Bespoken For

This autumn is all about the slick playboy look. Very louche, with detailing that screams 'lux lothario'. But no-one has told Ralph Anania. He may be the best tailor in the world - he just doesn't look it. At least, not in that jacket. Anania made a suit for Sinatra, a vicuna topcoat for Ronald Reagan, and a cashmere overcoat for Marlon Brando. The one he wore in The Last Tango In Paris. Which is why I've asked him to make my wedding suit. "Maybe I'm the best tailor in the world" says Anania. "Maybe I'm second best. But they know me everywhere I go."

Not strictly everywhere. But certainly within the International Association of Clothing Designers and Executives. Today, Anania is wearing his IACDE lapel pin with pride. Even if it does get lost against the red, grey and black of that sports jacket. Anania is the master tailor at D'Avenza, and one of the most celebrated makers of bespoke clothing in the world. He has won a Caesar (the Oscar of the tailoring world) for the IACDE 'designer of the year' three times in a row. It's just his jacket that bothers me. A wedding suit in those colours would be grounds for annulment.

Anania started tailoring at six. After school, he would travel across Calabria to keep the master tailor's iron warm. He would bind his middle finger so he learnt to stitch properly. "And by the age of 11, I knew how to make a pair of pants". By the age of 13 he had moved to Rome. By the age of 15 he had moved to New York, where he met the Ackermans - the first family of tailoring - who hired him to launch d'Avenza. That was back in 1957, and Anania has now retired. Although there are few countries where working a 10-hour-day counts as 'retired'.

I expected to find D'Avenza down the backstreets of Naples. But the premises are in semi-industrial Pisa - between a farming co-operative and a treatment plant for white marble. An air-raid siren denotes the beginning of the D'Avenza day - appropriate for a factory that once made military uniforms. And where the premises are still painted Air Force grey. Anania's tailors look like hair models from the walls of an old-fashioned barber's. And they're wearing Pucci-print shirts that haven't fitted for ten years. It's a look that Anania wears with style.

He looks me up and down, and says I have a difficult body to dress. As if I don't know. A Johnson boy comes of age when he wears his belt under - rather than over - his paunch. I remember the day when I was presented with my own pair of Big Boy stretch jeans. I've lost weight since then, but my love handles won't go. So I was delighted to learn from a friend with science O Levels that they are actually 'external obliques'. ie muscles. I kidded myself I just had more highly developed muscles than most. But I was fooling no-one.

It was my grandfather who first told me that a bespoke suit could help a "distinctive body type". A tall man could have sleeves of the right length. A fat man could have a jacket with buttons that didn't pop off. So (being tallish and fattish) I decided to save up. And, after seeing The Last Tango in Paris, I decided to save up for D'Avenza. Which would take a little longer. In fact, it took four years. Four years of irritation at the factory feel of clothes that were computer-measured, laser-cut and machine-sewn. Finally, I was ready.

The Japanese word for suit is 'sebiro' - a simple transliteration of 'Savile Row'. But tailoring didn't begin in London. It began in 13^th-century France, when the tunic was replaced by the more-complicated court coat. It was only when Napoleon III appointed Henry Poole as his tailor that Savile Row became the spiritual home of the suit. At that time, there were more variations in men's style than in women's style. But fashions change. As do the people that make them. And so the formality of English tailoring fell from favour.

"Italian tailors started by copying the English" says Nicoletta Ferrari, managing editor of L'Uomo Vogue for 15 years and now the director of fashion magazine MFF. "But then they attempted to retain the rudiments of tailoring, with a softer attitude. They made the shoulders with fabric, not with padding." The 50s were momentous for Italian tailoring, with the advent of D'Avenza, Brioni and Kiton. Italy boasted more tailors than France and Britain combined, and world couture standards, which had previously been set in London and Paris, were challenged by Rome and Naples.

