When you consider that the average bespoke suit involves at least three fittings, around 30 individual measurements, and the chance to choose the exact cloth and cut you want, a few thousand bucks suddenly seems a small price to pay. Not convinced? While the best designer suits might draw on the rudiments of classic tailoring, they won't have the comfort or the durability that comes from a handmade suit. Buy off the rack and you could also end up the unproud owner of a suit with fused front panels (which means the look, and the lifespan, of your suit doesn't so much hang by a hand-sewn thread as from the industrial-strength glue used to hold the panels together). The four young bloods featured here do not believe in glue or any other cut-price tricks of the trade when it comes to making a suit. They are true suitmakers, but more cutting-edge craftsmen than tailors. All of them are steeped in the traditions of bespoke—canvasing, basting, the art of the hand-sewn buttonhole—but the thing they most share in common is the optimism that comes with high standards and work that's sure to last.
Michael Tapia
It's a long way to travel to make clothes that reference the best and brightest of American style-the suits worn by John F. Kennedy, to be precise-but Californian Michael Tapia is happy he hauled his life and livelihood to Paris. "The French approach to quality is quite cultural and quite rigid," Tapia says, "which is what you want when you are working in a field where the working methods haven't changed in 100 years." The techniques might be timeless, but what Tapia has come up with is certainly of the moment. He recognizes that JFK's suits, with their close fit and clean lines, offer a blueprint for an enduring modernity. "I don't want to dress your dad-I'm making suits that have been tailored for a new generation," he says.
Tapia set up his studio in 1997, but it wasn't until 2000 that he officially opened for business. To say that he is passionate about tailoring is like saying Donald Trump dabbles in real estate. He talks fluently-and fervently-about his chosen metier: why Miles Davis was so stylish; why the Japanese make the best denim (the original Levi's looms are now in Japan, apparently); and why the mid--twentieth-century tailor's posture chart pinned on his office wall has proved such an invaluable tool for his work (it shows guys standing in 101 different positions, and looks a little like those illustrations used by anthropologists to chart human evolution). Yet Tapia's obsessive nature has paid dividends. He spent years, for instance, researching how to make the perfect pair of pants, which would "always be appropriate, and last." To him, this meant a cotton lining that wouldn't deteriorate on the tenth trip to the dry cleaners and pants that sit at the natural waist. He did it, but there was one drawback: They cost $800 a pair. (His off-the-peg version, which will be sold at Jeffrey next year, will start at a more earthbound $400.) "As an American, I found it difficult to charge that price," says Tapia. "I've always wanted to make Mustangs, not Ferraris." Yet he reasons that the price is worth paying because the pants-as well as his suits-are made to the wearer's exact specifications and because Tapia himself checks every stage of production. "I'm looking for character and identity," he says. "And I can get that only if I do it myself." Michael Tapia (011-33-1-42-71-08-75).
