Notes from
the Workroom

Warm-weather tailoring for a Raleigh summer — open weaves, high-twist wool, and the case for less construction.

Luxury is a construction question, not a label question. Here is what to look at instead.

Flannel, tweed and the return of texture — the season tailoring was invented for.

What actually happens between the first appointment and the finished garment, and why so much of it is still done by hand.

Of all the things that can be wrong with a jacket, one cannot be fixed afterwards — and it is the one nobody looks at.

The stage of a commission that looks worst is the one that decides whether the finished garment will be any good.

Half an inch of spare cloth in the seams is the difference between a jacket you own for twenty years and one you own for three.

Two men can measure identically and need entirely different patterns. The measurements are the easy part.

What actually happens between walking in and walking out with the garment, in the order it happens.

What high-end restoration actually involves, and how to tell whether the garment in your wardrobe is a candidate.

Six or eight people who need to read as one picture without looking like a uniform, standing next to a gown that should stay the centre of the frame.

An hour and three-quarters, garment by garment, and three piles. Most people have it exactly backwards.

A test you can run in your own wardrobe, in about a minute per garment, before you spend anything.

Four things, and the reason behind each. Two of them are why a hem sometimes has to be done twice.

The distinction gets blurred deliberately, because one of the two words sells better. Here is what actually separates them.

Turning work away is a strange thing for a business to announce. Here is the reasoning, plainly.

What changes in a workroom over a decade, and the one thing that has not.

The fastest-growing part of the workroom, and the one people are most surprised to find here.