Visit to London
Next week, thursday 18th of october, I will be in London for appointments. My colleaugue and friend Jonathan Quearney has, very kindly, agreed to let me use his shop to receive customers.
The address is:
7 Windmill Street
Fitzrovia
London W1T 2HY
I will be available all day on thursday 18th, and until 13 pm on friday.
For any enquiries or for making an appointment, please call me on 0034 656 321 321, or write me an email at martinstall@gmail.com.
For updates about my work and my travel plans, please subscribe to my newsletter, or click the RSS button in the menu on the right. Thank you.
Taking care of business: The Netherlands & London
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 martinstall@gmail.com or call me on either my spanish mobile: +34 656 321 321 or my dutch mobile: +31 6111 111 61. (no longer in use)
Thank you.
What is a suit? What is art?
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 .
Apologies, spamming scheme got the better of me
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 subscribers to my newsletter get regular messages from me.
Thanks,
Martin
New prices
A small change of sorts happened, having to with my prices. Please click here for more information. Thank you.
Dinner Jacket
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.
Lapel Fold
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 .
Next visit to Holland and Belgium
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 martinstall@gmail.com, 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.
Belgium and Holland in two days
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 martinstall@gmail.com, 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.
Visiting The Netherlands and Belgium next week
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.
