Bespoke tailoring

Clothing

Meaning of the term

The word bespoke derives from the verb bespeak, to speak for something, in the specialised meaning of "to give order for it to be made." Fashion terminology reserves bespoke for individually patterned and crafted men's clothing, analogous to women's haute couture, as opposed to mass-manufactured ready-to-wear (off-the-peg or off-the-rack). The term originated on Savile Row, a street in London considered the "Golden Mile of tailoring".

Bespoke clothing is traditionally cut from a pattern drafted from scratch for the customer, and so differs from ready-to-wear, which is factory made in finished condition and standardized sizes; and differs from made to measure, which is produced to order from an adjusted block pattern. The opposition of terms did not initially imply that a bespoke garment was necessarily well built, but since the development of ready-to-wear in the beginning of the twentieth century, bespoke clothing is now more expensive and is generally accompanied by a high quality of construction.In an article published in Textile History (Volume 34, Number 2, November 2003, pp. 192–213. Ready-to-wear or Made-to-measure? Consumer Choice in the British Menswear Trade) Laura Ugolini concluded that "interested and well-informed male consumers generally preferred to buy bespoke suits: while usually more expensive than their ready-made counterparts, these were also perceived to be better quality, better looking, and better value, and therefore most likely to enhance the wearer's sense of self-worth as a manly, discerning and successful consumer".

While the bespoke distinction conferred by haute couture is protected by law in France,A certain number of formal criteria, including the design for private customers with one or more fittings, must be met for a fashion house to use the label and a list of eligible houses is made official every year by the French Ministry of Industry. the British Advertising Standards Authority has ruled it is a fair practice to use the term "bespoke" for products that do not fully incorporate traditional construction methods. The Savile Row Bespoke Association, a trade group of traditional tailors, disagrees,The tailor Richard Anderson wrote an article in the Telegraph to argue that "the ASA has got the ruling wrong" ({{cite web

Overview

To order a bespoke garment, first the customer does a consultation with a tailor. This is when fabrics, linings, and styling details are chosen. Then the tailor measures the client, in order to draft a pattern from scratch based on the individual measurements. The fabric and lining are chalked out, cut with shears, which allows the him to bastes the garment together for a fitting. During the fitting, fixes some details. After this the tailor finishes the garment and gives it to the customer. The typical time frame for a bespoke garment is 2–3 months, and there are usually 2-3 fittings done.

Compared to made-to-measure

A grey area has existed between the extremes of bespoke and ready-to-wear since the end of the 19th centuryIn 1895, the Leeds Factory Clothing Co. veered between calling itself "manufacturing clothiers" and "bespoke tailors" (cf. {{cite book

In addition, new technologies have allowed for bespoke garments to be made with lean manufacturing practices and digital patterning, making new patterns within minutes and fully bespoke garments in hours, at a price point similar to made to measure or even mass production.

Advertising Standards Authority ruling

In June 2008, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a British advertising regulator, ruled that an advertisement describing a suit "put into a 'working-frame' where it would be cut and sewn by machine"{{cite web |url-status=dead as a "bespoke suit uniquely made according to your personal measurements & specification" was not breaching the Authority's self-proclaimed advertising codes,{{cite web |url-status=dead |url-status=dead

The ruling cited the Oxford English Dictionary definition of bespoke as "made to order," and considered that despite the fact a bespoke suit was "...fully hand-made and the pattern cut from scratch, with an intermediary baste stage which involved a first fitting so that adjustments could be made to a half-made suit," while a suit made-to-measure "...would be cut, usually by machine, from an existing pattern, and adjusted according to the customer's measurements," "both fully bespoke and made-to-measure suits were "made to order" in that they were made to the customer's precise measurements and specifications, unlike off-the-peg suits."

Some, such as the etymologist Michael Quinion, feel the ruling showed that "the historic term of art had moved on." Some others concluded that "bespoke tailoring has traditionally, if unofficially, meant something more than the dictionary definition allows" and that the ASA "took a rather ignorant decision to declare that there is no difference between bespoke and made-to-measure."{{cite web |url-status=dead

Notes

References

References

1. Bailey, Nathan (1756). ''An Universal Etymological English Dictionary''. R. Ware.
2. ''Art of Textile Designing''. Global Media. {{ISBN. 81-89940-03-1
3. Norton, Kate. (31 October 2006). "Savile Row Never Goes Out of Style". Bloomberg Businessweek.
4. Ugolini, Laura (2003). ''Men and Menswear: Sartorial Consumption in Britain 1880–1939'', p. 181. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. {{ISBN. 0-7546-0384-9
5. Cockroft, Lucy. (2008-06-19). "Savile Row tailors lose fight to preserve the term bespoke". The Telegraph.
6. Sim, Josh. (2008-07-12). "The b-word: not cut and dried". [[Financial Times]].
7. Benson, John (2003). ''A Nation of Shopkeepers: Five Centuries of British Retailing'', p.102. I.B.Tauris. {{ISBN. 1-86064-708-1
8. "Made to Measure vs Bespoke vs Off the Rack". sharpsense.ca.
9. Quinion, Michael. (2008-09-13). "Bespoke". World Wide Words.