PRATT & PRASAD

Sartorial

Gustav Temple bespeaks a two-piece suit from bespoke tailors Pratt & Prasad, and finds that having a suit made reveals a lot more about the man underneath it than his sartorial preferences

“The conversation during the measuring is a distraction from the awkwardness of a man placing his tape measure across one’s most private areas, namely the embonpoint. Further distraction comes when Haddon seems to have become a chiropractor, repeatedly prodding me in the lower back. Is this some modern variation on rock of eye?”

s I meander along the fully gentrified

Aupper regions of St John’s Hill, Clapham, it occurs to me that seeing a tailor is like a mixture of entering a clothing emporium and visiting a doctor. When I relay this to Haddon Pratt, the tailor I am visiting, he concurs, adding that the tailor is not going to cure your ailments, only disguise them.

Haddon Pratt, Founder and Head Cutter of Pratt & Prasad, welcomes me at the door of his two-floor apartment on Huguenot Terrace, a grand Georgian building gracing the main thoroughfare north from Clapham Junction. Is it odd going to someone’s home for a tailoring appointment? Not when their home has been turned into a sartorial showroom and fitting room, with tailor’s dummies,

“Then Haddon produces his magic wand – a small cardboard cutout of a suit that, when placed over the fabric swatch, suddenly gives a much stronger impression of what it might look like as a garment. With a sudden sense of certainty, a 12oz black twill by Dugdale is selected. Haddon mentions one client who spent two three-hour sessions purely selecting his cloth”

piles of swatches and tape measures everywhere. The initial stage of the consultation takes place seated on tweed and leather sofas and is initially more like a counselling session. “What do you want from life, sir?” could almost be one of the questions, though not actually asked.

What does follow from the mouth of the tailor is a series of searching questions that delve into the heart of the matter of what one wants from one’s suit. After some deliberation on the couch, Haddon elicited from his client: “I want a plain black suit that I can wear to weddings, funerals and business meetings, and I would like it to bear some resemblance to the vintage ensemble I am wearing today.”

After half an hour of leafing through dozens and dozens of swatches, the selection is narrowed down to three. Then Haddon produces his magic

wand – a small cardboard cutout of a suit that, when placed over the fabric swatch, suddenly gives a much stronger impression of what it might look like as a garment. With a sudden sense of certainty, a 12oz black twill by Dugdale is selected. Haddon mentions one client who spent two three-hour sessions purely selecting his cloth. “For some clients, this is their first bespoke suit and they’ve saved up all their money for it, so they want to get it right.”

Thence to the lining. Another pile of swatches is summoned, ranging from silks adorned with skulls and farm animals to plain fabrics. Reader, I hope you will appreciate that I eschewed the former and selected a plain scarlet lining. A brief discussion ensues about how the client’s choice of lining reveals more of the true man beneath than the suit’s outer layer, bringing us back to the therapist’s couch.

And so to the measuring. Who doesn’t feel, while being measured for a suit, the weight of the years resulting in the figure under the tape measure? All those steak dinners, pints of ale, bottles of fine wine and delicious (at the time) canapes, all those occasions when going for a jog or setting foot in a gymnasium were the last things on one’s mind; they all reel into the memory like a near-death moment. Too late now, my friend. At least the result of all this is not death, but the new life that a bespoke suit can bestow.

While Haddon flies his tape measure around my ruined body, I ask him about his own suit, a rather natty violet single-breasted two-piece with peaked lapels that almost reach the shoulder seam, reminiscent of Tommy Nutter.

“This is one of the first suits I made for myself after going solo. I always build in these huge ‘take flight lapels’. I was trained as a cutter by Terry Haste, who had been head cutter for Tommy Nutter when he worked alongside Edward Sexton.”

Haddon hails from Redditch in the Midlands, where at some point most of his family had worked in the John James factory known locally as Needle Industries (the same needles they make are still used

on Savile Row today). Having completed a fashion and tailoring diploma, Haddon started his career as an apprentice at Canary Wharf tailors English Tailoring, whom he harassed every day until they gave him a job. There he learned coat making, then moved to the Disguisery in central London to work as a trouser maker. Through The Disguisery, Haddon gained exposure to Savile Row, and that’s where he met Terry Haste, who offered him a job as an undercutter. This was more like a traditional apprenticeship, with the qualification at the end of it (when the cutter decides his disciple is ready) being the ability to set up on your own as a tailor. Haddon waxes lyrical of his respect and fondness for Terry as his mentor, and they are still very good friends today.

The conversation during the measuring is a distraction from the awkwardness of a man placing his tape measure across one’s most private areas, namely the embonpoint. Further distraction comes when Haddon seems to have become a chiropractor, repeatedly prodding me in the lower back. Is this some modern variation on rock of eye? Turns out it’s Haddon’s way of finding out the true position of a man’s natural waistline: when the man nearly falls over while being prodded, he’s found it.

