What Makes Bespoke Tailoring Special?

Roberto Revilla with a first time client at his workroom in Tottenham Court Road, London

I had a client come to see me from San Francisco last week.

I say that quite casually because this is something that happens from time to time now; clients will arrange trips to London around seeing me, or they’ll be coming through London anyway, and we’ll make sure there’s time for a fitting, but when I actually stop and think about it, which for some reason I did after this particular appointment, it’s pretty extraordinary.

There are tailors in San Francisco. Very good ones, I’m sure. There are tailors all over the world, so the idea that somebody would travel thousands of miles and include a visit to my little workroom in London because they’ve decided I’m the person they want to make their clothes is something I hope I never become completely accustomed to.

And maybe because Roberto Revilla London has just turned 15, I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing a bit more than usual anyway, because you do start remembering the early days and the first clients and all the things that seemed both daunting and exciting back then, which, if you’re not careful, can simply become just work.

I don’t mean that negatively because I still love what I do, but familiarity does funny things to all of us, doesn’t it? Something that once felt extraordinary becomes normal remarkably quickly.

Which brings me back to San Francisco, because there’s a moment I get with someone who is relatively new to bespoke tailoring that I absolutely love.

It’s the first try-on.

They’ve been to see me a few weeks earlier, and we’ve talked, I’ve measured them, we’ve looked through cloths and probably gone off on several tangents about where they work, where they travel, what they already wear, what annoys them about their clothes and what they actually want this new thing to do. They’ve eventually chosen a cloth from a piece of fabric no bigger than a book, then gone away, and several weeks later they come back, and suddenly that conversation is hanging in front of them as an actual piece of clothing.

Then they put it on for the first time, and this is the bit I love because quite often they go very quiet.

They look in the mirror, turn slightly, maybe button the jacket, unbutton it, look at me, then look back at themselves and there’s this expression on their face which is very difficult to describe but really easy to recognise when you’ve seen it enough times. It’s partly surprise, I think, especially if somebody has spent years buying ready-made suits and has had to accept that jackets pull in a certain place or trousers never quite sit properly because they have bigger thighs or one shoulder is lower than the other or their body has had the damn cheek to not to be the same shape as whatever standard factory pattern or block a clothing company happened to use.

But I don’t think it’s only the fit - because this thing didn’t ever exist before.

That sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? But I think we forget that when we talk about bespoke tailoring. You didn’t walk into a shop and find it hanging on a rail. We started with you, then made something for you, and now you’re standing there wearing something that has come out of a series of conversations and decisions we made together.

I guess that’s the magic of bespoke for me.

Watching that happen again (and again with other new clients) last week made me realise something I’m a little uncomfortable admitting.

I think I’ve allowed some of that magic to disappear for a few of the clients I’ve looked after the longest.

Not deliberately, of course. In fact, rather perversely, I think it’s happened because I’ve just become really good at taking care of them.

I have clients I’ve dressed for 10, 15, and, in some cases, more than 20 years, and after that time I know them incredibly well. I know what they like, how they want their trousers to feel, how much shape they’re comfortable with in a jacket, which colours they’ll actually wear regardless of what they tell me when we’re looking at a particularly attractive bunch of fabrics, and that I don’t them things that will end up sitting in the wardrobe while the same three jackets I made them 5 years ago continue to be worn to death!

Most importantly, I know their lives.

I know the man who is getting off a plane that morning and needs me to see him between meetings. I know the man who would quite happily spend two hours talking about fabric if his diary allowed it and the one who wants me to arrive at his office, quietly deal with everything and get out of his hair because he has twelve other things happening at the same time.

And because a large proportion of the men I look after are extremely busy, convenience becomes tremendously important. It should be. Part of having a relationship with your tailor for years has to be that it becomes easier rather than harder.

So I’ve become efficient - maybe a little too efficient with some people.

A fitting that might once have involved us sitting down, going through new collections, talking about what’s changed in your life and probably getting distracted by something completely unrelated gradually becomes half an hour because I know exactly what you need, you trust me to sort it out and both of us have somewhere else to be.

