From wednesday 26 of september through saturday the 6th of October, I will be in Holland.

I've got some appointments with clients and need to arrange some business matters that have to do with my recent move to Spain.

This means that I will available for appointments during those days. Now, I know that usually travelling tailors make it a custom to receive their clients at a hotel, but for several reasons I cannot do this. First of all, my current schedule requires me to be present at various locations during the week, making receiving customers less practical than visiting them.

But mostly, it's because I really much prefer to treat my customers with the care and distinction that they deserve. Rather than herding a people into a hotel, fitted into a tight schedule, I believe it is much more pleasant for everyone to be given the time and tranquility that is needed to take proper measurements, select a cloth, and to discuss the suit they want to have. When buying something as personal and individual as bespoke clothing, my view is that the service you receive should be equally personal and individual.

So anyone in The Netherlands or Belgium who is interested in making an appointment, please be advised that I will be more than happy to visit you at your home, office, or other location of your choosing.

After my stay in The Netherlands I will fly out to London, where I will also be seeing customers. The dates for this leg of my trip are as yet not confirmed. I'll keep you informed when things become definite. You may also subscribe to my newsletter , that way you'll receive an email as soon as something changes.

For appointments, please write me at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or call me on either my spanish mobile: +34 656 321 321 or my dutch mobile: +31 6111 111 61.

Thank you.

One of the best modes of living, must be that of the artist.

People commission you to do what you do best, and what you like to do most.

And they in turn receive a unique work of art.

As a cutter and tailor, I do treat whatever I make, as a work of art in it's own right, therefore the title of this blog wasn't chosen at random.

Suits, to me, are a form of art.

 [ BACKGROUND READING: ] Wikipedia article on the Belgian painter René Magritte .

Dear all,

I've you received an invitation from me by email to join quetchup , please forgive me and delete the message immediately. I never intended for anyone to be invited. It appears this service is a scheme to spam people, which is a thing I would never willingly cooperate with. This website pretends to be a friendly social thing, but instead takes advantage of people.

So please don't hold it against me, I never intended to spam anyone in whatever way. Only subcribers to my newsletter get regular messages from me.

Thanks,

Martin

Here is a picture of a lovely dinner jacket I just finished. The cloth is a beautiful black 100% woolen worsted out of my personal collection, and the lapel facing is some of the best 100% natural silk available on the market. It's such a pleasure to work with such materials! It's also a challenge though: Especially with silk, the slightest mistake will ruin it forever, and no amount of pressing or steaming will ever get it back to it's original beauty. It looks in this picture as if the bottom of the lapels are not the same, but that is only because of the light reflecting off of the delicate sheen of the silk.

I quite fell in love with this one, and I was sorry to see it go.

From the 30th of July, until 2nd of august, I'll be once more in Belgium and the Netherlands. I'll be available for appointments at a location of your choosing, (i.e. work or home address) where I will visit you. This instead of receiving clients in a hotel, which I usually do, but in Holland (my country of origin) I have a fair number of appointments, so it's much easier to stay flexible and not be tied to a single location.

If you'd like to make an appointment, please send me an email at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , or call me on 0034 656 321 321, or in Holland on 0031 6111 111 61.

 For regular updates on future developments, please sign up to my newsletter .

Thank you.

How to shorten the foldline of a lapel&why.

I thought it would be nice to explain something about a dinner jacket I am making for a client in Belgium. I know, my business model changed and I'm not intending to travel so much anymore now that I live in Spain, but it is a very kind gentleman who placed the order, and it's hard for me to say no. So a dinner jacket for mr C. it is. Anyway it is good to go to Belgium and Holland from time to time. For one, my dear mother lives there, and besides, I still have business going on there from time to time. So on with the story:

What you see here, is the front part of the dinner jacket. The canvass has been padded and basted under the front of the cloth. The pink vertical line on the right indicates where the lapel will fold (in the top, near the collar it folds, and rolls as it moves down, to the right.)

Here I am pointing at the beginning and end of the fold, from the gorge, left, to the button point, right.

