Made to Measure
Robert De Niro wears an impeccably tailored suit in the 1976 film The Last Tycoon; with Ingrid Boulting.
The decline in quality and fit of high-street clothing has been going on for years, but there is a solution that can elevate almost any piece in your wardrobe, writes Marie Kelly.
“Even expensive clothes won’t look their worth if they don’t fit correctly,” explains Irish designer Claire O’Connor. Nobody knows this better than the London-based couturier, who spends most of her time tailoring pieces from brands such as Gucci, Prada and Valentino for celebrated actors preparing to take their turn on the Bafta or Sundance red carpets. From Beyoncé, Claire Foy and Julianne Moore to the Princess of Wales, O’Connor has tailored some of the most expensive ready-to-wear items for some of the world’s biggest (and most exacting) celebrities.
“It’s the fit that makes or breaks a piece of clothing,” she explains. “Brands cut inch-based sizes to include as many people as possible, but no two individuals are the same shape.” The one-size-fits-none reality of traditional high-street sizing – dubbed ‘insanity sizing’ by many – has kept shoppers in a state of what the late inventor and businessman Charles Kettering described as “reasonable dissatisfaction”. “If everyone were satisfied, no one would buy the next new thing because no one would want it,” he explained. So we obsessively shop for the elusive perfect fit, which we will never find in ready-to-wear – whether we pay €50 or €500 – because as Clare Press, host of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast and the first sustainability editor at Vogue, explains, “Mass production and synthetic fabrics are so pervasive, it’s increasingly difficult to buy well-made clothes, no matter how much you are willing to spend.”
For most of history, clothes were made to measure of course. Wealthy individuals had dressmakers, while the working classes made their own, and as a result each garment was designed according to the contours of an individual’s own body. In the second half of the 20th century, improved industrial techniques coupled with a rise in advertising led to a consumer revolution and the instant gratification of off-the-rack. The notion of ‘having a tailor’ became something antiquated and exclusive to the rich and famous; a vagary or indulgence that only celebrities or the kinds of men and women who wore heirloom jewellery and collected art indulged in.
But like most celebrity trends, tailoring is moving mainstream, with people getting wise to the difference a precise fit can make to how they present themselves. O’Connor, who was recently commissioned to create the jacquard three-quarter-length jacket worn by actor Sarah Snook in the publicity shots for the latest West End production of The Picture of Dorian Gray, confirms it’s become a huge trend in London. “A garment needs to sit at your own waist and the shoulders at your own shoulder line if it’s to shape and sculpt your silhouette and offer the kind of confidence that only a piece of precision tailoring can. I’ve met plenty of big spenders who’ve shopped prolifically in the past, but are now looking to have those clothes reworked to fit better,” she says.
John Corcoran is one such Londoner. The Dublin native is chief make-up artist for cosmetics brand Trinny London and he has everything he buys – be that high-street, high-end or vintage – altered to fit by a family tailors in Balham, not far from his Brixton home. He sizes up when buying items from the likes of H&M, Zara and Asos and then has them shaped to fit exactly as he would like. “I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes,” he says “but I do put money into having them tailored. I picked up a waistcoat and trouser suit from Asos last year for £80 and spent half that amount having it altered,” he reveals. “Those intentional nips and tucks make an outfit look much more expensive. I’ll have this suit for life,” he adds.
O’Connor believes the return of the high-street tailor has been a game changer, offering consumers a reliable low-cost alternative to the traditional bespoke suit experience, which few of us can afford. “In the past, people worried about bringing items they valued to their local dry-cleaners for anything other than a straightforward hem alteration. But these days there are so many experienced tailors in business that individuals are confident having the fit adjusted and experimenting with redesigns.”
‘Having a tailor’ may sound fancy, but in reality, it’s a way of making inexpensive thrift, charity or high-street clothes look like a million dollars.
