In the 60s, platform tennis was the hot game. A tournament was sponsored by a venerable Scotch whiskey maker. The tournament was called The Vat 69 Gold Cup. Chipp was engaged to make jackets and ties for the officials and for the winners of the tournament. The chairman of the company was so pleased by what we made that he arrived in his Rolls to personally thank my dad. My father, who loved everything British and Scottish, chatted briefly with the gentleman and then invited him up to his 5th floor office.

In two previous blogs I related the stories of the creation of our Kama Sutra lining material and my prowess in making novelty athletic supporters. Unbeknown to my father, I had covered a jock with one of the Kama Sutra images and left it on his desk. When my dad and his guest walked into his office, my father was mortified by what he found on his desk. His jovial guest thought it was very funny, so my dad gave him the supporter.

That weekend the British Embassy hosted a party—attended by some members of Congress, a Supreme Court judge, and other “A” list Betway-types—in honor of the Sanderson Chairman. The function was black tie. When everyone had consumed their share of Vat 69, the guest of honor put the supporter on over his dinner suit trousers. The following Monday, the Rolls arrived at 14 East 44th St. The Chairman said he didn’t care what it would cost. He had to have forty of the supporters to send to those who had attended the DC cocktail party.

About two weeks after we had shipped the supporters, we stated getting phone calls:

“This is the office of Senator So and So. The Senator received a gift of an unusual Athletic supporter. The Senator would like to order a dozen of the supporters.”

We got about 20 calls ordering one to two dozen supporters. And thus something I did as a joke turned into an item that was a fitting gift in a number of situations (bachelor parties, for example). In our present incarnation as Winston Tailors, we no longer have enough traffic to be able to buy the minimum order required to get the Bike supporters at the dealer price. As a practical matter, they exist no more.

In Chipp’s early days we had many customers who had attended Ivy League schools. My father had silk tie material woven that had the mascots of the “eight” and featured the proper school colors. When I arrived I added cloth for the UVa, Notre Dame, and Michigan. And then I had my first marketing idea. I bought Bike athletic supporters and covered the pouches with the tie material. We than had “tie and jock sets” which we sold under the banner of “Be an Athletic Supporter”. The great majority of the purchases were made to give as gifts. When women would call to order we would ask them what size they needed. We had to know the waist size. The question led to many funny exchanges.
As the creator of the college jocks, I took it upon myself to sew the pouch cover my self. In deciding the price at which the jocks should sell ( one could buy a set, or just the jock) I based the cost on the cost of the Bike supporter and the cloth used to cover the jock. I added nothing for my time. My father told me this could come back to bite me. And it did. One of our customers owned a mail order catalog titled “Hill’s Court” that featured tennis clothing and tennis equipment. One of our ties had the word “Love” where the “o” was a tennis ball. He asked me to make “Love” jocks. He sold many more supporters than I thought he would sell. Because I had not figured in cost for the labor to make them, I could not afford to pay anyone to make them. I set up a sewing machine in my home and I would sew them at night. I got so fast that I doubt that anyone in the world could have made them as fast as I could. That was many years ago. I am not so fast any more.

A customer brought in a length of cloth from which he wanted a jacket tailored.  The cloth was a heavy cotton and the print pattern was silhouetted Kama Sutra positions. Our customer wanted a jacket that he intended wearing during the week long wedding festivities that were to take place in the celebration of his sister’s wedding.  I suggested that we send the cloth to our ready-to-wear  maker (  We were using Linett ). I told him he would probably never wear the jacket after the wedding, and I didn’t think we should make a custom jacket for such limited wear.  He agreed.  We sent the cloth to Linett, who refused to make it.  I told our customer we would have to make it custom after all. The cloth was sent up to our own custom workrooms. The next day we got a call from our shop foreman who said the women finishers were “fainting”. The finishers were all older Italian women who my father would  characterize in the following way, ” They make seven stitches and  then say the Rosary.” So it was decided the only way we could make the jacket was to have one of the men take the cloth home and make the jacket.  The jacket was a big hit.  I asked our customer where he found the cloth. He told me his uncle  had a company that made shower curtains and that these were popular for bachelor pads.  I asked him to ask his uncle if he would object to my printing the design on rayon to use as lining material.  To my surprise a few day later a messenger arrived and delivered the screens.  He was no longer running the design and I was welcome to print the lining. The minimum run in printing is significant for a small shop.  I could could see how much fun I would be able to have.  I had the lining printed.  Through the years I have sold a fair number of extra dinner suits,  black blazers, and dark gray suits to individuals who wanted to use the lining. ( The lining is white with white images on black squares.  There are 12 images which are each illustrated in conjunction with a sign of the Zodiac. I still have a small bolt of the lining .  There is still fun to be had by those who are not faint of heart.