"The work at D'Avenza is among the best in the world" says Ferrari. "It's worth getting a D'Avenza suit just for the fit. The standard measure is too imprecise for an elegant man. Especially around the shoulder. Besides, you get better fabric on made-to-measure. But it's not just the work that counts. It's image. And for the last three or four seasons D'Avenza have been trying to change its image. They need more contemporary ideas. Two buttons? Three buttons? The width of the shoulder? The tiniest detail can make a suit look achingly contemporary.

The machinists at D'Avenza wear tabards of gingham. Not achingly contemporary. They each work on a specific element of the suit - whether it's the legs or the shoulders - and sit behind Heath-Robinson sewing machines, shaped like distended body parts. It's the industrial approach to bespoke tailoring, and better than having one tailor who makes the entire suit. "We have one girl who just does button-holes" says Anania. "From morning to night. She does nothing else. So she does button-holes better than anyone else. Who could match that expertise?"

Anania's glasses are on a string, but they never leave the bridge of his nose - life is full of details that need checking. He has a pair of scissors on his keyring to pick at jackets, because loose threads annoy him more than a bad spaghetti sauce. He can't walk round the factory without being distracted. This morning Pablo wants to discuss collar detailing. They hug, and touch each other's stomachs while they talk stitching. It's only the young tailors who are uncomfortable with Anania's intimacy - like some inappropriate uncle who still kisses you on the lips.

Anania leads me to the warehouse. We need to choose my fabric - the critical determinant of a suit's quality. The warehouse isn't No Smoking - in fact, it's Smoking, but the controlled environment (with ashtrays) gets fumigated every three months. Moths would not be good for business. In the cavernous room, it's easy to pick out the English cloths from the Italian cloths. English mills produce cloth with a matte-finish, while the Italian mills produce a shinier cloth. I don't want to get married looking like a nightclub entertainer, so I plump for English.

There is a ferociously expensive merino wool less than 14 microns in diameter. That means it's spun from threads so fine that they are hard to grasp. But the "hand", or feel of the fabric, is superb. And there's a wool inlaid with gold thread - a dramatic alternative to your basic yellow pinstripe. But they're not really me. Nor is the wool inlaid with diamond chips. Gieves and Hawkes are allegedly in talks with de Beers about the first £1million suit. Never mind the quality, feel the width. And how wide would that be - a suit made of real diamonds?

My blue wool and cashmere blend, with a royal blue Prince of Wales check, is less flashy. "Fantastic suit" says Jonathan Clay, D'Avenza's marketing director. He can already visualise the finished product. "A classic wedding suit - not too sporty. A plain blue doesn't say very much. Bit too much like the suit you've got on." It's the first time my suit has actually been mentioned. But not the last. I bought it in a two-for-one sale in New York, but I keep quiet about that. I just point at the DKNY label. Unfortunately, at D'Avenza they aren't impressed by labels.

All my friends who shop for 'quality' rush to high-end boutiques and pay for a brand name. It doesn't make sense. Boss and Cerrutti come up with the modern designs, but it's madness when you can buy tailor-made copies for the same price. "Your DKNY is fine for a factory suit," sniffs Clay. "Probably made inside an hour. But you've paid £1,000 for a designer label, and you've only got £300 worth of suit. You could have bought a Chester Barry for £1,000. They make for Ralph Lauren, who charge £1,700 for the same suit. With designer labels, you pay for the marketing. What a waste."

I thought the Italians were polite. It was, after all, a 16th-century Italian who wrote the first book on manners. They contrive to flatter. So the dentists admire your teeth, and the tailors admire your figure. At least that's what I had read. The tailors of D'Avenza, however, eyed me with contempt. Before I had finished asking what the problem was, Marco della Lucca, the head presser, was offering his advice. "Here is too high" he said, pulling at the front of my jacket. "Here is too low" he said, pulling at the back. "The breast pocket is the size of - how you say - a stamp. Ha!"

Della Lucca pulls out his tape measure, and starts to ask a lot of questions. "Flaps on the pockets? More classic. Pleats on the trouser? Turn-ups? Maybe two side vents in the jacket? It is a wedding, after all sir." Vents will certainly make my movements easier on the big day. I'll be up and down, making toasts and doing the birdy dance. Della Lucca does not, however, ask which way I hang. Apparently it's only necessary if you're being fitted for trousers with a very narrow leg. Or sir is an unusually well-developed gentleman.