Polish designer Barbara Kosznik is one such tailor. She developed a love of sewing at age 12, eventually studying tailoring for six years in Gdynia, a port town on the Baltic coast of Poland. She moved to Ireland 16 years ago and established an atelier in South County Dublin at the height of the recession. Uncertain economic times force people to reconsider their disposable income and the amount of disposable fashion in their wardrobe, and Kosznik reveals, “On the first day I opened, there was a queue out the front door.”
She says that since the restrictions of Covid were lifted she’s “meeting more and more people who are throwing open their wardrobes and taking a second look at what they wear and don’t wear, and why.” Pandemic job losses and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis have prompted people once again to think about the myriad benefits a zero waste wardrobe filled with better fitting more unique pieces can offer.
Shortening trousers and sharpening the silhouette of jackets, coats and shirts are the most common alterations carried out by Kosznik. Vintage garments, she says, demand “a more creative approach and greater attention to every detail”. Customisation has always been the key to transforming secondhand finds from novelty clothing into couture, after all. ‘Having a tailor’ may sound fancy, but in reality, it’s a way of making inexpensive thrift, charity or high-street clothes look like a million dollars.
Kosznik says her customer demographic is 30-70-year-olds, which supports research carried out by Penneys last year in tandem with the launch of its free monthly repair workshops – part of the fast fashion chain’s drive to become a more circular brand. It found that Gen Z (12-27-year-olds) are more likely to mend their own clothes than bring them to a professional, suggesting there may be a mending movement happening alongside this trend for tailoring.
Both bode well for the environment because the most sustainable piece of clothing is the one already hanging in our wardrobes. Keeping the clothes we own in rotation is key to reducing waste, according to The Sustainable Fashion Forum, a digital platform devoted to fostering innovative industry solutions. “Conversations around sustainable wardrobes are too often presented from a consumerist point of view – what brands to shop, what fabrics to look for, what certifications to buy etc. But the best way to reduce your fashion footprint is by maximising the use and lifespan of the clothes you already have,” it states.
The platform specifically recommends having clothes tailored. “When a garment fits like a glove, you’re more likely to wear and care for it.” Leather gloves designer Paula Rowan knows something about this. The Dublin-based 50-year-old was commissioned to design custom gloves for Lady Gaga’s character in the House of Gucci film and she worked from her Monkstown studio using the actor’s exact hand measurements. It was no surprise to learn that she has every piece of clothing she buys altered to look as if it was made just for her by a London-based tailor, who Rowan describes as “a magician”, revealing “she can always find solutions to a problem”.
Rowan developed an appreciation for well-fitting clothes from her grandmother, whose suits and dresses were always tailor-made. As well as having her own clothes tailored, she takes a ‘fewer but better’ approach to her wardrobe, buying designer pieces from the likes of Alexander McQueen, Rouland Mouret, Rick Owens and Alaia. Developing a capsule wardrobe like this is an obvious solution to a more sustainable future, but it doesn’t suit everybody. For many of us, the need for certain types of clothes changes as we grow older. Sometimes, we outgrow what’s in our wardrobes, with those items no longer serving our lifestyles, professions or mood. For others, the need for newness is simply part of their personality. A trusted tailor can give you all the newness you want without any of the negative side-effects.
For Rowan, the appeal of a well-fitting outfit is simple: “I have always felt more finished in clothes that fit properly,” she explains. “For me, it’s not just about how an outfit looks, but how it feels. There’s a balance between aesthetics and practicality – I need to look smart for work, but I also need to be able to move around, as I could be in my Westbury Mall store one day and visiting a factory in Naples the next. Most of the pieces I wear are simple but impeccably cut.”
Great tailoring is about functionality as much as fit, certainly. But Rowan has identified the real appeal of well-fitting clothes – they make us feel good, and when we feel good, we look good. And this is likely to motivate more of us to modify our fashion footprint than any Greta Thunberg speech.
This article originally appeared in the Irish Tatler, March 2024
