It started with “casual Fridays” in the summer. From there it has spread like a plague of locust.  The next move was the addition of summertime “casual Mondays”.  It was a short leap to casual dress all summer. One of my customers, who is the senior partner in a major NYC law firm, told me his firm went the full week casual route because the Monday and Friday route made those days “different”, which resulted in lower productivity on those days.  The spread of the internet, which created an army of individuals who could now work from home, or where ever they might be, was another big step down the slippery slide. As a result of these pressures the menswear industry went into a recession long before the general economy.  Many fine men’s shops have closed their doors. How one is dressed certainly affects ones mind set and self image. It also says something to those with whom you are dealing.  One of my customers is the CEO of a major bank.  He related the following: The Ceo and CFO of a company had a meeting on a Saturday to discuss a multi-million dollar loan.  The “customers” arrived looking like they had interrupted  working under the hood of a car to attend the meeting - greasy khakis, topsiders, polo shirts. ( May be it was not a car. Maybe it was a 50 foot yatcht anchored at the marina.) My customer was appalled at the fact that they did not feel the meeting desearved the dignity of standard business attire. Times are changing.

The UPS man often delivers surprises.  About 3 months ago a doctor from the Mid-West sent me a field shirt/jacket with a Willis & Geiger label. It wasn’t made by the “real” Willis & Geiger.  It was made in China. His note told me it was 15 years old, that it was no longer being made, and that he wanted some made. He had never done any business with Winston Tailors or Chipp. Someone gave him our name and told him we could make “anything.” ( This was an obvious overstatement. There are many things we cannot make - for example, we cannot make a car.) The shirt/jacket had a lot of detail.  It had a small bellows pocket and flap on the upper left sleeve.  The large lower pockets had flaps and bellows.  The upper chest pockets had inverted pleats and flaps.  There was an inverted pleat in the back that went from the collar to the waist, where there was a fixed half belt.  There was a high center vent in the back that went up to the waist.  The shoulders had epaulets. Above the left chest pocket were four shell compartments. I assumed the compartments were meant for shotgun shells - what do I know?  I have have since learned that these compartments are meant to accomodate the size shell one would use if you wanted to shoot an elephant.  The final “piece de resistance” was tabs inside the sleeves so the sleeves could be rolled up. We were going to have to make this garment by hand.  I had no idea how long it would take to make; so there was no way I could give the doctor a price.  Because the doctor was not a “customer” I was uncomfortable. I sent the garment back to the doctor, thanked him for thinking of us, and explained why I would not accept the commission.  About a week after I returned the jacket to the doctor a long time customer walked in and gave me a 40 year old jacket that was made by Willis & Geiger.  It was the original upon which the doctors immitation was based.  Because I had a long time relationship with my customer I had no problem telling him I would make one ( He said he wanted 3) and would not beable to give him a price until it was completed.  We made one.  It is a tribute to the memory of what Willis & Geiger was.  If you are in  New York City you can stop up and see it.

Willis & Geiger Outfitters was founded in 1932.  Their most famous item was the “Bush Jacket” they made for  Abercrombie & Fitch.  When I joined Chipp in 1960 Mr. Willis had gone to his reward many years before. Howard Geiger was still runing the company.  The company was sold to Lands End in 1980 and was closed by Lands End 1999.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         In the summer of 2008 a customer asked me to suggest a “traveling” jacket for him.  He had purchased a company in California and wanted something with lots of pockets for the frequent flights he would now be taking.  He wanted comfort and did not want the formality of a classically constructed sports jacket.  I suggested we make a Bush Jacket out of silk - the whole nine yards with four bellows pockets, unconstructed, and with a belt. The jacket was hanging in our showroom. Customers saw it.  We have now made our version of The Willis & Geiger Bush Jackets for men and women using Shetland, loden, Harris Tweed, and John Hardy’s Thorn Proof. There are variations- some have eppaulettes, some have bellows pockets, some do not have bellows pockets.  What I will not do is make one out of poplin.  Tomorrow I will relate how we have come to add another Willis & Geiger classic- the field shirt - to our repertoire.

