.

Cloth bunches on the table in my workroom. I will only use merchants cloth that is world class and woven in Yorkshire, end of !

Ladies Bespoke Tailors

The skill of being a ladies bespoke tailor, even for tailors on the mighty Savile Row, is not as easy as you think. The principles may be the same as tailoring for men but the vast style differences that can be covered make it an extremely rewarding and satisfying element of the ladies bespoke tailors trade that I greatly enjoy.

I like stepping out of my normal comfort zone with lady clients. Making bespoke pieces for female clients allows me to be a lot more creative than when I am working with my male clients. The cut of all my ladies garments is very feminine, but more importantly the fit requirement is at a completely different level to fitting men. The fit is everything with ladies bespoke tailored pieces and lesser tailors will have nightmares trying to fit female clients correctly. Tugging and pulling here and there trying to make it fit. The amount of utter, utter rubbish I have seen passed off as bespoke garments for women from ‘pretend’ tailors is laughable, I have also seen many garments over the years that have been made by some of the most well known Savile Row houses that are also terribly fit. So price or a well respected tailoring name does not always mean success in the fit department for ladies stepping into the world of bespoke.

The success to ladies tailoring is lots, and lots, and lots of use of the iron to sculpt and mould flat cloth into a perfect 3D shape for the female form I am trying to fit. This sculpting must be combined with masterful cutting with precise seam alignment and lots of shrinking and stretching in the waist regions of the garment with the iron. No production line in the world, or farm it out ‘tailoring’ operation, give me your money and we don’t care if we never see you again type can EVER get a garment to fit like it should …… You need a PROPER tailor like me to achieve that for you !

This picture below shows a lady client of mine wearing a burgundy doeskin coat. It is at the first skeleton baste fitting stage, both the sleeves have been removed because I re-cut and re-shaped the front armhole to give the front a better look. The shoulder pads have also been removed, I shortened the front balance of the coat which is absolute key to the fit of any garment male or female and the under collar melton has also been removed. As a guide to my clients figure, I would describe this ladies figure as typical Marilyn Monroe and she has a bust size of 32F combined with a very small waist. If you look at the picture you can see the coat fits nice even at this early stage. I must add there is no canvas whatsoever running through this coat at present, it is purely the raw cloth as cut, what you are seeing is a skeleton baste in it’s most basic form. The fit you see in the picture below has been achieved by me through careful cutting and clever manipulation of the panels with the iron shrinking and stretching to fit the curves and hollows of the figure as I explained earlier.

So if you are in the market for any ladies bespoke tailoring from ladies business suits, ladies trousers, ladies tweed coats to hunting and ladies bespoke riding apparel, I am that rare thing, a fully trained tailor in the art of ladies tailoring and make the finest clothes you can buy. For more information visit my website desmerrion.com

Ladies bespoke coat at first fitting stage. Burgundy melton cloth.

Cashmere and silk lilac cloth, attention to detail pocket matching through the seam.

Savile Row Sleeves

Ever wondered why the sleeves on Savile Row coats always look beautiful ?…….. with the exception of Anderson+Sheppard who’s sleeves ALWAYS look bloody horrible to my eye ! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I reserve my right to give an opinion on Anderson and Sheppard, not that they really give two hoots to my opinion, I mean they churn out about 115 suits a month so they are doing alright.

But if you think I am kidding about the crap they turn out, then look on my gallery images under How Not To and take a long hard look at the coat of a client of mine that came in for a sponge and press that was made by them in 2009. I have removed his name from the label and the suit number to preserve his identity, but I can tell you this, he is one of THE most respected CEO’s in the UK so it beggars belief that it was passed as good from the workroom to him. The picture below shows me hand basting, setting a sleeve into the armhole of a clients coat.

Me basting a sleeve in.

I always double check through the various fitting stages that I give all my clients, that the coat sleeve hangs correctly.

This ensures when the coat is finally worn by my client I can be sure that there will be no drags, pulls, ripples or puckers anywhere on either the front and more importantly the BACK of the sleeve. This is the absolute number one task of mine regarding sleeves.

But to also get it to drape and look beautiful is the true art. All my coats are cut with a very small armhole so that my clients get a lot of what we call ‘lift’ through the sleeve. Ie, when you sit down or move your arms whilst wearing one of my coats, the collar and shoulders will always sit tight to your neck and the only part that will move is the sleeve and not the actual body of the coat. Try doing this in a ready to wear suit and you would think that The Incredible Hulk was wrestling your coat from you ……

The picture below right shows what I mean.

The sleeve drapes and hangs at the correct angle. This sleeve, as with all the sleeves I make will have the mark of a true tailored suit, which is a strong ‘rope’ sleeve head. The shoulder line on the coat below is perfect and smooth, the collar is tight to the dummy at the neck and the lapels are uber flat to the chest.

The out-breast welt pocket is clean and hand made, if you look really carefully you will see the delicate real hand stitching along the top edge and down the sides of it, not machine stitched like others will claim is hand done. The collar is basted and ready for all the delicate hand stitching to join and finish the lapel and collar together. All the signs of quality I hope are evident to see.

To get a good rope sleeve head not only has the sleeve to be hand set into the coat, but so has the little piece of wadding that goes into the sleeve crown, the round head portion, that allows the graceful fall of the cloth over it. Nothing from a factory can come close to a hand set, hand finished sleeve …… ever.

The cloth in the picture to the right is an 11oz all wool flannel woven in Yorkshire. So for the finest suits North of Savile arow give me a call I would love to hear from you. desmerrion.com

Tailoring Blog

“Oh no, not ANOTHER tailoring blog !” Well folks the truth is that I am not new to the world of the tailoring blog, in fact I was one of the absolute first ones to have an in-depth tailoring blog documenting my daily goings on at the coal face of the bespoke tailoring world.

I started my old bespoke tailoring blog around 2001 and it was the very first real in-depth technical blog on the bespoke tailoring trade, I was fortunate enough to have regular followers from all corners of the globe. The other blogs that were running, even the Savile Row tailors blogs, were pretty much holding their cards close to their chest regarding technical information and the spanners of the job, where as i just spilled the beans, so to speak. So here we are some 14 years later and I fully intend to take up the reins where I last left off and give a warts and all view into the workings of the best bona-fide bespoke tailor based in Leeds, Yorkshire.

I sincerely hope that the honesty and transparency of my business shows through because that is all that I merely wish to convey through my blog media, that I am a real, time served, genuine, artisan, hand crafted bespoke tailor. I am not a middle man who passes your work on to a third-party claiming that I am something I am not. I hope this blog will equip you with the right information to help you tell the difference between a bespoke suit and a rubbish factory made one that is far too often being sold as bespoke. Check out my website at desmerrion.com