The Future of Men's Tailoring
MORONI, Giovanni Battista "The Tailor"
c. 1570
Oil on canvas, 97 x 74 cm
National Gallery, London
Oil on canvas, 97 x 74 cm
National Gallery, London
Tailoring is an art form - and as the current generation retires, who is going to replace them? This is a very real problem both manufacturers and retailers are going to have to address in the next five to ten years. Many immigrants from Italy and Greece came here in the 1950s-60s and took jobs at now closed Hartmarx factories in Chicago, Buffalo and Toronto. These were one who truly understood the body and grew up in a family of tailors.
When clothing factories closed, these tailors went to the retail sector like Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Brooks Brothers. Ask one of them their story next time you're being fitted for a suit.
A new crop of good tailors came from Russia and the Former Soviet Republics in the 80s and they were a younger group. Again, they learned out of necessity during the Soviet era or worked in clothing factories.
Why do Italians make great tailors? Because they make their own clothes. And when you make your own clothing you start to "fine tune" the garment in your day to day activities - and then they do the same for their clients. It's an art, like a violinist building his own violin. He keeps fine tuning until it is just right. Greeks on the other hand learned their craft during WWII. Being in a village, you had to learn to make your own clothing. The same goes for Spain.
For the past fifteen years, factories have been trying to come up with a way to address this upcoming problem. Wouldn't it be great if you could pull a George Jetson and go into a machine and have it spit out all the measurements?
Southwick, located outside of Boston and the factory that makes the Zaharoff tailored suits, trousers and sport jackets, has been working on a top secret project. A booth were you could walk in and in a matter of seconds, out came your measurements.
What you see below is exactly that -
Every possible measurement, every single one, all on one paper!
They developed this incredible system where you walk into a black booth, pick up these joysticks located on each side of the box. The joysticks have a button on the handle and although attached to the wall, they go up and down. You stand in the position I'm standing in in the picture above. You have to be only in your underwear, not even socks!
A soothing voice tells you, "please wait until we take all your measurements." Ten-seconds later you are finished!
The key is to one day have these on trailers like portable MRI's where they are located in every major city. This is only the beginning.
A soothing voice tells you, "please wait until we take all your measurements." Ten-seconds later you are finished!
The key is to one day have these on trailers like portable MRI's where they are located in every major city. This is only the beginning.
Posted by George Zaharoff at 29 August 2010, 8:29 PM 
Categories: Zaharoff
Tags: Computer Science Int'l Development Clothing Supercomputing southwick zaharoff Fashion Manufacturing Electronic Devices future Computer Hardware measurements booth tailor Shopping Sewing Business Computers computer Software electronic measuring
Categories: Zaharoff
Tags: Computer Science Int'l Development Clothing Supercomputing southwick zaharoff Fashion Manufacturing Electronic Devices future Computer Hardware measurements booth tailor Shopping Sewing Business Computers computer Software electronic measuring
Comments