My wool and cashmere blend is laid out on a 70ft tressle table lit by nine neon strip lights. Guido Cosare is marking out the constituent parts of the suit with a small piece of chalk - heavier cloth is marked with wax. Cosare takes into account my physical imperfections. And makes sure the complicated Prince of Wales check will match on each side of the seam when the suit is made. "Doing this job does effect the way you see the world" he says. "Like when I see a new house. If it's not absolutely symmetrical, I notice." He is also good at packing a suitcase. And parking a car.

"I can tell your life story, just by looking at that cloth" says Clay. "You've got a low right shoulder, so you're right-handed. Correct? From the shoulders I would say you played a lot of sport - rugby, from your thigh measurements. But I don't think you've ever broken anything. You are under 50, because you don't stoop. And you're over 30, because you haven't chosen an electric blue lining. If you had ordered a jacket on its own, you would be retired. And if you were ordering lightweights in winter, you would own a house in Barbados. How did I do?"

Mirco Andrei is standing over my fabric with his foot-long cutting shears. He has been cutting cloth for 11 years now - long enough to develop callouses at the base of his thumb. He cuts with artistry. So he knows that linen, silk and cotton are subject to shrinkage when they get pressed. Which is at every stage of the suit-making process. So he allows eighth-of-an-inch more. Cashmere gives with wear, so he allows an eighth-of-an-inch less. They still measure in inches at D'Avenza. It's a relic from the days of the English tailoring Empire.

The loudest noise on the floor is the automatic cutter preparing my jacket's lining and interlining. The lining is made from canvas which has already been wet and dried to finish any shrinkage. It is the bones of a jacket. The interlining is made from the tail hair of the male horse - the urine of the female makes it an inferior quality. The layers are then stitched into the suit by hand. Not stuck in, or 'fused' with glue. So I can let out every seam by half-an-inch if I put on any weight before the wedding. A half-an-inch in every seam is a lot of weight to do before December.

In Victorian times, a bespoke suit required 12 fittings. Today, it requires only two. But I'm surprised by what I see. At the first fitting, the jacket doesn't have any sleeves. And it's covered in thread - or basting stitches. Anania tells me off for standing still in front of the mirror. "Move around and see that the jacket remains smooth over the shoulders and the neck" he says. So I do the mashed potato. My father once told me that clothes don't maketh the man, they merely reassure him. But I don't feel reassured by this suit. The jacket doesn't even have any buttons.

D'Avenza is the one place you could be paid buttons - wild Indian buffalo horn buttons - and be happy about it. They cost an absolute fortune. The buttons of buffalo horn (deer horn is too weak, and less delicately patterned) are attached by a thick shank of Chinese silk, spun in Italy. They are designed to last the life of the garment. The buttons on the cuff of the jacket actually undo. It's a little touch that once allowed doctors to attend to patients without having to take their jackets off. I don't intend to seek out a career in medicine, but it's a detail I like.

I don't see my suit for another eight weeks. The final fitting is back in London, and as I slip on the finished jacket, I think to myself "Welcome to the family". I have entered a different world. A world of bespoke socks. A world where ties come in five different lengths to accommodate the wearer's height. And it's a little odd. Because it's not a factory suit, it seems irregular. It doesn't have the crispness of a commercial suit. And, to my uninitiated eye, it looks imperfect. But that, really, is the sign of the greatest workmanship. No two bespoke suits fit exactly alike.

Having a suit that fits - really fits - is wonderful. And whenever I don it, it will send my posture a couple of rungs up the evolutionary ladder. My life is no longer trainers and dress down Fridays. I now realise that dressing up is actually easier than dressing down. It requires less thought. Even John Cheever prepared for a day alone at his typewriter, in his backyard studio, by putting on a jacket and tie. So, when I have my picture taken at my wedding in December, I'll feel like I'm the best I can be. That's a feeling I've never had before.