It was early June. A customer had the final fitting on two custom suits. He told my father he was flying to Paris that night and that he would not be back until September.  He said he really needed the suits- a recent weight change had rendered his wardrobe hors de combat. The French charged an outrageous duty on clothing mailed into France, so he asked my father if he would get one of our Paris bound customers to ferry the suits to him. Now as luck would have it, the first Paris bound customer who came into the shop after the suits were finshed was Arthur Watson. Mr. Watson was then the US Ambassador to France. My dad knew that Ambassadore Watson was a Yale classmate of our suit-needy customer. Mr. Watson said he would be glad to deliver the suits. The customer dropped a note to my father to thank him for getting the suits to Paris.  He said he always appreciated the quality of our clothing but that he was never as impressed as he was now that he knew who we engaged as “delivery boys”

The “Chipp” building was a 5 story brownstone.  We used 2 1/2 floors for selling - the rest of the space was used for tailors, administrative office staff, inventory storage, and shipping.  We had an intercom system to communicate throughout the building. The system allowed one to to speak to a specific station or to make a general announcement. With some frequency someone would call to speak to a customer and our telephone operator  would make a gerneral page- ” There is a call for Mr.——.”  My brother Jimmy and I were not above paging fictitious individuals-  ” Telephone call for Mr. I.P. Standing, or Is Mr. Ben Dover in the shop?” to cite a few announcements that were made.  I was in the front of the 2nd floor showing cloth to a customer. From the front of the shop one could look to the back where there would often be a customer having a fitting. We have a customer whose name is Michael Jackson.  Mr. Jackson is about 6′5″ and is caucasian.  On this day Mr. Jackson was fitting in the back and his secretary called and asked to speak with him.  Our operator made the page - “There is a call for Mr. Michael Jackson. ” This story goes back many year to when the recentky departed entertainer was at he height of his career. The customer with whom I was working said,” I did’t know you made clothing for Michael Jackson!” I told him we not only made Mr. Jackson’s clothes but he was being fit as we spoke. I pointed to the other end of the shop- ” There he is.”  My customer looked at “our” Michael Jackson and said-” I never knew he was so Tall.”

One of my first contributions to Chipp was the creation of a tie catalog. The ties I created were woven club figures and the themes were often”edgy”. Some of my ideas were, I thought, so clever that I copyrighted them. I was sure a major tie company would pirate the designs and I would get to retire on the proceeds from the legal action I would bring. This was “ego” personified- no tie company ever nibbled. My designs as a group were once described by a woman as “the best collection of 6th grade humor she had ever seen.” She added that she thought there was a little bit of 6th grader in men of all ages. Many of the designs had double meanings.  Some of the ties were very subtle- others were not.  I  maintain that the difference between sophisticated humor and bad taste depends on who is wearing the tie or giving it as a gift. A “funny” tie that the chairman of a Fortune 500 company gives to one of his board members would be “sophisticated humor” and the same tie on the counter at Bloomingdales, Saks, etc. would be in “bad taste”. Here are a few examples : A tie with woven words that form stripes- non mi rompere i coglioni .  A tie with the ancient pawn shop symbol- 3 brass balls- and a stripe between the diagonal rows of pawn signs  that is a continum of MMATPS&YCKMUTB. The trilogy of Christmas ties- Mooning Santa, Fireman Santa and Santa with a Heart on. My personal favorite-a repeat pattern of mens heads with a cat sitting or standing on each head.  This is a tie for a man who has nothing on his mind but pussy.  I showed the “Pussy on the Mind” tie to Thomas Watson .He started laughing so hard that I was afraid he would have a heart attack. He had had a heart attack the previous year.  When Mr. Watson caught his breath he said that the tie was the funniest tie he had ever seen . He had me gift box two dozen ties and deliver them to his Armonk office.  I am sure those who received those ties appreciated Mr. Watson’s “sophisticated” sense of humor. I still have some of the last tie catalog we mailed.  If anyone would like one send me your name and address. We are still making some , but not all, the ties pictued in the flyer.

