Tailor-made, ultimate luxury of men<

Elles n’ont pas besoin de campagnes publicitaires, car le bouche-à-oreille de leurs clients leur suffit. Installées dans d’élégants appartements du Triangle d’or parisien, ces quelques maisons perpétuent avec orgueil l’art du tailleur, le sur-mesure. C’est-à-dire la création ex nihilo d’une pièce unique parfaitement ajustée et faite à la main.

In the 1950s, France had nearly ten thousand tailors.The National Federation of Master Tailors listed last year one hundred and fifty workshops, including a handful employing more than ten craftsmen.However, this sector is doing well.Like the Cifonelli workshop, a family home located in Paris in 1926, which today works forty workers and has no less than eight hundred costumes per year.A figure that illustrates the new enthusiasm that this niche market knows, run by a now international and rejuvenated clientele.Alongside the traditional scheme-a father, himself introduced by his own father, initiates his son-, of young quadras, more self-made-men than son to dad, decide to take the tailor-made step."They are all different, some are faithful.Their common point is their desire to make a unique clothing made for which they will have chosen the smallest detail, the form, the material, the color ", explains Véronique Nichanian, artistic director of the male universe of Hermès.Launched in 2009, its specific order service is flourishing.

Target ?Stylish dandy and businessman

Parisian institution since 1838, the Charvet house also welcomes more and more young men seduced by a garment, or even a tailor -made locker room.The approach, synonymous with excellence, obviously has a cost.Between € 4,000 and € 6,000 as first costume prices, € 400 and € 700 for a shirt.It all depends on the quality of the fabric and the complexity of demand.Luxury obliges, the tailors prefer to speak cut rather than argent.At Lanvin, whose male department dates from 1926, the master tailor Patrick Nogueira I could not verify the identity of this gentleman.sums up his job through the Credo of Alber Elbaz: "Simply make people beautiful and happy.To do this, you have to understand the expectations of his interlocutor: a businessman who spends his life in planes certainly does not have the same needs as a dandy looking for daring. Le premier appréciera la performance de tissus ultralégers infroissables que développent les grands tisseurs comme Loro Piana, Ermenegildo Zegna, Dormeuil, Scabal, Holland & Sherry.The second will be more sensitive to the originality of new materials, such as the exclusive yak offered in fifty colors at Cifonelli, particularly appreciated by Asian customers.

A tailor must also have a lynx eye to scan the morphology of his client.The latter counts on him to erase his faults - a drooping shoulder, an emerging overweight, a shorter arm.“Each body presents its difficulties, lean men are quite bone, so it is necessary to give them volume;stronger physics will, conversely, have to be refined.This is the vocation of tailor-made: making a garment that enhances the body, "said Lorenzo Cifonelli.

The taste of the unique

When it comes to the choice of fabric, experience shows that men, especially young generations, willingly discuss cashmere, tweed, velvet or flannel.Like a large wine, an exceptional watch or a sports car, tailor-made has its own vocabulary.Here, rolls and bundles are available in Super 150, 180…, the metric value of the fabric.The higher the figure, the finer the fabric, the touch soft.Merino Australian wools thus have a diameter not exceeding 15.5 microns - a human hair in measure 50.A simple steam is enough for them to find all their swelling.Today, the Tweed Harris are half the loss of Smalto's Smalto Thaking in China has never been equaled - only 380 grams.

Having your shirts cut in an ultra-fine cotton like an Indian Sea Island of Barbados or a Giza 45 in Egypt, is it the height of epicureanism?For some, yes.This is what makes them tailor-made, the rare.A notion that requires knowing how to repel the field of possibilities: make a crocodile jacket dyed in a color with exactly the color of a flower at Zilli, weave 24 carat gold at Pal Zileri, reproduce a wire in the identicalHermes.

Savile Row's thumb

Even if the number of wires varies, twenty-six for a Charvet shirt, five for Berluti pants, the measurement requires virtuosity that is only learned with experience.Six times a year, Lorenzo Cifonelli therefore visits his customers in New York, to which are added those of London, Tokyo, Geneva, Moscow, Monte-Carlo. Fidèle à la fiche imaginée par son ancêtre à la fin du XIXe siècle, le tailleur consigne la morphologie de son client en vingt mesures notées en inches, le pouce de Savile Row ,ce temple de l’élégance britannique joliment décrite dans un nouveau livre dédié à l’illustre maison Gieves & Hawkes *.At Lanvin, sending samples allows customers living abroad to make their orders remotely, provided, of course, not to change morphology - a customer file must necessarily be updated after a few years.

The explosion of half measures

True geometry of perfection, the pattern is made with all the indications of pliers, cuts and specific details - the followers of chronographs appreciate for example that their shirt wrists adapt to the volume of their watch (s) (s).Collar, shoulders, pockets, lining, buttons, spinning: the seventy parts necessary for the construction of a costume are assembled.A first fitting will make it possible to check the balance, that is to say the perfect balance between the lines of the body and the clothing.Correct a shoulder, resume a setback or a pliers.Then come the finishes, buttonholes and stitching, emblematic of the profession.A tailor -made clothing takes time.From six to eight weeks and seventy hours of work for a perfectly sewn, adjusted and balanced costume.

Far from fashion dictates, tailor-made workshops are nevertheless their paw.At Smalto, the slightly raised rolled shoulder draws a line near the body, moreover greeted by Françoise Sagan: "He is one of those rare men to be able to mix luxury and sobriety, daily and brilliance.He is an artist and a lord.Work in a curved way forward, the Cifonelli shoulder comes to amplify ease.At Camps de Luca, a slight break in the back of the jacket, above the slots, comes to mark the waist.

Subtle, these details make it possible to distinguish the tailor-made from a booming phenomenon, the half-measure and its procession of Anglo-Saxon synonyms that lend confusing ("Made to Measure", "Bespoke", "Tailoring"…).Created in the 1970s, half -measures rushed today in the wake of traditional houses - which also open up pre -existing models of preexisting models.This is where the famous "half" resides, in these witness models clawed from the big fashion: Prada, Dior, Giorgio Armani, Burberry, Gucci, Hugo Boss.For a jacket, Lanvin offers 19 cuts;Ralph Lauren Purple Label, 11;Hackett, 3.The client's measurements will allow you to adjust the length of the sleeves and take up certain pliers, when the finishes, called Sartoriales (initials, collar edge and even buttonholes), offer a taste of tailor-made ... but only an avant-taste.

* « Une histoire de l’élégance masculine, 1, Savile Row, Gieves & Hawkes » (relié sous jaquette).Flammarion, 240 p.

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