		Bespoken For This autumn is all about the slick playboy look. Very louche, with detailing that screams 'lux lothario'. But no-one has told Ralph Anania. He may be the best tailor in the world - he just doesn't look it. At least, not in that jacket. Anania made a suit for Sinatra, a vicuna topcoat for Ronald Reagan, and a cashmere overcoat for Marlon Brando. The one he wore in The Last Tango In Paris. Which is why I've asked him to make my wedding suit. "Maybe I'm the best tailor in the world" says Anania. "Maybe I'm second best. But they know me everywhere I go." Not strictly everywhere. But certainly within the International Association of Clothing Designers and Executives. Today, Anania is wearing his IACDE lapel pin with pride. Even if it does get lost against the red, grey and black of that sports jacket. Anania is the master tailor at D'Avenza, and one of the most celebrated makers of bespoke clothing in the world. He has won a Caesar (the Oscar of the tailoring world) for the IACDE 'designer of the year' three times in a row. It's just his jacket that bothers me. A wedding suit in those colours would be grounds for annulment. Anania started tailoring at six. After school, he would travel across Calabria to keep the master tailor's iron warm. He would bind his middle finger so he learnt to stitch properly. "And by the age of 11, I knew how to make a pair of pants". By the age of 13 he had moved to Rome. By the age of 15 he had moved to New York, where he met the Ackermans - the first family of tailoring - who hired him to launch d'Avenza. That was back in 1957, and Anania has now retired. Although there are few countries where working a 10-hour-day counts as 'retired'. I expected to find D'Avenza down the backstreets of Naples. But the premises are in semi-industrial Pisa - between a farming co-operative and a treatment plant for white marble. An air-raid siren denotes the beginning of the D'Avenza day - appropriate for a factory that once made military uniforms. And where the premises are still painted Air Force grey. Anania's tailors look like hair models from the walls of an old-fashioned barber's. And they're wearing Pucci-print shirts that haven't fitted for ten years. It's a look that Anania wears with style. He looks me up and down, and says I have a difficult body to dress. As if I don't know. A Johnson boy comes of age when he wears his belt under - rather than over - his paunch. I remember the day when I was presented with my own pair of Big Boy stretch jeans. I've lost weight since then, but my love handles won't go. So I was delighted to learn from a friend with science O Levels that they are actually 'external obliques'. ie muscles. I kidded myself I just had more highly developed muscles than most. But I was fooling no-one. It was my grandfather who first told me that a bespoke suit could help a "distinctive body type". A tall man could have sleeves of the right length. A fat man could have a jacket with buttons that didn't pop off. So (being tallish and fattish) I decided to save up. And, after seeing The Last Tango in Paris, I decided to save up for D'Avenza. Which would take a little longer. In fact, it took four years. Four years of irritation at the factory feel of clothes that were computer-measured, laser-cut and machine-sewn. Finally, I was ready. The Japanese word for suit is 'sebiro' - a simple transliteration of 'Savile Row'. But tailoring didn't begin in London. It began in 13^th-century France, when the tunic was replaced by the more-complicated court coat. It was only when Napoleon III appointed Henry Poole as his tailor that Savile Row became the spiritual home of the suit. At that time, there were more variations in men's style than in women's style. But fashions change. As do the people that make them. And so the formality of English tailoring fell from favour. "Italian tailors started by copying the English" says Nicoletta Ferrari, managing editor of L'Uomo Vogue for 15 years and now the director of fashion magazine MFF. "But then they attempted to retain the rudiments of tailoring, with a softer attitude. They made the shoulders with fabric, not with padding." The 50s were momentous for Italian tailoring, with the advent of D'Avenza, Brioni and Kiton. Italy boasted more tailors than France and Britain combined, and world couture standards, which had previously been set in London and Paris, were challenged by Rome and Naples. "The work at D'Avenza is among the best in the world" says Ferrari. "It's worth getting a D'Avenza suit just for the fit. The standard measure is too imprecise for an elegant man. Especially around the shoulder. Besides, you get better fabric on made-to-measure. But