What we want to achieve with a canvass chestpiece such as I use, is to create a beautiful chest, with just the right amount of fullness. For that purpose, we take out darts (wedges) in some places, and shape the canvass with steam. Another trick is to ease in certain parts of the cloth, such as the lapel fold. For this, I use a piece of linen stay-tape. On the right, you see two pink lines. One is to mark where the tape ends up when it is simply placed along the fold. The second one, to the left of the first, is where I want the tape to end up. See next pic.

Here, I have pulled the stay-tape down, to the right, while holding it steady on the left. So basically the tape will end up being too short. Note how it is now the second pink line which matches the button point of the canvass.

Basting the stay tape in place, while carefully distributing the excess length in the canvass under the tape.

After basting, you can now clearly see that some extra length was created by pulling the tape. Note how the canvass shows 'waves' on both sides of the tape.

This excess length is shrunk away with the iron, so that the cloth and the canvass will end up nice and smooth.

This is why we use this trick: to create a beautifully rolling chest for jackets .

Hello all,

The last suit I made in Holland...

Well, I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that your favourite nutty ex-monk tailor is still there, going strong, and back at work. After the initial hurdles of moving, and the effort to setup my workroom in my new house, I've started cutting and sewing again. And in the light of that jollly bit of news, I'd like to mention that I'll be in the north next week, fitting and measuring customers.

Specifically, I'll be in Leuven on the 21st, and in Holland on the 22nd, flying back to Spain the 23rd. So if anyone would like to make an appointment, please contact me by email, at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , or call me on my Spanish mobile number: +34 656 321 321. While I'm up north, I'll also be reachable on my dutch mobile, +31 6111 111 61.

As I'll be very busy during the two days I have, I'll only be able to visit you at a location in the following areas: Brussels/Antwerp, The Hague/Rotterdam/Amsterdam. I realize this might be inconvenient, therefore I apologize. Since I have a few appointments at different locations, I shall not be receiving clients at a hotel, instead I will be more than happy to meet you at your office, home, or other suitable location.

Please let me know as soon as possible in case you are interested, since I have not much space left in my agenda. Thank you.

Next week I'll be in Holland and Belgium for two days visiting some clients. I don't have much time left, but if there is anyone interested, I can arrange a few more meetings. As it is a rather impromptu and busy trip, I'm afraid I won't be taking a hotel as usual. Instead, I will only be able to visit you at your office or home.

If you would like to schedule an appointment, please inform me as early as possible, as I have not much time left in my agenda.

You can choose to meet either june 3rd or 4th. Time of day is to be discussed, depending on your location. I apologize for the inconvenience, and I hope you'll understand.

If you'd like to be informed of my future travel plans, please sign up to my newsletter.

Thank you.

Goodness, when it rains, it pours, doesn't it? Just as I was about to execute my move to Spain I mentioned in the previous post, my webmaster effectively zapped me off the net. Bankrupt he went, shut down his shop, and without further ado, gone was martinstall.com. Horror! As you may well imagine, I had a few more things to worry about at the time. Packing, loading 20 cubic metres of machines, stock of fabric, furniture, personal belongings and what have you into a truck, finishing up my paperwork and driving the 2500 kilometres to our new house and our new life in Andalucia, Spain. To the amazingly wonderful town of Salobrena. I'd insert a link to some nice info about the town here, but the new webhost needs to tweak a few settings before everything works again, I guess.

Some of you might wonder why I've been so slack with this blog recently. Normally I would hide behind feeble excuses, but this time there is actually a reason why, and I will tell you.

It's again a story about Martin, not about suits, but it's relevant to my work, so here goes.

For a long time, my lovely fiancee Gosia, and I, have toyed with the idea of moving away from Holland. Worked on it, rather than toyed, actually.

The tailor's beauty...

Not that there is anything wrong with Holland, but after having lived in the rural Ardennes region of Belgium for five years back when I was still a monk, I no longer feel at home in a bustling metropolitan area. We want peace and quiet, if possible. So where would we want to go? At first, I thought that moving back to Belgium would be good, but as pretty as the landscape is, the climate there is far less than agreeable. Rather wet, mostly.

