One of many issues that has impressed me most over time with my Whitcomb & Shaftesbury tailoring is how constant it has been. 

That may not look like probably the most thrilling factor to reward, however it occurs surprisingly typically that an English tailor appears at a becoming garment and says one thing like “now why did they do it like that?” referring to their coatmaker. Or a southern Italian tailor’s match modifications from one swimsuit to the subsequent. 

Whitcomb have at all times been constant and exact – bang on the cash – and I believe once I went out to go to their workshop in Chennai I acquired an excellent sense of why. 

The English coatmaker Bob Bigg has been going out to Chennai for 20 years. He constructed the workshop from the bottom up and you may see his affect in all places. Few tailors get an opportunity to do this, definitely for a tailor this dimension (25 individuals work right here).

Apprentices sit subsequent to masters, copying and repeating the work. The work supervisor sits at a small desk within the center, with an in depth plan of who’s making what, for when. 

Bob used to come back six instances a yr, now it’s extra like two. However he arrived a few days after us and it was good to see him going spherical and checking everybody. “I focus totally on the apprentices as of late, because the masters know what they’re doing,” he mentioned. 

Amusingly although, the tailors have determined to do some issues their very own approach. For instance they wish to sample match the jetts on a pocket, the place Bob likes the jett to run towards the grain of the remaining. 

The previous appears nicer (Anderson & Sheppard are identified for it) however the latter is a little bit bit stronger. Neither is correct or fallacious, and the energy problem is a minor one involved with a long time if not generations of use; it is a small query of priorities. 

Additionally, Bob is educating everybody the traditions he was skilled in 50 years in the past on the Row. The native tailors are a little bit extra conscious of different traditions – they’ve a few copies of the Bespoke Fashion ebook round for instance, and discuss fits and kinds they’ve seen on-line. 

If there’s a ‘father of the home’ (as there’s within the Homes of Parliament) it’s Yusuf (above). He’s 80 years previous, has been on the workshop for 17 years, and has an unimaginable life story. Beginning off in poverty on the streets, he skilled to turn out to be a tailor after which rose in seniority, elevating three youngsters of his personal who’re all now in skilled jobs.

Numerous the employees have tailoring backgrounds like this. Nizam (first picture under) is one other of those and one of many masters. “The place I got here from every little thing was simply sewn on straight after which pressed flat,” he mentioned. “So the toughest factor to be taught was the 3D shoulder and armhole. However that is now my favorite a part of the job.”

A number of of the employees are members of the identical household. Suhail (second picture under) is a third-generation tailor, and his uncle used to work at Whitcomb till he handed away not too long ago (aged 90). However persons are break up on whether or not they’d like their youngsters to be tailors. 

“The aspiration right here is usually that you simply work a job like this your entire life, so your youngster can have a greater schooling and turn out to be a physician or an accountant,” says Mahesh, one of many two brothers that runs Whitcomb. (Mahesh lives right here and is in command of the workshop; Suresh lives in London and runs the atelier there; they left jobs at Sapient and Goldman Sachs to do that full time).

“It is a little bit of a difficulty for us after all – we’d like different relations to hitch, however after they don’t we’ve got to look to workshops elsewhere in India,” says Mahesh. “Fairly a couple of are from Calcutta for instance.”

Speaking to members of the workforce in flip, probably the most satisfying a part of the job appeared to be after they see individuals carrying their fits. Weddings are nice, for instance, as a result of the swimsuit has such pleasure of place. 

However in addition they see executives around the globe carrying them. Among the many clients having issues made once we visited have been the pinnacle of a giant European luxurious conglomerate and the CEO of an American tv community. On a current trunk present within the US Whitcomb say 4 of the PS readers they noticed have been two US generals and two US senators.

At a extra on a regular basis degree, there was a stunning second within the workshop once I noticed a swimsuit being made for a lawyer within the US who can also be a consultancy buyer of mine. We took a photograph of me with the swimsuit, joking that I had flown all the way in which to India to examine on his fee. 

As with all workshop go to, the best factor for me personally was seeing all of the folks that put their laborious work into my tailoring. It inevitably brings me nearer to the product and makes it extra private. 

Each time I’m piece of Whitcomb tailoring now, I’m looking forward to these little touches that have been identified to me, comparable to the way in which the entrance fringe of a waistcoat is curled barely inwards by the stress of the stitching (above). And I think about watching the tailors doing it, at all times pulling the thread taut with their little finger as a result of Bob says it’s one of the simplest ways to make sure you do not pull too laborious. 

On the finish of the second day myself, Bob and our photographer Jamie spent an hour posing for images with everybody – individually, in teams, as a workforce. I don’t suppose I can recall a go to to a workshop wherever the place there was such pleasure and good will. 

Thanks everybody – Mahesh, Bob and the workforce – to your unimaginable hospitality.

For extra on Whitcomb, there’s a evaluation of a bespoke swimsuit and a comparability to the Savile Row-made service.