it's not just the work that counts. It's image. And for the last three or four seasons D'Avenza have been trying to change its image. They need more contemporary ideas. Two buttons? Three buttons? The width of the shoulder? The tiniest detail can make a suit look achingly contemporary. The machinists at D'Avenza wear tabards of gingham. Not achingly contemporary. They each work on a specific element of the suit - whether it's the legs or the shoulders - and sit behind Heath-Robinson sewing machines, shaped like distended body parts. It's the industrial approach to bespoke tailoring, and better than having one tailor who makes the entire suit. "We have one girl who just does button-holes" says Anania. "From morning to night. She does nothing else. So she does button-holes better than anyone else. Who could match that expertise?" Anania's glasses are on a string, but they never leave the bridge of his nose - life is full of details that need checking. He has a pair of scissors on his keyring to pick at jackets, because loose threads annoy him more than a bad spaghetti sauce. He can't walk round the factory without being distracted. This morning Pablo wants to discuss collar detailing. They hug, and touch each other's stomachs while they talk stitching. It's only the young tailors who are uncomfortable with Anania's intimacy - like some inappropriate uncle who still kisses you on the lips. Anania leads me to the warehouse. We need to choose my fabric - the critical determinant of a suit's quality. The warehouse isn't No Smoking - in fact, it's Smoking, but the controlled environment (with ashtrays) gets fumigated every three months. Moths would not be good for business. In the cavernous room, it's easy to pick out the English cloths from the Italian cloths. English mills produce cloth with a matte-finish, while the Italian mills produce a shinier cloth. I don't want to get married looking like a nightclub entertainer, so I plump for English. There is a ferociously expensive merino wool less than 14 microns in diameter. That means it's spun from threads so fine that they are hard to grasp. But the "hand", or feel of the fabric, is superb. And there's a wool inlaid with gold thread - a dramatic alternative to your basic yellow pinstripe. But they're not really me. Nor is the wool inlaid with diamond chips. Gieves and Hawkes are allegedly in talks with de Beers about the first £1million suit. Never mind the quality, feel the width. And how wide would that be - a suit made of real diamonds? My blue wool and cashmere blend, with a royal blue Prince of Wales check, is less flashy. "Fantastic suit" says Jonathan Clay, D'Avenza's marketing director. He can already visualise the finished product. "A classic wedding suit - not too sporty. A plain blue doesn't say very much. Bit too much like the suit you've got on." It's the first time my suit has actually been mentioned. But not the last. I bought it in a two-for-one sale in New York, but I keep quiet about that. I just point at the DKNY label. Unfortunately, at D'Avenza they aren't impressed by labels. All my friends who shop for 'quality' rush to high-end boutiques and pay for a brand name. It doesn't make sense. Boss and Cerrutti come up with the modern designs, but it's madness when you can buy tailor-made copies for the same price. "Your DKNY is fine for a factory suit," sniffs Clay. "Probably made inside an hour. But you've paid £1,000 for a designer label, and you've only got £300 worth of suit. You could have bought a Chester Barry for £1,000. They make for Ralph Lauren, who charge £1,700 for the same suit. With designer labels, you pay for the marketing. What a waste." I thought the Italians were polite. It was, after all, a 16th-century Italian who wrote the first book on manners. They contrive to flatter. So the dentists admire your teeth, and the tailors admire your figure. At least that's what I had read. The tailors of D'Avenza, however, eyed me with contempt. Before I had finished asking what the problem was, Marco della Lucca, the head presser, was offering his advice. "Here is too high" he said, pulling at the front of my jacket. "Here is too low" he said, pulling at the back. "The breast pocket is the size of - how you say - a stamp. Ha!" Della Lucca pulls out his tape measure, and starts to ask a lot of questions. "Flaps on the pockets? More classic. Pleats on the trouser? Turn-ups? Maybe two side vents in the jacket? It is a wedding, after all sir." Vents will certainly make my movements easier on the big day. I'll be up and down, making toasts and doing the birdy dance. Della Lucca does not, however, ask which way I hang. Apparently it's only necessary