mayo

There are two types of menswear enthusiasts. The first are people who are passionate about clothes. The second are people who care about menswear only as an extension of their worldview. The second group often distorts the history of tailoring and the meaning of the suit to fit their reactionary politics, which is often about hating modernism. When you talk to actual tailors and shoemakers, you'll find people with all sorts of worldviews. I've known tailors and shoemakers who are conservative, liberal, and even communist. This isn't surprising because most of these people live in densely populated, cosmopolitan urban areas, where most people are liberal or leftist, to some degree. But when you read about the history of tailoring and shoemaking, you'll find a continuous strand of radical politics. In 19th-century Britain, many tailors and shoemakers were involved in Chartism and socialism. Shoemaker George Odger co-founded the First International movement with Karl Marx. Thomas Preston, a shoemaker who advocated for common ownership of land and democratic equality between the sexes, was one of the main organizers of the 1816 Spa Fields Riots. Tailors and shoemakers also made up more than half the people indicted in the Cato Street Conspiracy, which was a plot in 1820 to assassinate the entire British cabinet and overthrow the government. Many of history's most notable radicals worked in the menswear industry. Nicola Sacco — the Italian anarchist whose execution has become a lasting symbol in radical left politics — worked as a shoemaker. Emma Goldman — whose autobiography, Living My Life, has inspired many in the feminist and socialist movement — worked in a garment factory in Rochester, New York, where she made Ulster overcoats. Their place in history is not surprising, because many garment workers joined the labor movement because of how they were economically treated. In the years leading up to 1912, textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, grew increasingly frustrated with low wages and dangerous working conditions. Bosses at the time tried to segregate workers by ethnicity and immigration status. But when the mill owners cut wages, workers finally had enough. About 25,000 people representing 51 different nationalities banded together for a strike in January 1912. For nine weeks, these workers refused to go back to work. Mill owners tried to retaliate by ordering security personnel to spray workers with firehoses in the dead of winter, and for the cops and state militia to beat people with clubs. But the workers held out — united by their song, "Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!" (Hence why this is known as the Bread & Roses strike). They eventually won. In fact, US garment workers helped pioneer multi-ethnic labor organizing, uniting workers across racial, religious, gender, linguistic, and cultural divides. This sense of inclusivity and pro-labor sentiment continues today. On Savile Row, a group that calls itself the Quailors unites LGBTQ+ tailors and their allies from different backgrounds. There are two ways to identify with tailoring. One is through its clients, who, in the popular imagination, belong to a narrow social class: the British landed gentry, American patricians, and other members of the traditional white elite. (In reality, today's bespoke clients are often upper-middle-class professionals from much more diverse backgrounds.) The other way is to identify with the workers. In his book Nothing But The Best, Thomas Girtin describes these people as throughly working-class. They enjoyed getting drunk after work and singing while tailoring, often with songs that gently mocked their upper-class clients. In his bok, Girtin recounts a song written by Savile Row trousermaker Harry Zietz: Bill Smith was a tailor, a ‘prentice he’d been Whose work was as perfect as ever was seen He knew how to build up a front and to press A frock coat, a morning coat, lounge, or a dress For full forty years at the trade he had worked And during that period no job he had shirked But one fact his conscience continually mocked He’d not made a job yet that couldn’t be cocked! Chorus – Fol-de-rol-liddle-lol; fol-de-rol-lay; More collar-ology every day! Said Smith: “Now this frock coat I’m starting to make Will be absolutely perfection I’ll stake; Every point will be studied, the collar fit clean, The edges I’ll prick with a fifteen between." The fronts then he molded artistic and true He pinked it so much that his shop-mates turned blue A penny an hour were his earnings if clocked On this wonderful garment that couldn’t be cocked. Chorus – Fol-de-rol-liddle-lol; fol-de-rol-lay; No collar-ology encore I’ll say … (The song then takes an unexpected turn, as our tailor finds out he made the wrong thing) … the words that gave them a most terrible shock Were "I ordered a lounge and you’ve made me a frock.” (The chorus ends with) Fol-de-rol-liddle-lol; the theme of my song – No matter what happens the journeyman is wrong!