November 27, 2004
tom mahon, bespoke english tailor
[UPDATE: Tom’s new website, ‘English Cut’ is here.]
A few weeks ago Seth Godin made a point which really struck a chord with me.
In just about all of my writing, I assume that the stuff you’re making is world class. In a world where everything is good enough, meeting that standard isn’t enough.
i.e. Be world-class or bugger off i.e. Seth throwing down the gauntlet in his usual, easy, effortless manner.
I think it’s a fair point. If you can’t be the best, why bother? Life is short. I ruffled a few feathers recently on a similar subject: “Seek out the exceptional minds.”
Of course, wanting to be the best and actually being the best are two completely different things. But still, at least if you try, that’s no bad thing.
I doubt I’ll ever be “the best” at what I do. That being said, what I do does allow me occasionally to get near people who REALLY ARE the best in the world at what they do. And it’s certainly one of the most rewarding things about my job.
Recently I’ve started working with a friend of mine, Tom Mahon. Tom is an old-fashioned Savile Row tailor. He is one of the top handful. There are probably less than half a dozen tailors with his credentials still left in England, and most of them are getting pretty old.
Not everybody wants to pay $5 – 6 thousand for a new suit. But there is a definite market for it, and they go to people like Tom. People like Prince Charles and Brian Ferry have worn suits cut by Tom. A pretty exclusive club.
To cut for Prince Charles Tom had to be first vetted by MI6, the British equivalent to the CIA. No messing around.
There aren’t a lot of first class traditional English tailors anymore. The barriers to entry are tremendous:
1. You have to be good at it. Really good.
2. You have to be willing to put up with the seven-year apprenticeship.
3. You have to be willing to fit into the very old-fashioned culture. You have be be willing to call people “Sir” a lot.
Tom’s in a good position. He’s got a very sought-after, specialised craft that not a lot people know much about. The market for what he does is very under-supplied, unlike the markets most of us lesser beings operate in.
Part of my plan is to help Tom with his website. His current one is dreadful. I’m recommending he start a blog.
I’ve commenced writing about working with him on gapingvoid, just to better show him what this whole blogging-Cluetrain-Hughtrain world I operate in is all about. We’ll see where this little experiment takes us.
So… anybody want to buy a suit?
[UPDATE: Tom’s new website, ‘English Cut’ is here.]
“The Best” is such a grossly subjective concept. Are you “The Best” when others think you are the best? Or is it when you think you are the best that you are “The Best”? Or when a marketing department says so?
Bestestnessness can certainly be manufactured. You don’t need to look any further than the music industry to realize that.
Bestestnessness can certainly be earned/paid for from the point of view of having credentials out the ass.
And bestestnessness is absolutely transient. The world wants nothing more than to discover the next best bestest thing if only to have something new to eventually tear down and replace.
Well Mark, you can Everything-is-subjective yourself to death, if you want
Of course, the better you are, the less likely you are to do that.
Two things:
1. I absolutely believe that the closer you are to a Platonic-ideal type of “best”, the less likely you’ll be to squawk about it. (Like Hugh said.) That whole “the more you know, the more you realize how little you know” kind of evolution. As opposed to hubris and/or puffery, which is pretty damned detectable, whether in a tailor, a carbonated beverage or a pundit, and a pretty fair sign that you are not the best. The Best doesn’t have to advertise the fact, although in this world, it still pays to advertise, period, so Hugh, you’ve really got to get Super Tailor on the better website/marketing materials track. Lordy, what a disconnect that site is…)
2. Since I have known what good tailoring was (thank you, Les) I have said that the first thing I will do when I am really rich is have my clothes made for me. All of them, if possible (okay, Hanro skivvies are more than sufficient and I’m sure my personal stylist, Scarlet, could find me good jeans and t-shirts) but specifically, a cut-till-it-bleeds, navy-blue gab suit and a smokin’-hot seersucker jobbie for summer. With PANTS, not a frickin’ skirt, please. (And yes, I believe a really great tailor could make seersucker look smokin’-hot. Even on me.)