When it comes to style details, Haddon and I agree to refer to the jacket by its proper tailoring term: the coat. Lapel width merits a long discussion, my only stipulation being that mine should not be ready to take flight. Pockets and vents take us deeper into the minutae of tailoring. By this stage of the process, one has either placed one’s trust in the tailor or not. And I had, so took Haddon’s lead on the single-vent option with traditional straight, flapped pockets. I did however insist on a ticket pocket, which I genuinely use for rail tickets.

The question of inside pockets is always taxing. How many of us have acquired a vintage jacket, only to find that our various gentlemen’s appurtenances simply don’t fit in a coat made for a man who didn’t possess a field telephone, a bulky wallet full of plastic cards or a miniature kettle from which to consume nicotine vapour? We agreed that the coat would include one pocket of the exact dimensions to holster my vaping device.

Armholes are another facet of vintage clothing that clashes with modern sensibilities, and indeed temperatures. The middle-aged western male of the 21st century can be defined by always being too hot and always needing a lavatory. No amount of decent tailoring can fix the latter, but the armholes of the coat may be cut in such a way that there is plenty of room for the armpits to breathe, without sacrificing a clean armhole line. As Haddon explains, you can always go deeper but not shallower once the armholes have been cut, because naturally you can’t put fabric back on. During further discussion about the cut of the coat, we establish that I tend towards the drape cut of Anderson & Sheppard as opposed to the sharper lines of Huntsman. This Haddon chap really knows his Savile Row and such references are received with a nodding familiarity.

Trousers: flat-fronted, high-waisted, slant pockets, no turnups. There is of course a place for a pair of fishtail waisted pantaloons with button fly and turnups in a gentleman’s wardrobe, but my wardrobe is already full of those. Haddon tells me he is in fact currently making such a pair in a bold windowpane check, for a client in Switzerland whom he recently flew over to fit.

THE FIRST FITTING

The baste stage is a kind of cloth sketch of the suit one is bespeaking. It bears only a passing resemblance to the finished article, but this means that most of it can be adjusted, bar the choice of fabric. This is the moment where your swatch selection reveals itself as a half-built garment, and you can even catch a glimpse of the lining inside the pockets. I can already tell that this is the suit I wanted. It has the right shade of black, and the right weight of cloth to give it a decent drape. Haddon also adds that heavier fabrics require less maintenance. He mentions a dinner jacket commissioned in 8oz cloth for someone living in Bermuda. “Light cloths are beautiful, but they do need to be cared for,” he says rather sagely. “I only hope there’s a decent dry cleaner in Bermuda.”

The adjustments are made: a wider armhole here, a nip and tuck around the trouser there, sleeves lengthened to reveal precisely 3/4 inch of shirt cuff. The large baste stitches all over the coat will be replaced by fine stitching; they are only there to hold the whole thing together as loosely as possible, giving plenty of room for changes. Once, one of Pratt & Prasad’s new clients took a shine to the huge stitches and asked if they could be left on the pockets. Haddon and I both raise our eyebrows and sigh.

THE SECOND FITTING

Two weeks after the first fitting, I ascend the stairs to the room containing the nearly finished suit with nerves of steel. It is now too late for any major alternations. The suit I am about to try on is the result of a dialogue – dare one say a meeting of minds? – between client and craftsman, who were complete strangers only four weeks ago. Is this, I wondered, how Stevie Wonder felt when he was en route to hear the first mix of Ebony and Ivory?

First the trousers. An anxious glance south to ensure there is the right amount of break (there is), although this is one detail that can still be adjusted at this stage. The hang is elegant and unfussy, with a cut that is both fitted, yet aeons away from the ‘slim-fit’ spray-On pantaloons favoured by many young bucks today. The coat still has baste stitching all over it, but has been more or less finished bar the fine stitching. The drape is excellent, immediately making the vintage coat it was modelled on look tired and ill-fitting by contrast.

All those snap decisions made at the initial consultation are now made flesh: the angle of the pockets, the slight lift on the shoulder, to differentiate from the Italian natural shoulder. English tailoring, as Haddon informs me, is much more structured. The scarlet lining is superb, providing a discreet flash of Count Dracula when it falls open. Haddon proudly inserts my vaping device into its speciallly constructed holster and it fits like a glove, magically disappearing from view once the coat is buttoned, and having no effect on the drape.

We try it with and without waistcoat and the coat hangs perfectly either way. The suit overall has the effect of flattening down the silhouette, hiding all the sins of the flesh. As Haddon promised at the beginning of all this, he may not have cured my ailments, but he has done an excellent job of disguising them.

By way of contrast to my black suit, he shows me the half finished Edwardian ensemble he’s making for another client. A starkly cutaway coat with only one fastenable button in a bold Dashing Tweeds windowpane check of fabulous colours, with plus fours and a high-cut Edwardian waistcoat. The contrast between this and my two-piece black suit couldn’t be greater, proving that Mr. Pratt can turn his expert hand to everything at, and in between, these two sartorial extremes. n