Ralph Lauren Purple Label

Every once in a while a nice surprise comes along.



I was contacted by Lance at Virtual Clothes Horse to see if I would be interested in a garment he had. A Ralph Lauren Purple Label sportcoat made by Raffaele Caruso, which, by itself, was intriguing. What was most interesting was that this one was recent, new, and had all its tags. Usually I have no idea of the age of a garment, and more often than not, it’s pretty old and not reflective of current workmanship. In this case, it’s safe to say that it’s pretty current. It was a MTM garment that was unclaimed by the customer and whose size was such that Lance felt he would have a hard time moving it so he ended up donating it to us. Thanks Lance!

Before we start cutting, a reality check.



Ouch.

The garment is made of cashmere and silk, a blend that is normally so flimsy and unstable that it’s a real headache to sew. But this is a fantastic 2x2 construction that is robust and shows no sign of the distortion in the grain or any of the seam slippage that is so typical of this blend. Certainly a contributing factor in the price.

Readers are, by now, aware of my buttonhole fetish and so will not be surprised to know that one of the things I most eagerly anticipated were what promised to be sensationally hand-made buttonholes. To my only partial dismay, there were none. Not one. Which actually makes a lot of sense. Not only are the sleeves basted in preparation for final adjustments before cutting the buttonholes, but the omission on the front and lapel leaves the possibility of making certain adjustments to the fit of the front which would have been impossible had the buttonholes been cut. Whether this was a special request by a very particular salesperson or client, or whether this is the usual practice for Purple Label MTM service is unclear, but at almost $5,000 one has every right to expect a properly-fitting garment so every precaution should be taken.

Inside the pocket we find this attractive pouch holding the buttons and, of course, a spool of silk buttonhole twist.



The twist is Seta Bozzolo Reale by Cucirini Tre Stelle which I mentioned in previous posts. It is distributed in the U.S. by Gilbreath Threads, who can be contacted at 800-247-2396 or by clicking here.



Ok, so I lied. There was one buttonhole.



The envelope flap on the inside pocket had a buttonhole embroidered by hand.

Along the facing edge we see some pick stitching. I often see ebay descriptions of garments referencing “tons of handwork”, usually describing this stitching, among other things.



I hate to break it to you, but this was not done by hand. Two types of machine exist to make this kind of imitation hand stitch. This stitch was done with a machine that makes a looping stitch on the wrong side,



Because the underside is unattractive, it’s usually used only on parts whose wrong side will be concealed, like the facing, and sometimes the trouser pockets and fly. Never on the coat edges.

Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist over “deceptive practices”, even the Kiton garments I examined had used this exact type of machine stitch.

The other type of machine is made by Conti Complett. The underside of this stitch, unlike the other type of machine, is neat and resembles the hand stitch it is meant to duplicate. The downside of this machine is that it is slow and very expensive.

The label was stitched on using a Complett machine; notice how very uniform the stitching is on the underside- only a machine will be this precise.



Now have a look at the underside of the flap- nothing at all like the label, so it is most likely that the edge stitching was actually done by hand. Very few RTW makers do this by hand anymore because the machine generally does a good job.



Of interest to some will be the old-school vent finishing which is rarely seen on ready-made garments-




However the bottoms have been finished by machine, a step some makers at this level still do by hand.



The front canvas is very generous, and rather than using haircloth in the chest, a very good quality wrapped hair has been substituted. This is similar to what we saw in the Saint Andrews garment and gives a softer feel to the chest.



Notice how the edges of the chest piece are taped to prevent the hair from poking through.

No surprises to find a semi-bias piece of haircloth in the shoulder



What is somewhat surprising is the size of the pad- this is the thickest pad I have seen in RTW for a long time. Mr. Lauren is known to appreciate a more imposing shoulder than some of his American colleagues.



The collar is seamed at center back- again, very old-school



In fact, the entire collar has been constructed and attached by hand, including the gorge. Very nice.

Portions of the edge tape have been felled by hand.



There was something about the edges of the coat that caught my attention but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Upon (much) closer inspection I found that the entire facing had been drawn on by hand. In other words, where most (including most bespoke tailors) would join the facing to the coat along the front edge by machine, this facing has been carefully basted in place, wrong side to wrong side, with the edges turned under and then slip-stitched by hand all along the edges, and they have done a magnificent job of it. The Brioni dinner jacket is the only other RTW garment I have seen which featured this technique, and only few bespoke pieces were done this way. I was intrigued so I made a few inquiries.

Paul Farrington, the technical designer at Hickey Freeman, visited the Caruso factory recently. Paul spent his early years at Chester Barrie, including a stint at D’Avenza. He told me that the system used at Caruso was brought first from Chester Barrie to Saint Andrews in the late sixties, and then to Caruso by a technician named Frank Vita. To augment the old-school tailoring is a decidedly new-school tech system which has bar-code driven PCs at every station so operators can reference specs, components, and sewing instructions. This kind of system allows for minute adjustments and customization the likes of which most of us in the trade can only dream. Paul did say that the regular production gets machine-sewn facings- only certain garments are done by hand, which makes sense since I am not aware of their house label selling for such astronomical prices.

