Aero Barnstormer

[Edward]

As they say, it's all about mind over matter: if you don't mind, then it doesn't matter... Oh, and if my numbers come up then it's Huntsman for me! I've lusted after one of their suits for years.

They're great too... once you can afford the Row, really then it's less about comparative quality and more about which House style you prefer....

 

[Rudie]

I really can't grasp the concept of house style. Shouldn't a bespoke tailor be able to make a suit the way the customer wants it to be and not the way the tailor feels the most comfortable with? A house style seems to be the lazy tailor's approach to me. Where is the challenge and the fun when you always do the same stuff?

 

[Seb Lucas]

I would imagine the house look or the idiosyncratic touches executed by each business would be part of the fun. But that shouldn't have to rule out giving the customer what they want. As someone who has worn a suit 5 times in as many decades, it doesn't matter to me.

Anyone had a Barnstormer made in goat - is it possible?

 

[Edward]

Anyone had a Barnstormer made in goat - is it possible?

I have a dim recollection that Aero told somebody no some years ago, because the hides aren't big enough for that particular design, but I don't honestly recall any more than that.

I really can't grasp the concept of house style. Shouldn't a bespoke tailor be able to make a suit the way the customer wants it to be and not the way the tailor feels the most comfortable with? A house style seems to be the lazy tailor's approach to me. Where is the challenge and the fun when you always do the same stuff?

It's a tradition gonig way back on Saville row - every house has its own preferences and its own particular specialisms. I wouldn't view it as a limitation, more of a signature look than anything. In all likelihood a lot of the Row's customers simply don't care about details as persnickety as we do round these parts - such as sleeve attachments, venting, panels, lapel width... - and will simply defer to what the tailor thinks looks good on them. Details such a rope sleeves will simply be done in the way the house favours. The other big factor here is brand perception. Even though the Row's bespoke tailors won't go in for gauche labelling and such, their customers are still to some extent a walking advertisement for their businesses. That being the case, they do have certain tolerances about what they will and will not let out of their doors. Some businesses in the world will be happy to give the customer wahtever they ask for, no matter how ridiculous it looks... Row tailors will tend to draw the line at certain things and simply refuse to do them because they don't want to put their name to it. There is the legend of the Saville Row tailor that served the man who was Prince of Wales, later to be manipulated out of the Big Chair for various reasons, but who bought his suits on Saville Row all his life.... The story goes that at one point he was having the jackets made on the row, but sending cloth from the same bolt to a tailor in New York because he favoured belt-loops in place of braces buttons on his trousers, something his Row tailors point blank refused to even countenance. I doubt any of them are quite that extreme these days, but nonetheless, what goes out the front door still represents their business for good or ill, and most all of the real tailors on the Row (you can forget the expensive, "designer" OTR brands that have moved in to try and glom off the Savile Row brand) broadly rely on word of mouth marketing...