My First Bespoke Jacket
January 3, 2008 – 6:40 amThursdays are Bespoke, where I share my interests in hand-made clothing, traditional menswear, the history of masculine dress, men’s fashion and what clothing and style means for me as a white transsexual man.
For some time now I have been in the market for a bespoke jacket. I wanted a jacket since suit-wearing is not something I do very often here in Ann Arbor.
The jacket need to reflect my sense of myself as a part-of-yet-apart-from white male dress. White male dress is defined by me as wrinkled khakis or jeans, sneakers, and some kind of button-down wrinkled shirt. Knowing what I want and going for it are two entirely different actions. I had made appointments with a few tailors, only to cancel them. Fear shot through me. The cost did not throw me so much as entering into a space that has been defined as entirely male for more than three hundred years.
But I kept at it, until one day I was perusing the boards at The London Lounge and saw a picture of a different jacket tailored by Mr. Richard Anderson of Richard Anderson, Ltd. I clicked on casual coats and saw the above picture and knew in an instant fell fast and hard.
I emailed Richard Anderson and received an almost instantaneous reply from Mr. Brian Lishak, Richard Anderson’s business partner. We discussed particulars, and I then set up an appointment for September 2006. I drove to Chicago, met with Richard, who spent two hours with me discussing the ins and outs of Savile Row, bespoke clothing, and what sets Richard Anderson apart.
The one button stance (the stance describes how buttons a coat/jacket stands with) is one of its unique features. “Nothing extraneous,” said Brian. I agree. But as I had gone mad cotton/cashmere/courdoroy material that creates the jacket, I had to go with four buttons!
After much deliberation I chose light blue with a hot pink lining. “Lovely,” declared Mr. Lishak. His obvious appreciation is one of the many reasons I love Savile Row. A man can actually wear a hot pink lining in his jacket and receive appreciation in response.
I’ll returned for my first paper fitting in late January 2007 and another fitting in June. I was unable to attend a final fitting in October. I’ve emailed Mr. Lishak in the hopes that they can drop ship the jacket to me before his next visit to Chicago. I shall keep you posted.