For several reasons, Southern Spain has moved up on our list. England was there for a while, but there is something about the quality of life in Spain that can't be beat. And for a non-english tailor, I do expect competition in England to be murderous. After all, it's a country where people tell you: "Ah, you're a tailor? My friend/brother/nephew/whatever is a tailor too." In Holland, the closest thing is people will tell you : "My grandfather was a tailor." Just to show how few tailors there are here, and how many in England.

But there are more reasons. Part of this has to do with personal matters, relating to my former life of dedicated spiritual practice. No, I'm not going back to being a monk. (would you, seeing the beauty in the picture above?). But I do wish to go back to a more humble way of living.

What I'd like to explain is that as a monk, I owned nothing, except for the hooded cloak I wore, and the bowl I ate from. For the rest, it was sworn poverty all around. If I needed new socks, I'd have to ask our bookkeeper for money. While living like this, as well as the obedience to the abbot and celibacy, have shaped me in ways I still frequently marvel at, I am happy that I now live a 'normal' life. (Define normal, Martin?) It's nice to have a modicum of worldly posessions. A car is useful. A good stereo is precious. That kind of thing.

But the career I had been aspiring to, that of the famous travelling tailor, being fashionable and a hot item, is a far cry from the original way in which I started my mature life. Nothing wrong with it, but I guess that it isn't really my schtick. For quite a while, I've longed for life-views with a more modest character.

Added to that is another aspect: I'm a terrible businessman, and a lousy marketer. Sure, I can write a nice bit of text, and my blog is being liked by many people, but if I want to have a blog, I should upkeep it, yes? We all know I not too good at that. Partly because I have a one-track mind: Once I get to working, I disappear in it, spend too many hours on a garment, forget about paperwork, blogging or editing photo's. Yes, I sell suits via this blog, but I wonder how many I would have sold if I had blogged as regularly as I should have in the last year. Say two or three times a week. Probably a lot more suits.

But I am an artist, not an entrepreneur. The suits are what matter, not the marketing, or the letterhead or whatever. For all the enjoyment my readers may glean from my writing, it is nothing compared to a suit. And that includes the making of the suit. So I've been running ahead of myself, trying to do it all: business plan, travel itineraries, marketing, tax returns, oh, and making suits.

So here's the deal:

As of may 10, I will be living in Salobrena, an ancient seaside town 40 minutes South of Granada, in the wonderful province of Andalucia, Spain.

The view from the bedroom.

It's not much of a view in this picture, but I don't have a wide-angle lense on my camera. In reality, the view is quite amazing. Can be seen from all rooms in the house, and there a three terrases. Nice! To the right you can see the sierras with snow on the peaks all year round (off-screen in the picture) As you can see on the map, the village is right by the sea, so in the morning you can go skiing, and in the afternoon one can have a swim in the ocean, and sit in the sun. Nice!

A view of the village.

Of course I will go on making suits. I have customers in London and in Holland, and I will continue to visit them a number of times a year. For the rest, I have decided to keep this outfit small. That means I am not making plans any longer to visit the U.S. Cities in Europe, such as Paris or Vienna, are an option. Brussels of course will always be on my list. But for the rest, I intend to keep things small-scale. The truth is that it is quite a rat-race in some ways, to work as a travelling tailor. I'm sure it's worth it, but what with my lack of professionalism in how to run a business, I have to admit that I have overstretched my reach somewhat. In recent months, I have a few times come dangerously close to compromising the quality that is the hallmark of bespoke clothing. And that is not something that is worth it to me. Like I said, I'm all about suits, and I have rather high standards when it comes to quality, which is why it's so hard to find tailors whose work I like enough to hand them jobs that I've cut. Quality is fixed. There can be no compromise.

So the compromise has to come from somewhere else. And that means scaling down the business. Honestly, I'd far rather make twenty suits a year that I really like and can be proud of, than to make a hundred that are actually not quite as good as I would like them, but "that is business, innit?" No it isn't. Not for me, anyway.

I guess there are people who would call me crazy, others might be jealous. It's up to you. I just had to decide something about my future, and this is it. Plus the reasons why.

