his is a story about an epiphany.
About how something that
I thought I would hate turned
out to be a pure joy.
It started with a diss. People
who have been with their partners
for several decades usually
recognise when they are being
politely if obliquely advised
that they are deficient. My wife,
Sarah, and I had been up to Manchester,
where I received an honorary degree from
the university and made a speech. Almost
Sarah’s first words when we were reunited
(after what was for me a very proud moment)
were, “You should get a new suit.” Properly
parsed this actually meant, “You looked really
scruffy up there. Go and spend some money
sorting yourself out.” So a decision was made:
I would buy my first bespoke suit.
When it comes to suits I have been a
fairly disastrous “off-the-peg” man all my
life. I hated shopping for them, which is
why the last one I bought was back in- I had endured sweaty, fruitless hours
tugging trousers on and off in tiny cubicles,
permanently in danger of overbalancing and
falling through the curtain, one leg in, one leg
out, to surprise the shoppers beyond. It was
almost impossible to find a jacket that fitted
my barrel chest and longish if filled-out frame,
let alone one in a cloth that I really liked.
I took to buying the occasional suit online
in sales, not one of which has ever fitted.
The 2007 suit was the one that died a critical
death in Manchester.
Getting a suit made would, I feared, be
a version of these tribulations. An ordeal
in which a slim and snobby bespoker would
regard my attempts to choose a colour, fabric
and cut with polite contempt, measure me
with concealed distaste and pronounce that
this was not going to be an easy job. Then we’d
wind up with something appalling in tweed.
I made myself an appointment at Paul
Smith in Mayfair, London. I like Paul Smith
for his colours, have shopped there for socks
and scarves over the years, and anyway I was
scared of the kind of Jermyn Street tailors
that toffs use. On the day of the appointment
I headed off for my date with doom.
What can I tell you? I loved every moment
of it. I descended to the shop’s bright basement
with a feeling of trepidation and emerged
90 minutes later with one of elation.
Why? Firstly because of Joe. Joe’s title
is bespoke head cutter at Paul Smith. He is
in his early thirties, I think. He dresses in
bespoke three-piece suits that move perfectly
as he moves. He is slim, bespectacled and- miraculously – has an accent like my dad’s
or my Uncle Joe’s. It’s an East End accent
and he is an East End tailor, son of an East
End tailor, a career artisan of a kind we rarely
see any more. His dad makes coats from
a shed in his garden. I could listen to him
talk all day.
And Joe was not snobby or disdainful, but
sensible and practical. Instead of the confusing
swatch-fest I’d feared, he managed to elicit
from me very quickly that I was looking
for a suit that would stand out without being
clownish: no checks, no stripes; no blacks,
charcoals or navies. In half an hour we’d
narrowed it down to a textured blue. And
decided on a single breast (I look like an
advancing tank in a double breast). Then
I got to choose a silk lining, picking one that
resembled a German Expressionist landscape.
Time for the measuring. By now I felt we
were actual friends, which made the standing
on the dais less uncomfortable and the being
surrounded by mirrors almost bearable.
(I look best when not surrounded by mirrors.
No mirrors at all is a good look for me.) Joe
was fast and there was none of that “Which
side do you dress, sir?” stuff people joke about.
Joe wrote it all down on pieces of card
that would be later used for the pattern. He
threaded the cards together so they could be
used to assemble a rough cut. Hanging on a
peg on the wall were about ten of these cardassemblies, all marked with the customer’s
name. The top one read “Harrison Ford”.
“Dinner suit,” said Joe. The second was for
Steven Spielberg.
And we were done for that session.
I sauntered out. “See you in three weeks,”
said Joe. Now you want to know the price. Of
course you do. It was £3,800 – £1,900 up front,
so I’d actually sauntered out almost two grand
lighter. It was by a country mile the most
money I’d ever spent on clothes.
When I went back there was a rough
version cut from surplus cloth. Joe showed
me how it had been made up using the card
pattern on which had been marked darts
and – using a form of tailoring origami – the
various important curves that we all have but
which all differ. I put it on, stood on the dais
and Joe made dozens of small adjustments,
pinning here and chalking there. He showed
me how on a bespoke suit they cut the
armholes in such a way as to allow the
arm to travel upwards without pulling the
whole suit behind.
There were some big questions yet to be
settled. Pockets: double flap, single flap, no
flap? Easy. Flap is fussy. No flap. Side pleat
or back pleat in jacket? Side. Let’s keep that
unified look from the back. Trouser pleat?
“What do you think, Joe?” “One pleat,” said
Joe firmly. And he was equally certain about
buttons – two, and only the top one ever done
up; four buttons on the cuff.
The next time I visited the new suit was
there, save for a few nips and tucks, and it
is the most beautiful thing I have ever worn.
It’s a hopsack design (seriously), 30 per cent
silk, 15 per cent mohair, 15 per cent linen,
40 per cent wool, 0 per cent acrylic. So the
big question: would it be ready to debut at
the British Museum trustees’ dinner?
It was. I didn’t walk up those stone steps
and between those great columns, I floated.
I was my own Cinderella. I have never worn
anything so effortlessly smart. I took a glass
of something fizzy and mingled. I had been
there half an hour when one of the most
elegant women I have ever worked with came
up to say hello. “David,” she said – and I am
not lying – “you look fantastic.” And for once
I think I did. n54 The Times MagazineT
The last suit David Aaronovitch bought was an online purchase – 15 years ago.
So what happened when he went for a bespoke fitting at Paul Smith?
LOOK AT ME! ‘I DIDN’T WALK
UP THE STEPS, I FLOATED’
The price? It cost
£3,800 – by a country
mile the most I’d ever
spent on clothes
Men’s Shop!