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Thursday, January 31, 2008: I'm excited to announce a new collaboration with (the) Manolo (for the) Men 'blog. I'll keep writing longer pieces for this site, with shorter, snippier bits there. ManoloMen's Izzy will continue his magnificent-ness there, and I will add some sparkle of my own. Thanks to The Manolo!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
the marginal differences, now 75% off
 A hang-tag from a Banana Republic blazer. See how it embodies the trademarks of impeccable tailoring?--but that doesn't mean it's actually impeccably tailored! Very clever wording.
One of my favorite obsessive-compulsive tendencies has been thrown into a tizzy over the past year or two. It used to be so revealing. I'd be able to tell who made your shirt, or at the very least to what quality level it was made, with a quick glance at the buttonholes. With one glance at your sleeve cuffs, I could also tell the ages of your children and the name of your psychologist. The cut of your suit jacket could have been done by anyone, but the marginal differences in details told me it's Oxxford! Or those sleeve buttonholes, they told me your checking account balance, and it was like seeing straight through to your soul.
But these days I'm reading everyone wrong. Now manufacturers from the really best ones to the merely mediocre ones know about the right details and have the machinery to make them. For example, can you believe that for a few seconds last week I actually thought my friend Max had outdone himself (once again!) and was wearing an expensive sport shirt by a small producer in Italy, when in fact it was a J. CREW SHIRT that I had watched him purchase--recommended he purchase!--only three weeks prior? I know, it's awful. But there it was, with a subtly colorful stripe, single-needle side seams, honest-to-God gussets, and buttons that looked like they cost a full Euro or two, wholesale. And it fit him well, that's the worst part. Made in the People's Republic of China, it was, retail price something like 70 bucks. A shirt with those tell-all details used to cost at bare minimum $150 just a few years ago. What happened?
It seems to me that interest in men's clothing has reached a point that manufacturers are racing to include details previously only seen at the highest end of quality. That's good, of course, because it means more of us get to enjoy the little details at more reasonable prices, even if we don't really know why they're there. But you knew there was a rub: these are details that used to indicate something more, something about how the garment was made or the amount of time or fabric that it consumed. They used to indicate incredibly skilled hands at work. Now they indicate how clever the manufacturer is: no matter how much you learn about the signs of quality, the makers will be a step ahead, ready with their machines to deliver the appearance of quality for nowhere near the price of the genuine article.
I should back up. The details I'm talking about were there because of tradition, because that's "the way we have always done it" and because it took longer to do them that way, because it made a more durable, longer-lasting product, and because it was indicative of time and money put into it.
On garments like suits and jackets, this is about pick-stitched lapels, which showed that someone had finished the edge of the lapels with a hand-sewn thread, now easily done by machine; saddle-stitched linings, which showed that the lining of your jacket was sewn in by hand; hand-sewn buttonholes, which would only appear on the most meticulously crafted garments as an outward expression of the meticulous attention to the inside, now appearing on some largely machine-made suits; French facing on the insides of jackets, showing more fabric consumption and a more difficult manufacturing process. (See photo, below, there's a poorly matched seam which indicates it's not one piece of fabric wrapped around, but another piece, likely a scrap, added on.) It's about functional sleeve buttonholes, which always indicated a custom jacket, now seen on off-the-rack jackets, making the sleeves unalterable: this one's just foolish! Your sleeves may be 2 inches too long, but look!--functional sleeve buttonholes!
On shirts it's about single-needle shirt seams, which made a stronger seam and took more attention and time; split yokes as a holdover from custom makers who adjusted the back of the shirt for the varying slope of your shoulders; gussets at the bottom of the shirt, where the front panel joins the back panel, for strength and a little showing off of a time-consuming detail.
This will continue: the truly rich will find more and more uninvited guests to their secret clubs of custom shirts with split yokes and bespoke jackets with functional sleeve buttonholes. How will they be able to tell the members from the poseurs? You might think they'll have to invent new details with which to wink knowingly at one another. But alas, they will know. They will always know. The hand-made, the quality-made, it always shines in a way, almost imperceptibly, to tell you of its provenance. The game has gotten trickier, for sure, but those playing by the original rules will always come out on top.
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