Behind every bespoke suit is a story. That story starts with the customer.
As part of a series of blogs from Edinburgh Tailoring Company, we will look at some of those stories. We will explore what our customers were looking for when they came to us and how their tailoring stories progressed with us.
For this post, our Edinburgh Bespoke Tailoring Consultant, Jason, looks at the wedding suit we made for his customer Franz D’Angelo.
Everyone who has spent time providing bespoke and made-to-measure suits will meet customers who stand out from the crowd. Individuals who made a mark on your career, who were a joy to work with, or brimming with ideas for designing an extra-special suit. For me, Franz D’Angelo ticked all three of those boxes.
Franz was a joy to work with and his enthusiasm and positive attitude were infectious. He came to me with a vision for a stand-out suit for his big day. It was also my first finished wedding suit for a customer since joining Edinburgh Tailoring Company.
Franz hails from Italy but currently lives in Edinburgh. He works just a few minutes walk from our Edinburgh studio in Young Street at Social Bite.
Social Bite is a social enterprise with which helps people affected by homelessness and food poverty in Scotland. They have sandwich and coffee shops in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen where customers can ‘pay-it-forward’ to cover the cost of food and drink for a homeless person. Of their profits, 100% goes to charities and about 25% of their workforce is made up of people who have previously experienced homelessness.
Franz had continued to work with Social Bite during the COVID lockdown where the shop in RoseStreet handed out about 100 packages of food, toiletries, hygiene products, and basic medicine a day to homeless and vulnerable people. A total of approximately 600,000 packages were distributed by Social Bite during the COVID lockdown.
When Franz came to us at Edinburgh Tailoring Company, his wedding had already been postponed several times because of COVID restrictions but they had finally managed to fix a last-minute date at Cheval The Grand Edinburgh (where Franz’s wife works). So despite previous plans, things turned out to be quite a rush with preparations and inviting family from Italy.
Like many new grooms, Franz was a little apprehensive about the process of having a bespoke suit made for him. He said:
“I had some ideas about how I wanted to look on my big day – and I knew I needed a bespoke that would better flatter my shape. However l was a bit hesitant as in the past I had found the whole process of measurements, consultations, and fittings a wee bit intimidating.
Whenever I got myself a suit in the past I felt like I wasn’t encouraged to be myself or to have it the way I wanted: it was quite hard to find a good tailor that was also a good listener and would understand and value my ideas about. I was either too big, too flamboyant, or too poor to get what I wanted.”
While we are very happy to offer advice on style, cloth, and dress etiquette at Edinburgh Tailoring Company, we pride ourselves on a bespoke approach. It’s important to us that the suit we design for you is uniquely yours and reflects your personality and how you want to feel. This is especially important for a big occasion like a wedding.
Franz came to us wanting a burgundy suit. His friendly energy and love of exuberance were apparent. When we heard that Franz was wearing his suit with a zebra stripe shirt and creepers we knew we weren’t in run-of-the-mill business suit territory anymore!
We discussed a few options with him, looked at his budget and he ended up with a rich Super 150 cloth from our George Street range. A lovely 10oz 100% wool cloth from our in-house stock. But even this was not enough to match Franz’s personality. He added a vibrant checked lining, as well as flashes in that lining to his vents! Of course, it had to draw on Italian style tailoring with a shorter jacket and slightly narrower trousers. We also made him a matching tie, and pocket square. We even threw in a matching facemask!
Turning Franz’s suit around with such a tight timescale was a challenge – but we managed it! The fitting for his suit went fine with a few expected tweaks to be done. But the best thing was how happy Franz looked in the suit. We could see that the whole ETC team had come together and managed to capture what Franz was after and he was going to be confident in his wedding attire.
Franz very kindly sent over a few photographs from his wedding taken by photographer Christopher Thomas. We’ve got to admit he looks pretty damn cool. Everyone at Edinburgh Tailoring Company wishes the happy couple all the best. It was a joy to play a small part in the start of your married life together.
If you are planning a wedding, you can make an appointment to chat over options with Jason at our Edinburgh studio (or indeed Chris in Glasgow and John in Manchester) via our online appointment system. We even offer Zoom/WhatsApp consultations.
You can see more of Christopher’s photography on his Instagram page.
Get in touch with us today – we’re always happy to have a no-strings chat.
