Bespoke Custom Clothing opens men's store in downtown Boise, ID - boisedev.com

Bespoke Custom Clothing opens men's store in downtown Boise, ID - boisedev.com

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• Bespoke Custom Clothing opens men's store in downtown Boise, ID - boisedev.com
• What a Man Wants … to Wear - The New York Times
• Column: Bill's Toggery in Shakopee embraces its past, ready for the future - SW News Media

Bespoke Custom Clothing opens men's store in downtown Boise, ID - boisedev.com Posted: 06 Feb 2020 12:00 AM PST Bespoke Custom Clothing recently opened a men's clothing boutique in Downtown Boise. The store went into the former Freak Alley Gallery indoor space at 210 N. 9th St. The Boise location is the retailer's fourth, after New York City, Miami, FL and Salt Lake City, UT. The company provides custom men's clothing. Customers can come into the store for a fitting or meet with a consultant at home or work. "We do not have any pre-made clothing," Bespoke notes on its about page. "Your haberdasher takes 34 measurements of your person… We take note of your posture, shoulder slope, and we even accommodate for the size of your watch!" Once measurements are in, Bespoke works with a customer to custom-design clothes: suits, slacks and the like. Bespoke also provides wedding clothing for men. An employee tells BoiseDev that the Boise location will also offer custom women's clothing.