I’m being less rhetorical and cynical than that. No kidding. I’d really like to know.
Is there something specific someone does or has done on their behalf that elevates them on the bestestnessness ladder? Or should you just do what ever it is you do, follow your instincts and be thankful if bestestnessness comes your way?
Was Tom being strategic when he invested the time in becoming a Savile Row tailor? Or was he “Fuck it. This is what I’d like to do. Come what may.”? Bully for him that it worked out.
And to expand on your statement about working or being near people who REALLY ARE the best, I’d say that the more that happens the more likely it is that you are entering their milieu. If nothing else at least you discover they aren’t gods or anything, just amazing, dedicated, practiced and intensely self-aware.
Love tyhe blog, but this postings a pretty wild stab.
As Daniel Boorstin once poitned out — Americans confuse popularity with universality. Hence the confusion over Hollywood hockum! The number one thing listing or bestedness is only measurable by sales or scarcity. It’s not necessarily relevant to people, as buyers or even as profesionals.
People look for resonance in their life, which takes form in many things, including service, reliability, environment, or calling. If youre going to gravitate to the best, why not the best crack dealer in town, the best whorehouse, the best crooked politician. What we need to do has little to do with a #1 listing on the popluarity or scarcity index. Of course, being the WalMart or the Coke or the Saville Row Sam of your field may be the Holy Grail of some marketing money men. All power to them.
Well, to say “Tom is the best tailor in the world” would sound pretty stupid.
But to say “Of the English Savile Row tailors, Tom is among the best” would be perfectly reasonable.
Tom has the credentials to back that up, which doubtless I’ll be blogging about further down the line.
It seems to me that a blog is pretty inappropriate as a website for a tailor. Perhaps it’s appropriate to use a blog engine to maintain his website, which will make it easier for him to maintain the content, but I fail to see why a tailor would want to keep an online diary as the online face of his business.
I disagree, Stewart. A blog is only as good as the person writing it.
Still, if I prove you wrong, I’ll sell a lot of suits. Not a bad challenge, methinks
I guess what I’m afraid of is that we’re talking about a small niche market. Lots of people online like to talk about computers, gadgets, movies, and all kinds of things. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t imagine that too many people have much to say about suits (as nice as they are, and as much as I’d like to be able to afford one).
If Tom starts a blog, and there’s no conversation, that’s going to look kinda silly. Wouldn’t that be detrimental to business?
The trick is not to turn blog readers into bespoke tailor customers, but to turn bespoke tailor customers into blog readers, if that makes any sense.
And not all “the conversation” has to be online. But a blog ois a good place to manage the information.
The blog is not the important bit, Stewart. The conversation is the important bit.
The idea is not to turn blog readers into customers. The idea is to turn customers into blog readers.
If the conversation isn’t online, where is it? On the telephone?
What I’m getting at is that I don’t believe the idea scales very well. Lots of people talk about cars and computers, and lots of them do it online, so it’s easy to control the conversation with a blog.
I don’t hear that many people talking about suits, especially online, and I’m don’t believe that starting a blog about suits will change that.
Buying an expensive suit for me is like buying an entertainment system from Bang & Olufsen. I can get something that functions just as well much cheaper from their competitor, but I would buy a B&O system at twice (or three times) the price because they’re so beautiful, and it advertises to my status-conscious friends that I have money and taste. I get one precisely because they’re a rare luxury item.
Better yet, it works as a litmus test on people I meet. Some people will say, “ooooh, nice stereo/suit,” because it’s a nice suit, but the truly educated friends will say, “oooh, nice Tom Mahon suit/B&O stereo” because they’re educated about things we both value.
I want to feel like I’m in a small elite club of people who understand that value and importance of this item. I feel that if I can see every man and his dog having a conversation about it then it has been devalued.
well, this may or may not be a case in point, but taking it on your advisement, hugh, i shall pay your mr. mahon a visit as soon as i have my pennies saved up. and here i was thinking i’d be able to find what i really wanted in union square SF…
does he know any good cobblers?