Jack Kent Cook bought a lot of shirts. We never sold him any clothing. He really liked our shirts! The first few times he came into the shop my father worked with him. Mr. Cook was the kind of man who wanted to work with “the boss”.  One day he walked in and my dad was out of town. I worked with him . After a few minutes he became very “easy going”  and for me reality fell far short of apprehension- it actually was fun. From that time on, Mr. Cook wouldn’t ask for my father. My brother Jimmy or I would help him. He told my father he was envious of the fact that our father had two hard working sons who had joined him in business. After my father died we sold our building and we moved around the corner to the 2nd floor at the corner of 43rd St - the 342 Madison Avenue Building. Our space had huge windows that overlooked both Madison Avenue and 43rd Street.  When you looked out of the corner window that overlooked Madison Avenue, you had a magnificent view of the Chrysler Building. Mr. Cook owned the Chrysler building. On one of his visits he pulled up a chair and sat looking at the building for about 10 minutes. He just sat there smiling.   He said he liked looking at his building from our window. He told us he missed seeing our father, and told us how he had told dad how lucky he was to have two hard working sons. When our mother died a few years later, my brother wrote to Mr. Cook and told him the objects of his envy, the Brothers Winston, were  available for adoption.

Although there was a significant difference in our ages, John Groth was one of the first customers with whom I developed a relationship that went further than that of his being a Chipp customer. His appearance, his sense of humor, his love of sports, his talent and even his pipe ( In those days smoking was permitted in buildings.) made him an endearing personality. John was a journalist/illustrator/artist. A sort of rennaisance person- a barber surgeon in his field. He covered wars from the front- Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Korean War. When Paris was liberated, John was in the first jeep to enter the city. Every where he went , sketch pad was in hand.  His watercolors and oils are part of the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, The Art Institute of Chicago, The US Army Center of Military History, The Navel Historical Center, The US Air Force Collection, and the National Art Museum of Sport. When it was decided that photographers would not be permitted to attend the Jack Ruby trial, John Groth was selected to sit up front with his sketch pad to be the eyes for the world. John’s studio was on 57th ST between Madison and Park. I spent many pleasant hours in the studio- usually on Sundays. Great stories! Watch a football game on TV. See what he was working on. I loved his work. I own quite a few of his watercolors. He liked sports jackets, so we had an “arrangement”. John was one of the few customers we have had since our doors opened who really used the open button holes on his jacket sleeves. ( I try to dissuade customers from having open button holes. It makes future alterations costly and slows down the delivery of garment because we have to be sure the sleeve lengths are correct before cutting the button holes. I make that effort even though we charge for open button holes. Naturally when a customer says,” Thank you, but I like them”, we make them. ) John often worked in his studio wearing a sports jacket- the open button holes opened and the cuffs rolled back. John usually had one of his pipes in his mouth. One day he came in to report the demise of one of his favorite sports jackets. He was attending a luncheon and after the meet and greet pre- lunch social exchanges, he put his pipe into his pocket with out properly extinguishing it. Half way through lunch, some one said they smelled something burning. It was John’s jacket. We started making his jackets with a fire proof pocket instead of the standard pocketing. Our customers experiences have inspired creativity.

You may have read something by this prolific author. In 1952 he legally changed his name to Evan Hunter. But it doesn’t stop there. Mr. Hunter wrote under a number of pseudonyms- Hunt Collins, Curt Cannon, Ezra Hannon, Richard Marsten and Ed McBain. He wrote the best seller “The Blackboard Jungle” under his own name. He wrote the screen play for “The Birds” under his own name. His best known nom de plume was Ed McBain. It was as Ed McBain that he created the 87th Precinct series of NYC detective novels- more than 50 titles. And it was here that Chipp became intertwined with the stories. Mr. Hunter was a long time Chipp customer. One day he came into the shop and told me he needed some clothing for some of his characters. We spent the better part of the afternoon selecting what the characters would wear. It included the complete outfits- jackets, trousers, shirts and ties. Small swatches were stapled to order sheets which Mr. Hunter used as references while writing. Through the years I had the fun of repeating the exercise a number of times. In some of the novels one character or another would mention Chipp. It is said that dealing with the public can be both a blessing and a curse. Chipp has always been blessed with blessings. The best part of our business has always been the customers we have been privileged to serve.

Mortimer Levitt, who was the founder and owner of The Custom Shop Shirtmakers, was a Chipp customer. Glen Bernbaum, who ran the chain for Mr. Levitt, was also a Chipp customer. (Mr. Bernbaum went into the restaurant business after leaving the shirt business; he created a very successful restaurant in NYC called “Mortimers”, which was named after Mortimer Levitt.)