That sounds like excellent service, and in many ways it is… but is it still a wonderful experience?

I’m not entirely sure it always is. I don’t want bespoke tailoring to become Amazon Prime with pins.

Because if all we’re doing is replacing or refreshing the same clothes every year with slightly different fabrics, we’re missing one of the great advantages of having someone look after your wardrobe over a long period of time. I know what we made you 10 years ago. I also know you’re not the same man you were ten years ago, because none of us are. Your job might be different, your body probably is, the way you spend your weekends may have changed completely and maybe the suit that was the centre of your working wardrobe when we first met now spends most of its life waiting for a board meeting while you’re trying to work out what on earth you’re supposed to wear the other four “business casual” days of the week.

Your taste changes as well, although I’m not convinced we always notice it happening.

I definitely see that in myself. Things I’d have dismissed right away ten years ago suddenly appeal to me now, and things I once thought were absolutely essential I’m a bit less interested in now. I imagine you’re probably the same.

So if we haven’t stopped for a while and actually looked at all of that together, how do I know I’m still making the right things for you?

This is where I think I want to change something this winter.

Nothing dramatic. I’m not introducing a three-hour ceremonial consultation involving whisky, cigars and a piano player playing instrumental renditions of James Bond songs, so don’t panic.

I just want another ten or fifteen minutes with you.

Especially if I’ve been looking after you for years.

I want us to look at your wardrobe again rather than assuming I know it. I want to know what you’re actually wearing now, what you’ve stopped wearing, what has become unexpectedly useful and what I made with great confidence two years ago that you’ve barely touched. I’d also like to know if you’re bored too, because sometimes I suspect it can be that we both get so used to knowing what works that neither of us asks if we could do something better, or different.

And then I want to look forward.

We’ve had an avalanche of new autumn and winter clothes arrive at the workroom recently, everything from beautiful new suitings and jacketings to shirts and the increasingly important smart-casual side of what I do, and there are things amongst them that immediately make me think of particular clients. That’s always happened, actually. I’ll see a cloth and think, that’s very Patrick, or Mike would love that, or there’s absolutely no point showing that to so-and-so because he’ll tell me it’s too adventurous but there something else in this collection that he absolutely would love.

That relationship is part of bespoke too.

I sometimes see people searching online for the difference between bespoke and made-to-measure, or whether a bespoke suit is worth the money, and understandably the answers tend to focus on construction, individual patterns, handwork, fittings and all the technical things that distinguish one way of making clothes from another.

All of that matters, of course it does. But after doing this for as long as I have, I’m increasingly convinced that the really interesting bit happens over time.

The first bespoke suit I make for you should be excellent, obviously, otherwise this is going to be a pretty short relationship, but I don’t know you properly yet. I know what you’ve told me and I know what I’ve observed, but then you go away and actually live in the clothes and when you come back I learn something else.

We make another garment. Then another.

I discover that despite insisting you wanted more colour you actually live in navy and grey, or that the casual jacket you weren’t entirely convinced by has now become the thing you wear twice a week. I learn that you run hot, hate anything too structured, travel more than you thought you would, need more room in your trousers because you’ve started cycling or that your office has suddenly rediscovered the suit after five years of telling everyone they can wear whatever they want.

Slowly we stop making individual pieces of clothing and start building your wardrobe.

I think that’s why someone can have a bespoke tailor in London when they live in San Francisco.

You’re not necessarily travelling thousands of miles because nobody closer to home can make a suit - sometimes you’ve simply found the person you want to make your clothes. There’s a difference.

And maybe seeing that first-fitting expression on the face of someone who had travelled all that way reminded me that I never want the people who’ve trusted me for 20 years to become so used to bespoke that putting on something we’ve created together feels ordinary.

So this winter, if you’ve been with me for years, give me another 10 or 15 minutes when we next get together.

Let’s have a proper look. Let’s change something. Let’s find something amongst those new winter collections that makes you slightly excited about coming back for your fitting again.

Because when you do come back, I want you to put it on, turn towards the mirror and go quiet for a moment.

Just like you did that first time.

That’s how it should feel every time.