The find of the year!!!

Car upholstery, hahahaha yeah, I’ll have a suit made in 1978 Ford pick-up upholstery or maybe the 1985 Linclon Leather! Yeah, that’s swinging baby!

No, just joking around. I have seen some auto upholstery that is now being made for vintage cars. They have stripes and other patterns that would work for a suit. I think they are made of wool or mohair. Here’s a link to a page that specializes in vintage car upholstery.

Check it out. It would be funny to have the car fitted out with the correct fabric, then order extra and have a suit made of the same stuff! Talk about matching the car!

Root.

http://www.lebaronbonney.com/

I wasn't actually talking about auto-upholstery,
I was meaning the domestic kind.
Auto is a different world of fabrics.

BT.

BellyTank said:

I wasn't actually talking about auto-upholstery,
I was meaning the domestic kind.
Auto is a different world of fabrics.

BT.

Click to expand...

Men's suiting cloth (the good stuff), they do not call it fabric (Read one book and I am an expert, but then as far as I know there were only two books ever published on the subject) is not mass produced. You will not find it in a fabric store. It seems it is sold like fine fabrics have been for thousands of years, through small dealers in cities where there are some number of tailors. Selecting the cloth for your suit is still a major part of the ritual of buying a custom suit. (Why is it I have only heard of it as "bespoke" in the past few years? Come to think of it custom is rather redundant after all they old term for "made especially for you" is "tailor made". I guess we have diluted the term so much in casual conversation that we now have to qualify the real thing.)

You can probably find such a cloth dealer in London, New York, and Hong Kong and other such cities. Whether he would sell to you or not is a question as I would think he is pretty much dependent upon the good will of his regular (tailors) customers.

The book I read (30 years out of print) said there was a place in San Francisco that would sell both cloth and tailer supplies (traditionally a separate dealer) to home tailors. I have no idea if they are still in business. I could find no web reference to them.

I found a book recently in a used bookstore titled "Elegance -- A Guide to Quality in Menswear", by G Bruce Boyer, Published by W. W. Norton 1985. That has a listing of tailers who were still in business at that time. Incidentally, this book has a lot in it that may be of interest to folks on this forum.

So what is fabric called? cloth, suiting, what then?
Oh, I see...
The problem as I see it nowadays is- it's not the finest, most valuable fabric of today that we're looking for, it's something else. I've been all around London- Regent St., Saville Row, Jermyn St. and plenty of other places and it's the same old stuff- relatively lightweight wools and wool blends. Try looking for wool gabardine, same problem- can't find it, or it's very lightweight.
The cloth selling people tend to market what they will sell- the modern light stuff- although I have seen some nice fabrics sold in garment form that I haven't seen for sale as cloth.
I think the term 'bespoke' has been used in England for a long time.

I used to work for a large garment manufacturer- I was head of the fabric division. The head cutter trained as a Tailor with YSL and it was obvious that even he new little about old days Tailoring- had no idea about anything older than the '70s- he was in training in the early '70s. That's where his knowledge begins and ends. Remember the unfortunate truth, there are many 'tradesmen', of all kinds who have little or no interest in what they do and some tailors don't get excited when you start talking to them about clothes, they just have a job...
The kind of Tailor we need is a super-rare beast. Probably not a Tailor at all- more of a vintage clothing expert, who's also good at sewing. Now that's it dammit!

BT.

Very true BT. Many years back I got into an argument with guy whose ulitimate answer was, "You can not tell me anything about this, I've been in the business 20 years".

To which, with strange insight for a 20 year old, I replied, "Yes, and you learned everything you know the first two weeks on the job."

I try to keep that bit of wisdom in mind, but sometimes slip. It really is the old "The world did not exist before I was born" syndrome. This forum is a nice place to get away from that.

You may be correct about the heavier materials. Not much call for those in the climate controlled world of today, so they are probably not even made. However, a lot of the best quality cloth is still pretty much hand woven and I guess a bolt or two could be had if you showed up with money in hand and a willingness to wait.

BTW: An english tailor was quoted when asked how did he make those suits drape so nicely, "You have to use a good wool cloth of at least 14 ounce."

BTW-2: Not for you BT, but for those who have no idea, hand woven suit cloth is still 27 inchs, so that 14 ounce stuff he is talking about would be at least 28 ounce in machine made cloth. Rather heavy, indeed, and another hint why that 8 ounce suit you just bought is so flimsy.

Finding the Optimum Tailor... or Cloth?

Just my 2 cents' worth from a newbie:

In regards to GandyDancer's comments above:
Mr. Boyer's book is an excellent reference. And yes, cloth for mens suits is much lighter these days, particularly in off-the rack suits.
Some of my 25+ year old suits are easily twice as heavy as the offerings from Messrs. Armani, Gucci, etc.

There is a 'modern' tailor with an interest in Golden Age Tailoring (Tailoring with a capital 'T'): Alan Flusser. He specializes in a modern interpretation of the English Drape suit. His work is pretty expensive. He tailored Michael Douglas' suits for the film Wall Street.

Ironically, when Terence Stamp saw how good Michael Douglas looked, he scrapped his plan to wear his Saville Row suits and ordered new ones from Flusser. That should give you some idea of where Saville Row is in the grand scheme of things these days.

Flusser has written several books, but he doesn't really give away his sources for cloth. I know when I went to his shop, most of the cloth I looked at was relatively light, and to be quite honest, I didn't think to ask where he got it.

I think GandyDancer and BellyTank are both correct: the art of tailoring is fast dying out, and the market is driven by demand for lighter weight fabric made into rather non-descript suits.

One source of heavier weight suiting fabric might be older tailors in larger cities. New York comes to mind because it seems to have everything, if you can just find it.

BT no offence, but lighten up man! Have a sense of humor. I was joking around. Geez!

If you didn’t look at the link, then you’ll never know that some auto fabric designed for vintage autos from the 30’s and 40’s could be used as a suitable vintage substitute.

When one says upholstery, the door is open to all types.

Root.

PS. These are samples of original fabric for all Plymouth P-15 Models from 1946 to 1949. I think some of these could make a nice suit! Wouldn't you agree?

Root?

What did I say?

BT.

Well, the way I read it was that my joke to the 70's ford upholstery was taken seriously. I'm used to joking around with my friends about stuff some times. I'm sorry if you didn't get the joke.

But, I don't know if it's just me, but some times it feels you come off a little condescending. I have no quarrel with you BT; just smile once in a wile like this when something silly is said.

Its ok,

Root.

PS. This is for you BT, I think you might like this photo of Bogie.

Yeah, I've seen that one of Humpty- he almost, very nearly looks like a modern male model in that shot.
Don't you think?

Who's condescending?
Read your own posts and think again- ha-ha-

BT.

You know, some times I can be. But, any way, not a hard feeling over on this side.

Root.

Root, I will take a double breasted suit with vest in the X-15 and X-13 materials. How soon can you have them ready?

Regards to all,

J