Custom shirtmaker CEGO's Carl Goldberg shared a few garments from his father's wardrobe with us, one of which is a DB jacket (pants long lost) made by Gilbert Feruch, some time in the seventies, I think.
I gather he was something of a futurist, and the V&A museum has a Nehru suit that he made on display. Other than that, I know practically nothing about him. What I find most interesting about this garment is that had he removed the label, I would have sworn it was a Smalto, the garment we recently looked at. There are so many details which are virtually identical that it is impossible that the two were not somehow linked at some point in their careers. I won't speculate on that link but if someone has more information I would love to hear it.
While I was surprised to have seen a two-piece top collar on a piece of bespoke work, here is another one.
The buttonholes are fairly good, though they may have seen better days, particularly the Milanaise which looks to have had a flower or two through it.
This is how buttons should be sewn on.
Like the Smalto, the pocket jets have been stitched by hand. The breast welt and its facing have also been constructed by hand, and sewn through the chest piece.
While the interior finishing on many of the coats we have looked at has seemed like an afterthought, Feruch is clearly making a statement here.
Again, pocket jets done by hand
The lining has been inserted by hand and stitched up in an identical fashion to the Smalto.
Even this diagonal tack is identical.
While the Smalto had wiggan in the vents, this one has silesia, but cut and inserted identically to the Smalto
The real differentiator between the two is that the Smalto had been padstitched by machine, and this one has been done by hand.
Note how the direction of the stitching was reversed to help with the peak of the lapel
The collar has been padded by hand with a piece of silesia on each end.
The chest and shoulder pad have also been done by hand, and the same kind of cut and reversal of the direction of the grain as I found in the Smalto.
The final detail was that the facings had been drawn on entirely by hand, while the Smalto (like so many others) had been done by machine. And for those who still care, the sleeve was set by machine and the shoulder seam sewn by machine. Absolutely everything else on this coat had been done by hand so clearly they were not looking to save time or cut corners- if they thought there was any benefit to doing these steps by hand they would have been done by hand. But they were not.
Other than the few steps which had been done by machine on the Smalto coat, steps which may have come later to help bring costs down as the Smalto is much more recent than the Feruch, these two coats are so close that they could have been made in the very same workshop.
Intriguing, no? Thoughts, anyone?
And thank you, Carl.
Posts
