Bespoke Fashion: Consumers Are Returning to Tailoring and Sewing Machines

In the early seventies, the famous artist and visionary Andy Warhol bought a townhouse on Great Jones Street in New York and, a decade later, rented the second-floor apartment to his friend, painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Once a refuge for artists and bohemians, young philosophers, and stars of that time, it is now a kind of sanctuary, a reminder of the turbulent, inspiring New York cultural scene, and recently also the home of Atelier Jolie. Humanitarian and award-winning actress Angelina Jolie has placed her fashion business, or as Vogue reports, a creative platform where custom clothing is sewn and created, in this graffiti-covered building with a rich history. With this new business concept, which she introduced to the public last year, she plans to disrupt the luxury fashion industry.

Instead of influencers who fuel the mass hunger for trendy fashion pieces, Jolie celebrates artisans whose skills allow anyone to be a creator of unique clothing. They use fabrics from stockpiles and discarded materials to give the whole story a sustainable character. As Vogue noted, Atelier Jolie positively impacts the artisan scene, tailors and seamstresses whose work is often undervalued and unrecognized, but also stimulates discourse on labor exploitation and the damage fashion does to the environment. Although in the world of celebrities, Angelina Jolie‘s fashion brand is unique, it is also part of the bespoke fashion trend, where items are hand-sewn and tailored, and which is currently experiencing a true renaissance.

The Dark Side of Fast Fashion

Recently, among others, the British BBC wrote about this new, or rather revitalized old trend, stating that it is yet another niche business initiated by TikTok users. Thanks to their interest, tailoring has emerged from haute couture ateliers and become visible, omnipresent mainstream. Of course, somewhat older generations often sat at sewing machines and tailored clothes ‘from Burda’, but with the rise of fast fashion brands, that skill has faded. In fact, when speaking in the context of the fashion business, the matter disappeared from the scene much earlier. As the BBC writes, seamstresses or tailors have been a well-known figure in households around the world for centuries, individuals who dressed first the upper class and then the rest of the populace. They made clothing according to their customers’ measurements and also offered alterations and repairs.

Tailors and their clients lived in symbiosis until the invention of the sewing machine in 1830, which enabled mass production of clothing. A little over a century later, the introduction of a standardized sizing system spurred the rise of ready-to-wear, which then ceded the central place in the fashion business (for the masses) to the fast fashion industry. Somewhere along the way, custom-made clothing was pushed into the luxury domain, so the main associations for quality tailored clothing are brands like British Savile Row or Italian Brioni. However, in recent years, bespoke clothing has been experiencing a boom, primarily driven by increasing consumer awareness of the harmful impact of the fashion industry on the environment (textile production alone accounts for ten percent of total CO₂ emissions) and consumers’ collective efforts to live more consciously and sustainably. As the BBC continues, fast fashion was once celebrated and praised for democratizing fashion (offering affordable versions of pieces seen on fashion runways), but now much more is said about its dark side – from poor working conditions in factories, non-inclusive sizing to the enormous waste it produces. These issues are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. That is precisely why more and more consumers are showing interest in the ways their clothing is produced, as evidenced by the super-popular trend #SewingTikTok that emerged in 2021.

More Expensive, But Better

Under the hashtag that today has over 7.4 billion views, tailors and designers have gathered millions of followers with whom they share the process of creating their creations, offering tips and instructions on how to sew their unique clothing piece. One such sensation, the BBC reports, is Joe Ando, an actor and designer whose videos showcasing the entire process of creating and tailoring clothing have attracted as many as two and a half million followers. Initially, he made clothing for himself and his girlfriend, and today he has a long list of clients waiting. Buying from tailoring influencers like Ando or in artisanal fashion shops that offer custom creations may be more expensive than in stores like Zara or H&M, but it offers many advantages that manage to compensate for a few extra euros.

The first is, of course, quality, which also guarantees greater durability. Even if made from new fabric, rather than waste as is done in Atelier Jolie, it is a significantly more environmentally friendly alternative to fast fashion chains. Since it is tailored to measure and according to desires, it better reflects the personal style of the customer, which is one of the main roles of fashion and fashion brands (besides, of course, the fundamental function of covering the naked body). As the Fashion Innovation portal recently noted, mass-produced clothing comes in standardized sizes, so the pieces purchased may be trendy, but they do not fit everyone properly. Custom-tailored clothing fits like a second skin, manages to highlight attributes and soften flaws. A perfectly tailored garment transcends aesthetics and boosts the confidence of the wearer.

Tailoring often involves collaboration with local artisans, continues Fashion Innovation, thus creating a sense of community. By purchasing custom clothing items, consumers also support the local economy and preserve traditional crafts. Such a connection adds another layer of authenticity to each piece of clothing, and besides tradition, knowledge, and sewing skills passed down through generations, the shopping experience is also purchased. Unlike the queues in fashion stores, in tailoring ateliers, the customer receives full attention, which is why even those with somewhat shallower pockets feel like representatives of the upper class or celebrities who feel at home in the workshops of luxury fashion brands.

A Business with a Future

That this niche business has a future is also agreed upon by the WWD portal. They recently wrote about the slow fashion movement, which they believe will characterize this decade. In a similar way to how fast fashion defined the first decade of the 21st century, slow fashion will not only change the offerings of fashion players but also the relationship consumers have with fashion. They write that the industry has been pushing mass production and consumption for years, and now that fast fashion is out of favor, it opens up space for a more measured counterpart. Additionally, the pandemic has helped the new mantra ‘buy less, buy better’ to flourish, stimulating interest in products of greater value and durability instead of trendy, almost disposable fast fashion.