My father and Mr. Levitt would sit for hours and talk about the business. Listening to these pros was an education. Mr. Levitt was a brilliant marketer, something that started with the name he chose: The Custom Shop. In fact, they did not make anything custom. He told me that, according to his definition, if the customer chooses the cloth and specifies the details—and then if he takes the measurements, it is custom. By this logic, everything they made was custom.

He felt that selling was like acting. You didn’t have to know that much about the product if you could follow a script. To that end he wrote a script covering all the products being sold by The Custom Shop and required his salesmen to memorize it. Mr. Levitt sold the chain in the mid 1990’s (as I recall, around 1997). Through the years I had many customers ask me if I thought buying custom shirts from The Custom Shop was worth it. My answer has always been that the definition of a good value is if you are pleased with the product you received for the money you spent. It doesn’t really matter that what Mr. Levitt would call custom I would not.

My father had a sign over his desk that said something like the following: If you pay too much money for something, all you’ve simply spent a little extra money. But if you don’t pay enough for something, and you end up with a product that doesn’t do what you want it to do, you have wasted all the money you spent.

When my father graduated from high school he was employed by J.Press in New Haven. One of his customers was a young Yale hockey star named “Spider” Vance.

Cyrus “Spider” Vance was one of the first customers to climb the stairs at 14 East 44th Street to wish my father good luck when Chipp opened its doors. Mr. Vance went on to serve as Secretary of the Army during the Kennedy administration and as Secretary of State in the Carter administration.

One day, when he was Secretary of State, he came in to fit two of the plaid flannel suits that were his trademark. Although I am sure Secret Service was lurking somewhere, he always came up alone. A customer was being fitted at the time, and he recognized Secretary Vance and offered to have our fitter stop mid-work—he had four suits to fit—so that the Secretary could move ahead. Cyrus Vance wouldn’t have it, “No. Please finish. I will wait my turn.”

We have had customers who were very short and customers who were very tall.  But none taller than Wilt Chamberlain.

Wilt “the  stilt” was engaged to appear in a shoe commercial. The commercial was to have men in business suits playing basketball. The tag line was that the shoes were so comfortable that one could play basketball while wearing them.  The 10 men appearing in the commercial were all retired NBA players.  Mr. Chamberlain was the featured star and Chipp was hired to make him a custom suit.

It was of course impossible for Wilt to be unobtrusive anywhere he went, but, still, he was very pleasant at every step in the project.  Not taken with himself in the least. (Through the years we had customers who had reputations within their fields as being very tough; but they were never difficult in our shop. We were their pleasure.)  Our fitter had to stand on a chair to take his measurement and to do the fittings. Before the final fitting our designer tried the jacket on to check the balance.  The jacket reached his ankles.

At the final fitting Mr. Chamberlain stood in the middle of the shop and tried all his basketball moves while wearing the suit. He told us how comfortable the suit was. Unfortunately the shoe company did not do as good a job making the shoes as we did with the suit;  we were told that when they went to shoot the commercial he couldn’t fit into them.

I still laugh when I close my eyes and picture him slightly bent at the waist with his arms spread standing next to our fitter who looked like a Lilliputian. I do not remember the name of the shoe company.

Winston Tailors is on the 5th floor of the building at 11 East 44th Street, across the street from the building that we owned at 14 East 44th Street.  Most of our original customer base have joined my father in the next realm.  For those still on the planet the fact that we have not strayed far from our birthplace makes it easy for them to remember where we are.

So where do our customers come from? When I last checked, there were very few people who would wander up into buildings to see if there might be a tailor on some upper floor.

There are two main sources of customers: word of mouth and paid advertising on the Internet and the yellow pages. 1. Word of mouth: customers who have dealt with us tell, and some times bring in, friends, business associates, and even relatives.  2.  Advertising: this is interesting because we advertise saying we do alterations. The individuals who respond don’t know us from Adam and have no idea that our real business is making clothing not doing alterations. (We do not have an inflated picture of our  place in the universe; if 1/100th of 1% of the businessmen in NYC know that we made all of President John F. Kennedy’s clothing, I would be amazed.) A man walks into his office and says to his secretary,  “I ripped my trousers. Find me a tailor.” All he cares about is geographic proximity. He rushes over and sees what we do, and some then order clothing at a later date.  But what is also important is he joins the word of mouth brigade.

Because we are small, we don’t need a lot of traffic to be happy.  Because we are custom tailors, we can do complicated alterations. And because we do our alterations in our workroom, we can often do simple alterations the same day. “Build it and they will come.” Do good work for your customers and they will come back!