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Do you have a family member who is an artisan-tailor — or perhaps worked as one in the past? If you do, we’d love to hear about their life’s work and what this individual means to you. Please share your anecdotes and recollections.
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Irene Musillo Mitchell shares a passage from her book, Anna Marilena’s Four Sorrows, which is inspired by her experience getting fitted by her father, a tailor from Basilicata, Italy:
When it was time for a fitting, he summoned Marilena or me to the sewing room, and we stood stiff and silent as he scrutinized the suit or coat he made us. As young as we were, we understood that to create our father’s outfits, which everyone admired, high seriousness and hard work were as necessary as going to school. The fittings took place in the adjacent parlor, for the sewing room was no more than a pantry. If Gian Andrea had just used the steam iron, the smell of steamed cloth floated into the parlor.
“Stai diritta!” he would say. He spoke to us in Italian or English, as one language or the other rose to his lips. Sometimes, especially when I was called in from playing outside, I found it hard to stand straight and still. “Stai ferma!” he said crossly, or it seemed that way. Standing back, as one does observing a painting in a museum, he would look sharply at the jacket or coat. Sometimes a jacket did not fall quite as he wished, and he would pull and tug at it until it conformed more precisely to the figure, or he would adjust and readjust a tentatively-fastened collar on a coat until it lay perfectly around the neck. Sometimes the stiffener in the collar scratched my neck, but I did not say a word.
“Gira!” I would turn around, though too quickly, for he would intercept, “Piano!” and his eyes followed a skirt, how it fell, its hemline, its hemline pleat. “Cammina!” Wearing the almost finished suit, I walked stiffly away, turned, and walked toward him, while he appraised the total effect. When the fitting was over, which he indicated by a nod of the head or some other dismissive gesture, I knew from a certain calmness overspreading his face and an easing, like the relaxing of a tense body, that the suit met his Berninian or Cellinian eye.
I had a close relative Lino Capella who was the master tailor for Dunhill Tailors in Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. He trained dozens of apprentices from the old country and made clothes for many Hollywood stars of the 50s and 60s. Everything was hand made and hand stitched – even the button holes. When I watch the TV series Mad Men I get flashbacks! I once went with my mother to visit him and tried on a winter coat – it fit like a slip and I felt like a princess. He always had a straight pin on his lapel – because you never knew when you might need one. He was a true artist.
This is absolutely wonderful. Such talented and warm hearted men, loving their art.
I have the pleasure of having the book written by Irene. It is outstanding. I so enjoyed hearing her read the poem she had written.
Hand in hand the two arts meet, that of creating a masterpiece from cloth, and that of creating a poem and a novel.
I’m a tailor 74 years old. I join to do a suit like the old days, a suit I have done all my life (all by hand). Today, many call that Bespoke, but no one does that, including big Italian names. I’m proud to serve my clienti, especially a Stout posture — I make the suit the way I learn in Milano. That special and unique way to do a good suit. If interested, see it on my Web site: http://www.bespokesuitbypino.com
Please, if I can be helpful in any way contact me.
Regards,
Pino
I am not a tailor, but I am a tailor customer. What you say here is so true, even in Italy, my own country. I know many tailors, but point is that the youngest of them has some 60 years. There are no young generations, this is kind of an emergency: such a precious and beautiful art could not be let disappear.
My father, Antonio Taglia, born in Ricigliano, provincia di Salerno in 1908 and was a custom tailor in New York City for over sixty-five years. Most of his career he collaborated with Canio Saluzzi on Madison Avenue, custom tailors to prestigious political figures as well as delegates of the United Nations among others. As children, my brother and I had the privilege of having custom made clothing (even our private school uniforms were tailor made.) My mother was a seamstress who studied design and met my father when she was 18. Antonio (Tony) worked in New York City until he was 88 years old commuting on the subway from Brooklyn. Finally, my mother convinced him to retire to Florida. He was in perfect health until 2009 when he peacefully passed at the age of 101. There are so many memories and stories, I could go on forever. Often, I was told he was one of the last of the great custom tailors in New York. Of course, many came after him but I believe, few and far between. He is missed by all who knew him. Viva Il Sarto!!!
My grandfather was Guido Fusaro, the uncle of Eatalo Fusaro. Guido came over on the boat as a teen and worked his way up to head designer at Goldschmidts of Philadelphia. Along the way he worked for the US Military designing officers uniforms and during World War II he went to the Pentagon with his designs and stayed in a tent on the grounds of the White House. My parents — Richard and Anne Whiting of West Chester, Pa — would have more information. My grandfather trained his nephew Eatalo Fusaro (still living) as a designer and at one time he was the head of design for After Six Formals and still makes suits in Ardmore, PA for selected customers.
My father, Andrea Renato Lupo, is a tailor who is 76 years old, and still continues to work even if he should be long retired. He learned his craft when he was 10 years old from another Master in Palermo (Sicily). He moved to Rome when he was about 20 years old and worked for Piattelli, then moved to Brussels in 1976 where he worked for “Old England”. He currently works for “La Maison Degand” — probably one of the last shops with a workshop in Brussels.
This type of Art will (unfortunately) disappear because it takes one week for my father to complete a jacket… no machine at all.
In your trailer I saw the same kind of room where my father is working, exactly the same atmosphere. Fortunately, I’m his son, and he has made me some suits, and another one is being prepared; otherwise, they would be too expensive for me.
And a few words about my mother: she is not a tailor but she is an artist too. She is doing pants, skirts, and vest — of course, all handmade. Together they are a real Dream Team.
In the 1990′s, when I worked in New York City custom costume shops, I met and worked with a number of skilled Italian tailors. The one I got to know the best told me he apprenticed as a young boy — if I remember right, at about 6 or 7 he begin his education as a tailor. It’s interesting to think about acquiring skills that young, especially in light of the comments made by the tailors in the film about Americans trying to learn a trade at the same time they need to earn a living. Also, it’s wonderful to hear one of the tailors say that tailoring is an art — as I look at the coat shown on the mannequin, I see how softly the lapels are curled and think about the rest of the shaping via cutting, stitching, pressing that makes a well-tailored jacket conform to a body. It is beautiful. I would love to talk to these guys.