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.
Finally, back online!
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.
Anyway, one of the things that went wrong during the move was that the truck driver refused to drive up to the house, saying he couldn’t make the final turn. And just as I was getting a bit nervous, he simply started his engine and began to drive down the hilll away from my new home. You can probably imagine that I got to be quite nervous. And then -yes I’m very very blessed, and extraordinarily lucky- a miracle happened.
The thing is that people here are quite amazing in how friendly and kind they are. The locals, as well as the foreigners who live here, wether they be from England, Scandinavia, Northern Europe or wherever. So this Belgian guy who owns a bar I had met, had arranged for me to have help from two local teenagers to unload the truck. Now that the truck was down in the village, two pairs of extra hands would hardly be enough to get everything loaded into a van and unloaded into the house. So this Belgian instantly arranged three more guys. Right, so got that problem sorted. Oh, but wait: I didn’t have a van yet!
So in a state very near despair, I called upon another very kind person, the English lady who had arranged the house for us. And lo and behold, she had a friend with a van, who actually is known as: “man with a van”. So she called him up, and asked if he was up for a job. By this time, it was nine pm, which is the end of the working day in Spain. The man was just unlocking his front door when the phone began to ring. And yes, of course, he wouldn’t mind working a bit more. He showed up within half an hour, and together we began to unload. In a dusty parking lot, somewhere on the outskirts of town. Now the driver of the truck had been waiting for two hours, and was in a hurry. So within half an hour, all that I own in thiis world was stacked out in the open air. I asked a friend to keep watch while my six helpers and I began making runs up the hill with the van. And in four hours, I was home. With my shop, my books, clothes and computers, the lot. Boy did I ever enjoy my glass of rioja wine after that!
I learned afterwards that this type of thing is known to happen here quite regularly when people move into the old part of town. It’s a maze of small winding streets going steeply uphill with ridiculously sharp turns. I’m still convinced that the driver could have made that turn, but he looked 19 years of age, and drove as if it was his first run in his new job. I don’t blame him for not wanted to rip the sides of his bosses truck.
Ah well, we learn by experience, don’t we? And in the end all ended up well, just lost a bit more sweat (and money) than foreseen.
Anyway, I must keep in mind that this blog is about the suits, not the guy who makes them, so I’ll keep the charming anecdotes for when we will meet, agreed? And there are plenty. Looking forward to tell them to you.
And sorry, ever so sorry for going offline. I hope it will never happen again.
New plans, houses, clients…
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 Read more
The value of handwork
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,
Here is my reply:
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 Read more
Visit to Paris next weekend
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 email, 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.
Martin à Paris!
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 martinstall@gmail.com.
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!
Tools: needles
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 
Tools: Edge press and banger
One of the tools that I really like to use is what we call a ‘Kantenpers’ in Dutch. I don’t actually know the english term for it, but it translates as: Edge-press. Here’s a pic:
As you can see, it is similar in shape to the front of a coat. This means that it makes it very easy to press open the seam along the front. It just wouldn’t be possible flat on the table, without deforming the cloth.
This is how it works:
Here you see the forepart of a coat draped over the edge-press. As you can see, the edge is lying smooth and natural, just in the same shape of the finished front. You can even see the ‘belly’ on the lapel. The lapel is where the purple cloth is hand-picked to the canvass.
Another tool that tailors frequently use, is what I call a breadboard, because of its shape:?
UPDATE: Just saw on the savilerow website that it’s actually called a banger. Never too old to learn.?
A simple smooth board of wood. Absolutely indispensible. It is used to gently flatten and dry the cloth after applying steam and heat. Like this, for instance:
Leaves the cloth perfectly flat and smooth. Lovely.
Actually, the most use I get out of the breadboard banger is occasionally whacking a disobedient apprentice.
How to make a bespoke coat. Part 2
After drafting the pattern it is placed on the cloth. We have to make sure that the cloth is used as efficiently as possible so as not to waste any of it with a “bad lay”.
There are some inlays which we use. Some of these are for the purpose of corrections during the fitting. These will be cut off after the fitting has been completed. Others will stay in the coat forever, and will allow for alterations at a later date. Some people put on weight over the years, and one of the nice things about bespoke clothing is that it can not only be made smaller, but also bigger!? I would say that this is a major advantage over Made-To-Measure, although it is a subject that we usually discreetly avoid talking too much about.