With the World Series having just ended, please note that I am not telling you how to get rid of a Louisville Slugger; I am writing about the flying bats that make ticking sounds.  On three occasions when we were living in Connecticut in a home surrounded by woods, my wife woke me in the middle of the night to say she heard a wooshing sound and ticking. The first time it happened we weren’t sure what caused what she heard. The 2nd and 3rd had no mystery. Let us return to the first time.  We turned on the light and there he /or she was- a bat flying around the bedroom.  Here is what you do.  Get all warm-blooded things out of the room - kids, dogs, cats and in my case my wife. Close the door/doors.  You then arm your self with a tennis racquet. I put on a Pith Helmet and a Thorn Proof jacket from the John Hardy collection.  This next part is very important- you have to keep the bat flying around. You keep swinging at the bat with the racquet. You don’t have to worry about the bat flying into you- their sonar is better than anything on the most advanced nuclear sub.  What does the bat “in” is the space between the strings of the racket. Before too long the bat’s sonar, by chance, goes through the space in the racket and he/she crashes into the racket, get stunned, and falls to the floor. A burial service followed the dispatchment.  This is not anecdotal- I did it three times.  After the first time my wife and 3 children called me “Batman” for two weeks. For those among you who feel a Thorn Proof jacket is too warm for summer “Batting”, may I suggest one of our silk bush jackets.

My definition of advertising is “What can you say, without making a false assertion, that will have people think what you want them to think. Some have suggested that I have this dark definition from the position of jealousy because I can’t afford to advertise.  I have always felt that high quality Bespoke and Made-To-Measure  clothing does not lend itself to advertising. In the interest of complete disclosure I relate the following.  When I was 12 years old I started a bait business. My family would spend the summer in our cottage on Long Island Sound. At low tide sand worm rich flats were exposed.  I dug the worms and sold them for 50 cents a dozen- pretty good money in 1951. I would sell every worm I dug. Some local fishermen gave me standing orders.  The “real” bait businesses had worms shipped in from Maine. Their signs said”Maine Sand Worms.” I could have sold more worms; there was a limit how many worms a kid could dig before the tide came in. A family from Maine rented the house across the street from our place. They had a 13 year old son named Wally. ( I can still hear the “down East ” twang to his voice.) I hired Wally.  I would dig the worms and Wally would pick them.  I could now dig after dark- Wally would hold a flashlight. And here comes the disclosure part- After I hired Wally I changed my sign to read.”Sand Worms picked by man from Maine.”  Buyer beware!

As a follow-up to their $47,000 suit, Brioni is now selling T-shirts for $250.  The venerable firm has prided itself on still making everything in Italy. ( Zegna, for example, makes some of their suits in Spain.)  My quess is that the $47,000 dollar suit is “firing for effect”.  It makes their $5,000 and $6,000 rack suits appear to be a bargin. When “sport shoe” companies started selling sweat shirts and polo shirts with the company name on the chest I didn’t think people would buy them. That shows what an astute marketer I am.  But I won’t make the same mistake twice.  I can see the conspicuous consumer handwriting on the wall.  I have decided to sell some of my old socks. I wore them when we would fit President John F Kennedy at the Carlyle Hotel.  The price- $18,000.

I have received a number of questions about “outlet” shops.  A number of years ago, when my children were in college, my wife led me on a trip to The Woodbury Commons outlet mall in NY.  The parking lot was huge.  The lot was so packed that one had to drive around waiting for someone to pull out of a parking space to park.  There were tour buses disgourging shoppers.  Scurrying around the lot- I don’t know if the lot could acommodate 1,500 cars, maybe a lot more - were people passing out maps showing the route to different shops.  On the back of the map was a list of the other locations where the mall owner had other malls They had them in many other states.  And this was just this company.  I have no idea how many outlet malls exist in the country. I know that when ever I drive anywhere I see outlet malls.  What surprises me is that there are so many people who think these outlet stores are cram full of first run merchandise at discount prices.   One of the stores we went into had a man’s suit on a form. A sign attached to the suit said,” Compare to $850″. What does that mean? I couldn’t resist. I asked to see the manager.  I told him he was missing the boat. I suggested he replace the sign with one that said,” Compare to the National Debt”.