Hi, I'm Kirby Allison! I'm here in London at the world championship of shoemaking
and I'm excited to have Gary Tok with me author of master shoemakers a bespoke
kind of sore and someone that really has a very methodically gun through the
bespoke process not just in shoemaking but also with his own personal tailors
and you know one of the things I really like about Gary is he has a you know
kind of a very you know well-developed philosophy on kind of how one should
approach bespoke so you've got some things as you call kind of your rules of
the spoke that I think everyone would enjoy hearing so now would you mind
sharing those with us sure Corey thank you very much so I kind
of think that when you're working with bespoke tailors it's a very personal
relationship so one of the biggest things that is important around building
that relationship is that the bespoke maker must like you because they are
ultimately spending a lot of time on your garment so building that
relationship is very important so it's one of those primary rules I have so to
speak is that you kind of want to build a strong working relationship with those
individuals and in that it also means that being patient and it also means
being open in discussing what the tailor can do all of this book maker can do but
more importantly what they can't do and not forcing anything that was an example
of that example would be understanding their house cut more style you know for
example certain tailors like Anderson Shepherd cuts a suit completely
differently from say a more structured approach of huntsman so understanding
which aesthetic pleases you all and what you want out of Garmin will help direct
you to the right tailoring house for that aesthetic so that's one of the
first rules and that means understanding your bought your personal body shape
what you're going to use the garment for and what would you intend to you know
wear it with and things like that that's something very important you know one of
the most fulfilling parts of the bespoke process for me personally is the
relationship right I mean it's what gives meaning to the garments we wear as
the fact that we had a real person make it for us we know and that you know it
takes an interest in us and we know about their family and you know that's
what makes you know bespoke garment totally different than something that
you buy off the rack is that there's always a story and a memory that is that
a company is something someone had made for themselves exactly and that that to
me is makes it makes every government special the second approach is to
actually allow the the first garment to be made by the tailor with minimal input
kind of an interesting rule I have is that whether it shoes the first shoe or
the first garment is typically a navy or black or brown solid color with with
very little embellishment because we want to get the cut and the pattern
right so I tend to have my first order as a navy blue suit or a navy blue
sports jacket or a pair of brown or black shoes either cap toe Oxford or
whole cut-offs but it's very very simple nothing embellishing I have a ridiculous
number of Navy and I never have too many yeah Navy jackets and suits in different
rates of cloth and and things like that but ultimately that's what I go for for
the very first garment yeah and then after that you were sharing it dinner
last night then move on to a pattern yes and what's
the idea there so once we get the solids right and they've got the patterns right
then when we move onto the patterns that helps with minimizing miss any potential
mistakes with pattern matching or some of the more specific details that come
from challenges that come from making with patterns now most any good tailor
will be able to do pattern matching but there's always certain challenges so
those are the things that I tend to try to avoid I don't want to be disappointed
I'm sure the the spoke tailor or artisan wouldn't want to be disappointed and
that's the same reason why I tend to Commission a first shoe without a
medallion because as you go through the fitting process of the last with a shoe
and if they it depends on how they make the process but some shoe makers may end
up skewing the medallion do to change the correct complete sense the third
little rule I have for myself and that's just to keep me in check is something I
call just because you can doesn't mean you should
and that's being much more reserved in the way I invest in my wardrobe
ultimately I have to be quite careful and how many pieces I commissioned I
don't have an infinite budget and therefore I have to pick the right ones
that that suit me and therefore I think the it creates a lot more structure
around what I'm building within my wardrobe so an example of that would be
you know being careful not to get drawn towards kind of the extravagant and
interesting because I definitely whenever you see a model you know what
catches your eye is always you know something that's highly unusual you know
and just because it catches your eye and it's it's beautiful doesn't mean that
it's pragmatic right because you're not gonna wear it very often correct I mean
the question is well what how are you wearing the garment if you're if you