Oh, here's a few shots of the way they celebrate easter there. During the entire week, there is a procession nearly every day, whereby a statue of Christ if carried on a different route everytime through the village. The whole village will come out to watch during these events which can last as long as six hours. And if you think it's a joke, let me tell you that this is serious religious observance. Not being catholic myself, I was nonetheless very impressed by the effort being made by everyone who partook in it, but even more so by the intense spiritual energy present at the time. Very, very beautiful to witness.

Something about the quality of life there...

The statue on the first night.

Everyone is there to see it.

Some of these guys take their religious practicevery seriously. Try carrying something like this through streets with slopes going up and down, stairways, and very narrow turns. For four hours minimum. Barefoot!

The guys carrying the bier.

And this is needed for the procession to exit and re-enter the church. The door, while quite high, isn't nearly high enough for the whole affair to pass through, so in order to start and to end the procession, the men who carry the statue, need to crawl in and out of the church on their hands and feet.

So, anyone interested in suits, please do continue to write and call. I will still make suits, I will still travel. Also if you have any questions regarding bespoke tailoring, please feel free to contact me. To keep informed of future developments, please subscribe to my newsletter .

Shoulder pads. The two in the forefront, with the white stitches on them, I made by hand. I use different materials depending on the effect I'm looking for. Often I combine layers from different ready-made types. Mostly I will use very thin ones. As you can see, I also pre-shape them, so that they will sit nicely over the shoulder.

There was an interesting discussion going on over at the LondonLounge.net yesterday. During it, someone asked me a question and I thought I'd share my reply with you here.

Dear Mr. Stall,

What adds tangible value to the suit?

I have had several discussions on this, the lapels seems to be a point of contention. Many are singing the vertues of a machine stitched for consistency and cleanliness, others preach nothing but hand. How do you stitch your lapels and why, what do you see as the short comings and advantages of either machine or hand.

The machine padded lapels I watched were performed on a $70,000 machine that surely very few small tailors own.
How do most tailoring shops handle lapels?

Your thoughts are most appreciated,

Thanks for your questions. I'll try to give my opinions as neutrally as I can: mind you, I don't intend to preach, my opinion isn't the law.

It's not easy to establish the value of handwork. As I said before, it depends on quality etc. In my shop, all lapels are handpadded. Because I like it that way. I like to have the feel of the cloth. I will treat different cloths very differently, and this is a matter of experience and personal preference. A very soft, thin cloth will have finer and more numerous stitches. A heavy tweed, or overcoat material would become stiff with that kind of padding. So there I might choose larger, looser stitches. But also the amount of roll that I put in while padding differs. This makes each piece unique. I think that is a factor which is strangely overlooked in general it seems, that really does add value, tangible value: Is something unique or mass-produced.

That lapel padding machine looks like one hell of a padder, for sure. But within certain variables, all lapels are treated in the same way, I guess. Not so with handwork. Sure, the disadvantage is that with some cloths, being very very thin, handpadding will leave tiny dots on the back of the lapel. A machine like that can be adjusted to avoid that.

How do most shops do it? I guess most fuse their lapels. Then there must be a bunch of tailors who use a padding machine, though not such a fancy one, obviously. I know tricks for machine padding on a regular blind hemmer (oops, should I be saying that here? Yeah, why not: I DON'T DO IT ANYWAY.) It's not bad, it might in some cases even turn out better than handpadded or than the oxxford machine does it. But one buys a handmade product, and pays the price for GOOD handwork. Therefore one should get that, and naught less.

In the end, it depends on the way the tailor defines quality as linked to beauty, and how he places value, e.g. price on that. The question for the client is: Do I want this artisan to make it personally, with his own three hands (which, by the way, I don't do with all my suits: I have really very skilled people who make some of my suits) or by his specially selected craftsmen, or do I want this to be made by a truly efficient and perfectionist setup of cutter, machine-worker, factory style?

Would you buy a high-end BMW or a handbuilt sportscar? You can bet the handbuilt one will have flaws, in the body and seats as well as in the engine. But it will have more character, personality. It will be a work of art. (Hm, guess I turned preaching after all-sorry ;-) Guess it's a form of professional deformation-ex monk and all that)

To end this epic, the point of cleanliness is a good one: Handwork is bound to be irregular. I'm not a machine, neither is my tailor, nor is any of the professionals on Savile Row or anywhere else in the world. Some people LIKE the irregularity. Some people LIKE unstructured suits. Some LIKE fluting in the sleeve, where others insist that it's bad tailoring.