This garment definitely ranks up there with some of the best of the recent ready-made garments I have examined- I’m going to have to try to get my hands on a trouser to see how those are made as they promise to be just as interesting as this coat.

Saint Andrews

A busy post box this week. A parcel came yesterday and today a notice that the post office is holding one; I'm hoping it's the A&S I've been waiting for. In the meantime, I give you Saint Andrews. Thanks to HRoi for getting it here so quickly!



Also known as Saint Andrews, Sartoria Santandrea produces garments for a number of better doors but is not so well known in North America except perhaps by fans of Ralph Lauren's Purple Label, as Santandrea produces some of their tailored clothing (perhaps all? at one point Cantarelli also did some).

There's not a lot to learn from this garment but for the sake of those who are trying themselves who makes a better garment, let's have a look at some of the details.

The buttonholes are very nice (naturally, they are done by hand) and the top buttonhole (the one that is meant to be buttoned, not the boutonniere) has been worked on both sides.





The back of the buttonhole



Something interesting.

If you go to their site and go to "lavorazione", then "asole" you see someone making a buttonhole by hand. If you look closely you can see that the buttonhole has been whip stitched before making it (which is typical), but the stitches are very close together, which raised a flag. I have mentioned before that certain well-known Neapolitan makers make their buttonholes by machine with fine thread first then work them again by hand. A friend of mine who worked for a company which does it told me about this, saying it was much easier to get consistency in the cutting of the hole, and because it was all stitched up first, which is stronger than a hand stitch. It made the buttonholes much easier to make. We were talking about this because I was looking for gimp alternatives and he told me that by doing this, no gimp is necessary. As open-minded as I like to think I am about machines, this was one line I was not willing to cross.

Anyway, back to Santandrea. Having seen that photo on their site I got curious so I ripped one of the (admittedly beautiful) buttonholes and found one little strand of silk twist, which is usually not nearly enough to gimp a buttonhole. Under my big magnifying glass, though, I could just make out an extremely fine thread and a distinct machine stitch (a tiny zig-zag which maybe you can make out in the photo). They had been worked and cut by machine before being remade by hand over top. My mind still rebels, but it does make sense for the longevity (no slippage in loose cloth, which is sometimes a problem) and it does make a nice buttonhole. Something to think about......



Anyway, back to the garment.

Shamholes done by hand on the sleeve



However the inside of the sleeve has been finished for functional buttonholes.



The underside of the flap shows that the pick stitching was done by hand in a slightly heavier silk thread than the English use- the English use a very fine thread so that it is very discreet whereas the Italians like it to be a little more showy. But not much. The little prick marks about 1/4" form the edge are from an edge baster- instead os basting edges by hand which is actually a little uneven and can produce a slightly wobbly looking edge, we use a single-thread chainstitch machine to baste the edges during production. The chainstitch is very easy to remove before final pressing.



The neck has all been finished by hand and the top collar has been drawn on completely by hand.



The collar itself has been constructed by hand (though padded by machine) note that there is no turnback at the end of the collar.


The breast pocket is the curved "barchetta" type and is done by hand, the same way I learned to do them, as opposed to the way I recently learned to do them thanks to Huntsman and Jukes.



Notice there is no exposed seam allowance inside the breast pocket and it has been felled by hand, not by machine.



A moderate amount of wadding in the sleeve head and a moderate pad- more than Poole, about the same as Huntsman, a little less than Brioni.



The canvas holds no surprises, though it has been made with a zig-zag machine as opposed to the twin-needle jumpstitch machine that I prefer.



Removing the felt, we can see that instead of haircloth, which is firm and expensive, there is another piece of the same type of canvas as is used on the front. It's been machine padded to within an inch of its life, which makes it a bit firmer but still softer than haircloth, so I'm not going to bother ripping the stitches to open it up.



Instead, I hold it up to a strong light to see what's inside. There is a haircloth shoulder reinforcement and you can see the series of vees, or cuts, to give the shoulder some shape.



Finally, a look at the shoulder seam, which is machine-sewn and stayed with a piece of bias-cut silesia. If you read the Poole dissection you will remember that Poole stayed the shoulder with a straight-cut piece of lining which had no give- this silesia will stabilize the shoulder but still give. I will soon be conducting some experiments concerning elasticity in the shoulder so stay tuned......



In response to Jordan's questions and comments about the curved barchetta pocket, I agree, when well done it can be quite nice, though sometimes it is overdone and looks affected. It is the default shape in southern Italy and is catching on in the North too, so I doubt any of them would think it would clash with a straight-cut lower pocket, so long as it was subtle.

The pocket welt itself is curved, not straight cut and bent into shape, and therein lies a bit of the difficulty in making the pocket (and why some curve it a lot more in order to show off a bit) so it's not an issue where stripes and plaids are concerned.