Tailor's tips by Vitale Barberis:Memories of Tailoring

by Boyana Ivanova, 17 March, 2016

Vitale Barberis Canonico, one of the oldest woollen mills of the world, celebrates bespoke tailoring with the project Tailor's Tips, a series of 12 videos in which the master tailor Giovanni Barberis Organista, directed by Gianluca Migliarotti, tells what happens behind the scenes when a hand-stitched suit is created.

The twelfth episode of the online tutorials by Giovanni Barberis Organista is about memories of tailoring. This is last episode of the sequence of the tutorials.

The tailor will show the types of lining there were in 1914. It is shown a sample book for the "German Goods" company in Milan. Let's read through the book:

Lining for sleeves: all in cotton, because there were very heavy-weight fabrics. There were no linings of synthetic fabric so they lined sleeves with cotton, but while now they make them in two colours, back then they made them in fifty shades, dark, light, for all tastes.Some of the linings were made by silk, these will be invaluable nowadays. Some even made the linings of wool.

Tailor's tips by Vitale Barberis:Memories of Tailoring

Then there were hems for padding, horsehair, which today is much lighter weight, back then was very heavy, because suitable to the type of fabric they made.

Tailor's tips by Vitale Barberis:Memories of Tailoring

Then every tailor's shop also had fabric for shirts. Back then the collar was made, actually, they didn't make collars, there was just a neckband with a buttonhole at the front.
Collars were stiff, so they wouldn't wrinkle. Tailor's called "foucault" of this type of collars.

Tailor's tips by Vitale Barberis:Memories of Tailoring

We hope that we succeeded in presenting the craftsmanship of the Italian tailors. These online tutorials shows how important and difficult is to made a quality garment and what is the real meaning of made-to-measure clothes.