So. What is the point? You are, as a customer. You decide what is quality IN YOUR EYES. You decide what you feel most comfortable with. You decide and select which tailor to use, or which MTM house. There is no definition of beauty, no definition of quality. Define either to me, I will break it down.

As I mentioned earlier, I was asked to come over to Paris not long ago. What I didn't mention is that it was an invitation from the esteemed mr Michael Alden, founder of the excellent website The London Lounge. Some of my readers may already know this site, but for those of you who don't: Have a look there, it is a wonderful place to learn about bespoke clothing, including shirts, shoes, overcoats, ties, anything basically that a gentleman would ever need is being dicussed. And don't worry about pop-ups and sales talk: it is really intended simply to inform, there is no commercial motive behind it. A must-read for the sartorially-minded.

But anyway, to get to the point of this: I will be visiting Paris next weekend, the 3rd and 4th of februari. It will be my first ever visit to Paris, so I'm very excited to finally come and see the place. Obviously I would love to meet new customers, but it is often the case that people want to first meet a tailor and get a feel for his work and his character.

Therefore, please be assured that I would be more than happy to meet with anyone who is interested in fine handmade bespoke clothing, regardles of whether you want a suit, or possibly may want a suit but not yet, or just want to meet and talk about suits. All is fine by me, I am always ready to meet people who like a Good Suit.

I'll be staying at the St. James & Albany, just opposite the Tuilerie gardens. If you want to meet up, please make an appointment in advance. I would hate to disappoint anyone by not being available, so please simply drop me an This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , or call me on my cell-phone: +31611111161. Thank you.

If you would like to meet, but are unable to make it this weekend, you can subscribe to my newsletter. That way you'll be informed of my next visit right away.

Messieurs, 

J'ai l'honneur de vous informer que j'ai reçu une invitation très cordiale de la part de mr. Michael Alden, qui, comme vous savez sans doute, est le créateur du site web "The London Lounge". 

Ce site (en anglais) permet aux "gentlemens" de communiquer des sujets concernant la haute couture, ainsi que des chaussures fait main. Il s'agit d'un site très intéressant, ou l'on peut trouver un véritable trésor d'informations concernant le style et la mode. Si le sujet vous intéresse, où si vous cherchez des artisans, où si vous vous posez des questions au sujet des vêtements élégants et de grande classe, je vous conseille vivement d'y aller jeter un coup d' oeuil. 

Cette invitation implique que je serais à Paris, le week-end du 3 au 4 février. 

Le but ultime de cette entreprise est de contacter des personnes qui seraient désireuses d' acheter un complêt.Je serai également heureux de rencontrer d'autres personnes ou artisans afin de faire plus ample connaissance, avant de se décider de faire un achat ,ou de passer une commande. 

Si vous voulez prendre rendez-vous, je vous prie de me contacter au numéro +316 111 111 61 ou par courriel This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  

Prendre rendez-vous n'implique aucune obligation. Malheureusement je ne puis pas encore vous communiquer à quel hôtel je descends, mais dès que je serais en possesion de l'info je vous la communique tout de suite. 

Pour souscrire à mon courriel périodique prière de me laisser votre adresse ici à droite. 

Merci, je espere de vous rencontrer le weekend prochain!

Someone asked in the comment section what type of needles I use. Here they are: Nr 9 needles, only kind I use, in general. I might use extra long needles for basting very thick cloth, but basically I can do anything from handpicking to basting to felling to padding with these sharps.

They look old, don't they? Well they are, probably went out of production in the 60's. But the funny thing is that they are better to work with by leagues, than the needles that are commonly sold nowadays. To be fair, they might have a little roughness on the point at first use sometimes, but that's nothing that an ultra fine wetstone can't fix.

It's like with my shears: something about the way things used to be made in the past, is just? gone from? our time.? I'm lucky, there is a shop here in Holland where I can still buy these old guys. Nah, I won't tell you where ;-)