work in an environment or you're exposed to environment where
being very danda shhhhhh very costumey works for you then that's fine go crazy
but for me I don't see the need to to take it that fast and it reflects on my
general aesthetic I tend not to go for two bright colors
although recently I've commissioned a couple of more colorful pieces but then
they're primarily sports coats for for casual wear one of the other interesting
things I thought you were describing last night was how you know your your
primarily based in Hong Kong right and how you know you don't have very many
English tailors for a particular reason talk a little bit about that because I
think it's another thing that you know also goes into selecting the right
Taylor is you spoke about how you're gonna wear it right I thought that this
was kind of a really insightful example of exactly what that means so a lot of
our tailoring is about how you wear a particular garment it's around
practicality I think it's it's important to be practical and the practicality is
that I enjoy wearing tailored suits but Hong Kong and English tailoring or at
least Hong Kong tailoring as a tradition in English tailoring I found that the
English heritage of of tailoring is designed for a northern hemisphere
whether London whether London Wyndham heavy head called exactly heavy clients
yes exactly and that doesn't lend well to Hong Kong where you know about forty
to fifty percent of the time it's relatively humid and hot tropical it's
tropical right so therefore the the London construction or the English
construction styles don't particularly lend well to that I realized very
quickly through the exploration of Italian tailoring that the Neapolitan
tailoring style lens better to that weather primarily because about the same
latitude with each other and the weather is similar and the Italian or the
Neapolitan tailors have have really adopted that tailoring to the soft start
the soft tailoring and that that style suits the
whether particularly well yeah that's great you know you know living in Texas
I mean a lot of my suits are certainly not very heavy and weight because
otherwise you know where I lived the majority of the year you know they
wouldn't be practical to wear you know something like this stroller you know I
would never have very rarely wear in Texas but you know I almost have a
separate wardrobe for London because again the weather is so different here
that that's very important I mean the other thing too is heavier cloth are
obviously much more forgiving in the make well it's lighter cloth can
sometimes be more challenging and having said that I tend not to to gravitate to
towards anything more than super 120-130 my view is that anything lighter than
super 120-130 tends to be to tissue paper II very to light and flimsy and
it's actually not particularly breathable and therefore it actually
defeats the purpose of wearing something light but highly highly woven with the
lack of breathability for that kind of weather yeah you know this is one of the
contradictions of luxury you know all these really you know high luxury
fabrics super 180 is super 220s you know although incredibly expensive because of
the you know the time and kind of be the technical innovation that has to happen
in order to allow to be woven in many cases produce a far inferior garment in
terms of how it wears out drapes and so one of the things I personally kind of
experienced myself is that you know I love white shirts well you know you can
buy white shirting and probably more weights and weaves and any other single
fabric and you know I find myself although I
started out with like the really luxurious fine ones because I thought oh
that's what I want a really luxurious soft white shirt when you wear it it
wrinkles easily it wears out faster and so now I think it's Charvet I have my
shirts made out of one of the heaviest cotton shirt ings because it's what
looks crisp it was what holds a press and it's what actually last longer yeah
that's actually a very good observation I mean ultimately for those embarking on
bespoke again that that's a really good example of just because you can doesn't
mean you should yeah so that's a great example that curvy because we all can
Commission something from very fine very highly luxurious material but I would
see that as occasional pieces it's not something you don't wear every day you
you are always in a suit you always immaculately dressed and therefore
you're you're shooting is the core of your wardrobe and therefore it has to be
robust and I also think that it's nice to have some practicality around your
wardrobe so part of that is making sure that the right fabric matches the right
type of aesthetic you're creating yeah great well thank you so much Gary if
people want to learn more about Master shoemakers and follow you on Instagram
how can they find you you can find us on at master underscore shoemaker for
instagram for the book and you can follow me personally at gazmin 70k yeah
great hey Gary it's always a pleasure to see you thank you it's been a it's been
a lot of fun hanging out with you and you know thanks for all your
contribution to you know kind of menswear and just this
industry thank you yeah Cheers