if you're being fitted for trousers with a very narrow leg. Or sir is an unusually well-developed gentleman. My wool and cashmere blend is laid out on a 70ft tressle table lit by nine neon strip lights. Guido Cosare is marking out the constituent parts of the suit with a small piece of chalk - heavier cloth is marked with wax. Cosare takes into account my physical imperfections. And makes sure the complicated Prince of Wales check will match on each side of the seam when the suit is made. "Doing this job does effect the way you see the world" he says. "Like when I see a new house. If it's not absolutely symmetrical, I notice." He is also good at packing a suitcase. And parking a car. "I can tell your life story, just by looking at that cloth" says Clay. "You've got a low right shoulder, so you're right-handed. Correct? From the shoulders I would say you played a lot of sport - rugby, from your thigh measurements. But I don't think you've ever broken anything. You are under 50, because you don't stoop. And you're over 30, because you haven't chosen an electric blue lining. If you had ordered a jacket on its own, you would be retired. And if you were ordering lightweights in winter, you would own a house in Barbados. How did I do?" Mirco Andrei is standing over my fabric with his foot-long cutting shears. He has been cutting cloth for 11 years now - long enough to develop callouses at the base of his thumb. He cuts with artistry. So he knows that linen, silk and cotton are subject to shrinkage when they get pressed. Which is at every stage of the suit-making process. So he allows eighth-of-an-inch more. Cashmere gives with wear, so he allows an eighth-of-an-inch less. They still measure in inches at D'Avenza. It's a relic from the days of the English tailoring Empire. The loudest noise on the floor is the automatic cutter preparing my jacket's lining and interlining. The lining is made from canvas which has already been wet and dried to finish any shrinkage. It is the bones of a jacket. The interlining is made from the tail hair of the male horse - the urine of the female makes it an inferior quality. The layers are then stitched into the suit by hand. Not stuck in, or 'fused' with glue. So I can let out every seam by half-an-inch if I put on any weight before the wedding. A half-an-inch in every seam is a lot of weight to do before December. In Victorian times, a bespoke suit required 12 fittings. Today, it requires only two. But I'm surprised by what I see. At the first fitting, the jacket doesn't have any sleeves. And it's covered in thread - or basting stitches. Anania tells me off for standing still in front of the mirror. "Move around and see that the jacket remains smooth over the shoulders and the neck" he says. So I do the mashed potato. My father once told me that clothes don't maketh the man, they merely reassure him. But I don't feel reassured by this suit. The jacket doesn't even have any buttons. D'Avenza is the one place you could be paid buttons - wild Indian buffalo horn buttons - and be happy about it. They cost an absolute fortune. The buttons of buffalo horn (deer horn is too weak, and less delicately patterned) are attached by a thick shank of Chinese silk, spun in Italy. They are designed to last the life of the garment. The buttons on the cuff of the jacket actually undo. It's a little touch that once allowed doctors to attend to patients without having to take their jackets off. I don't intend to seek out a career in medicine, but it's a detail I like. I don't see my suit for another eight weeks. The final fitting is back in London, and as I slip on the finished jacket, I think to myself "Welcome to the family". I have entered a different world. A world of bespoke socks. A world where ties come in five different lengths to accommodate the wearer's height. And it's a little odd. Because it's not a factory suit, it seems irregular. It doesn't have the crispness of a commercial suit. And, to my uninitiated eye, it looks imperfect. But that, really, is the sign of the greatest workmanship. No two bespoke suits fit exactly alike. Having a suit that fits - really fits - is wonderful. And whenever I don it, it will send my posture a couple of rungs up the evolutionary ladder. My life is no longer trainers and dress down Fridays. I now realise that dressing up is actually easier than dressing down. It requires less thought. Even John Cheever prepared for a day alone at his typewriter, in his backyard studio, by putting on a jacket and tie. So, when I have my picture taken at my wedding in December, I'll feel like I'm the best I can be. That's a feeling I've never had before.

		© Richard Johnson 2000 - 2009