What a Man Wants … to Wear - The New York Times Posted: 25 Feb 2020 06:00 AM PST Gabriela Hearst likes to say that she wouldn't be a fashion designer if she didn't understand the subtle ways in which a female body can shape-shift over the course of a day — how a woman's waist, for example, can fluctuate in size between morning and evening. That may sound like a surprisingly unglamorous concern for a luxury clothing brand, but Hearst's namesake label, which she founded in New York City in 2015, is remarkable not only for its attention to high-level craft and luxurious materials — including merino wool sheared from sheep reared on the 17,000-acre ranch she inherited in 2011 from her father in her native Uruguay — but also for her minute focus on how her clothes, whether a figure-skimming, graphic-printed knit dress or an ankle-length trench, make women feel. As Hearst, 43, sees it, "It's an upside to be a woman designing for women." How, then, does she approach her latest undertaking — designing clothes for men? In May of last year, Hearst presented a small pre-fall men's collection of chunky speckled wool sweaters and slate gray tailoring, and in July, she followed with a 23-style resort offering of lightweight powder-blue and putty-colored suiting, as well as crew-neck knits in off-kilter pastel shades like faded butter yellow or dusty lilac. Though many of the pieces are crafted by a family-owned tailoring company in Parma, Italy, and though there are sporty elements (an ivory cashmere polo shirt, a suede bomber jacket the color of wet sand), they don't fall neatly into either of the two major categories that define contemporary men's clothing: streetwear and suiting. Rather, Hearst's collections offer considered, well-crafted everyday clothes for modern professional men — a niche filled by Jil Sander in the late 1990s and rarely since. A collaborator in the venture is the British graphic designer Peter Miles, whom Hearst has been working with since he created the brand's logo six years ago, and whose personal style she has long admired. "There's an ease to the way he dresses — and an elegance, but it's not pompous or ostentatious," Hearst says. Still, though Miles provides occasional knowledge of the technical details of men's clothing (he has been a client of the same Spitalfields tailor since 1993) and can offer feedback from a wearer's perspective, Hearst relies heavily on her imagination. Gabriela Hearst jacket, $2,900, shirt, $2,350, and pants, $1,500. Lanvin sneakers, $575.Credit...Photo by Fumi Nagasaka. Styled by Alex Tudela Gabriela Hearst jacket, $2,400, shirt, $590, and pants, $850. Bottega Veneta shoes, $1,150.Credit...Photo by Fumi Nagasaka. Styled by Alex Tudela Designing garments for someone unlike yourself — "it's a different psychology," Hearst says — turns out to be a more complex exercise in empathy. This is of course very nearly the same imaginative leap that myriad male designers who create clothes for women have been making for the past century. Women may be relied upon to do much of the handwork in ateliers, but the majority of people who have really determined the way we dress — with major exceptions, including Coco Chanel, Miuccia Prada, Donatella Versace and Rei Kawakubo — have been men: Cristóbal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, Giorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs, Nicolas Ghesquière, Riccardo Tisci and Karl Lagerfeld among them. It's a persistent disparity. In 2017, 85 percent of the students enrolled at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology were female, but in 2015, only 14 percent of major clothing brands had a woman at their head, according to a Business of Fashion survey. Though fashion, like so many industries, is beginning to reckon with the consequences of longstanding and deep-rooted gender imbalance, female designers are still in the minority, and women making clothes for men are a rarity. Yet Hearst is not the only female designer at the head of an established women's wear label to have delved into the male psyche — Stella McCartney, Isabel Marant and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen of the Row launched men's lines in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively. Clare Waight Keller, the artistic director at Givenchy — which has done men's ready-to-wear since 1969 — introduced men's looks to the brand's couture collections in 2018. These designers join a group of women who began their careers in men's wear, among them Grace Wales Bonner and Emily Bode, and one could argue that, between the lot of them, much of what a certain sort of man most wants to wear now is being designed by women. This shift comes at a time when people are especially aware of how rigid notions of gender can prove harmful, making the question: How, in 2020, can we create clothes for men that feel timeless without reinforcing regressive ideals of masculinity? Hearst often envisions she's designing for someone who is part wind-swept gaucho and part well-heeled urban journalist — a blend of her rancher father and her husband's father, the New York newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst Jr. — but also someone whose self-regard is not impervious. In a 2005 article in The New York Times, Tom Ford was quoted as saying, "Of course there are many more gay male designers. I think we are more objective. We don't come with the baggage of hating certain parts of our bodies." Hearst, on the other hand, feels strongly that insecurity is not an affliction unique to women. "I hope they make him feel good and confident," she says of how she wants her garments to comfort their wearer, adding, "because we know what an insecure man is." From left: Gabriela Hearst jacket, $1,900, shirt, $990, and pants, and Lanvin shoes, $575. Gabriela Hearst shirt, $990, T-shirt, $250, and pants, $460, and Marni boots, $890, marni.com. Gabriela Hearst coat, $5,500, shirt, and pants, $690, and Bottega Veneta boots, $1,100.Credit...Photo by Fumi Nagasaka. Styled by Alex Tudela Left: Gabriela Hearst jacket, $1,900, T-shirt, $250, and pants, $690, and Church's shoes, $850, church-footwear.com. Right: Gabriela Hearst jacket, $4,300, T-shirt, $250, and pants, $690, and Lanvin shoes, $575.Credit...Photo by Fumi Nagasaka. Styled by Alex Tudela While Savile Row tailors traditionally stitch buttons inside the waistband of trousers to allow a wearer to adjust their size, Hearst learned from her husband, the media executive Austin Hearst (who was also the brand's first male fit model), that belt loops enable a more flattering cinch. "He told me the belt acts like a girdle for men," she says. She also landed on a high rise on her flat-front wool formal pants so as to flatter the waist, and she likes to temper the stern lines of a suit with a midnight blue pullover or navy knit polo shirt. This sort of thinking suggests that the very act of a woman offering up a fantasy of manhood in an arena dominated by male fantasies of women can be a revelatory gesture. If men's ideas about how a woman should dress have at times felt constrictive — "He doesn't dress women, he upholsters them," Coco Chanel once said of Christian Dior, whose postwar wasp-waisted New Look shapes heralded a return to more traditional female silhouettes after the liberating advent of women's trousers — the impulses of the women currently at the forefront of men's wear are by contrast generous and freeing. Waight Keller's couture collections use finishes long associated with women's wear (sequins, delicate floral embroidery) that encourage men to experiment with new identities, and at the Row, the Olsen sisters are creating men's suiting so sublimely minimal it is almost self-effacing, as though its wearer has more cerebral concerns than tailoring. Similarly, Hearst says that her ideal customer is, above all, a man with "a modern brain," someone who is engaged with the issues of our time, such as climate change — the brand exclusively uses biodegradable packaging — and dissolving gender lines altogether. If men have historically designed for women as they think they ought to be, these women are designing for men as they hope they might be. Models: Yvens Mendes at Next Management, Romaine Dixon at Soul Artist Management and Mo M'Bengué at Heroes Model Management. Casting director: AM Casting Paris. Grooming: Adam Szabo at Frank Reps. Location: The 1896, Brooklyn. Tailoring: Leroy Gough at Lars Nord Studio. Photo assistant: Matt Baffa. Grooming assistant: Ryo Kuramoto. Stylist's assistant: Jameson Montgomery.

