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

Which may not appear to be essentially the most thrilling factor to reward, but it surely 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 adjustments from one swimsuit to the following. 

Whitcomb have at all times been constant and exact – bang on the cash – and I feel once I went out to go to their workshop in Chennai I acquired a great 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’ll see his affect all over the place. Few tailors get an opportunity to try this, definitely for a tailor this measurement (25 folks 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 return six occasions a 12 months, 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 nowadays, because the masters know what they’re doing,” he mentioned. 

Amusingly although, the tailors have determined to do some issues their very own means. For instance they prefer to sample match the jetts on a pocket, the place Bob likes the jett to run in opposition to 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 true or mistaken, and the energy problem is a minor one involved with many years if not generations of use; it is a small query of priorities. 

Additionally, Bob is instructing 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 Type guide round for instance, and speak about 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 He’s 80 years outdated, has been on the workshop for 17 years, and has an unbelievable life story. Beginning off in poverty on the streets, he skilled to grow to be a tailor after which rose in seniority, elevating three kids of his personal who’re all now in skilled jobs.

Various the employees have tailoring backgrounds like this. Nizam (first picture beneath) is one other of those and one of many masters. “The place I got here from every part 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 beneath) is a third-generation tailor, and his uncle used to work at Whitcomb till he handed away just lately (aged 90). However individuals are cut up on whether or not they’d like their kids to be tailors. 

“The aspiration right here is commonly that you simply work a job like this your entire life, so your little one can have a greater training and grow to be a health care provider or an accountant,” says Mahesh, one of many two brothers that runs Whitcomb. (Mahesh lives right here and is accountable for 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 once they don’t we have now 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, essentially the most satisfying a part of the job gave the impression to be once they see folks sporting their fits. Weddings are nice, for instance, as a result of the swimsuit has such pleasure of place. 

However additionally they see executives around the globe sporting them. Among the many prospects having issues made once we visited had been the top of an enormous 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 had been two US generals and two US senators.

At a extra on a regular basis stage, there was a beautiful second within the workshop once I noticed a swimsuit being made for a lawyer within the US who can 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 those 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 taking a look at piece of Whitcomb tailoring now, I’m anticipating these little touches that had been identified to me, similar 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 assume I can recall a go to to a workshop anyplace the place there was such pleasure and good will. 

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

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