Column: Bill's Toggery in Shakopee embraces its past, ready for the future - SW News Media Posted: 26 Feb 2020 10:00 AM PST If you noticed something different about Shakopee's premier men's clothing store, then you probably saw the new logo for Bill's Toggery or observed the space newly dedicated to the Custom Shoppe. Billy Wermerskirchen, the store's owner, had been planning to update the logo and expand the store's footprint since last spring. "We started updating the logo last March and brainstorming new ideas that could be cross-branded with the Custom Shoppe," he told me. The font in the original logo is his grandfather's handwriting, so preserving that history was important. "Our updated logo embodies the old logo and also makes sure to represent that we're a custom shop." Last week, Bill's Toggery opened its custom business in the space adjacent to the main store. That space had originally been built as a post office more than a century ago, then became The People's Bank. The bank's large vault is still there, although instead of safeguarding money and valuables, it now features a mural depicting Charles Lindbergh's cross-Atlantic flight from New York City to Paris in the Spirt of St. Louis. The aviator's father had served on the board of directors for The People's Bank, which loaned Lindbergh the money to buy his first plane. Pictures of Lindbergh and stories of his exploits serve as décor for the Custom Shoppe to reflect the building's unique history. I have to admit to living in Shakopee for several years before I went into Bill's Toggery for the first time. I'd walked and driven by it dozens of times without stopping in. Then someone told me to check it out, saying I'd be impressed. That person was right, and I've been a customer and a fan ever since. The clothes are higher end and therefore more expensive than what you'd find at most chain stores, but the clothes fit and feel different too. I bought my favorite pair of dress shoes there a year and a half ago. I wear them often, even with jeans when before I would have worn loafers or tennis shoes. I'm surprised by how many people have complimented my shoes. Wermerskirchen travels to New York City, Chicago, and other major cities to stay current on new fashion trends and to choose items for his store. Right now, for example, he's choosing his clothing lines for fall 2020. Last Friday, I was fortunate enough to be at the store for the ribbon cutting that officially opened the new space. Wermerskirchen offered some heartfelt words about the business, then got choked up paying tribute to his grandfather, who started the company in 1931, and his father who ran it until Wermerskirchen took the helm as the third-generation owner. "As a son and as a dad, you want to make your dad proud," Wermerskirchen told me later. While the Custom Shoppe is new, the store has been offering custom clothing for a long time. The difference is that now the custom business has its own dedicated space. "A lot of customers put on a suit coat and have to tailor it. Nothing off the racks fits them perfectly," he said. "Custom clothing is a great deal, and it's not just for executives or people with a lot of money. We're making suits for high schoolers for prom, too. There's a younger generation that likes custom clothes." Companies that prefer for their employees to dress a certain way can have a private event at the Custom Shoppe — Bill's Toggery provides the food and drink — to get measured and see clothing options. Wermerskirchen says he can custom make high-quality suits for the same price as off-the-rack suits at stores like Macy's and Von Maur. Plus he can turnaround custom clothing in the same timeframe it usually takes for tailoring. Wermerskirchen says the customization and personalized service he offers sets him apart from competitors. That's why people come from outside of Shakopee, and even outside of the state, to shop at his store. "You can buy a suit on Amazon or get a Men's Wearhouse buy one get one free. I could play that game too where it's all about what's driving the price. I'm not competing on price," he said. "Others cannot provide the customer service, brands, and merchandise that I have. People want the experience and the service."

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