The Coat Route Read Free

away from my travels in awe ofwhat talented, skilled people can do with fiber and cloth and thread, and envious of the satisfaction they must feel spending their days crafting beautiful things from scratch. They are
makers
, something that fewer and fewer of us can claim to be. And they wish for nothing more than to have the good fortune to be allowed to carry on. I wish that for them, too.

J
ohn Cutler looked up from his cutting table as Keith Lambert walked into his ground-floor tailor shop in the middle of Sydney’s high-rise financial district. Lambert, a strapping forty-three-year-old wine-company executive with the symmetrical, square-ish good looks of a TV anchorman, was impeccably dressed, as always. The tailor recognized the navy pin-striped suit Lambert was wearing as one he had made for him a few years back. The fit, Cutler noted with satisfaction, was still splendid. The shirt, too, was a J. H. Cutler creation of the best Sea Island cotton, and the tie—oh yes, he remembered that one—a luminous Stefano Ricci silk in an intricate blue-medallion print. Just right. Cutler greeted Lambert, who, as usual, was holding Rosie, his Jack Russell terrier. Cutler didn’t mind. He was used to the dog by now
.
    The tailor put down his heavy shears and invited Lambert into the consultation room, a clubby space with robin’s-egg-blue walls, tufted leather furniture, and an heirloom Persian rug. The paint color had been selected for its serenity and for the way it seemed to help quiet any twinges of doubt felt by clients as they prepared to spend large sums of money on themselves. The cut-grass smell of peony
parfum d’ambiance,
with which Cutler occasionally spritzed the air when he opened up in the morning, seemed to be soothing as well
.
    All around, little touches like the framed black-and-white nineteenth-century photographs of the original J. H. Cutler shop, the cylindrical glass case holding old ledgers listing some of his great-grandfather’sfirst orders, and illustrated books, featuring the Duke of Windsor and Cary Grant and other sartorial giants, confirmed for the men who came in to discuss their wardrobe needs that they were part of a glorious tradition. And, in fact, they were. John Cutler was the fourth generation to take up the family trade
.
    Lambert settled into the green chesterfield sofa, and put the dog down by his feet. Cutler thought his client was looking quite well, despite all he had been through. It was no secret that Lambert had had a difficult stretch. He lost his job as the CEO of Southcorp Limited, one of the largest winemakers in the world, when the board of directors—including Robert Oatley, his own father-in-law and the high-profile billionaire founder of Rosemount Estate wines—sacked him after profits nose-dived. It was the stuff of soap opera, a high-stakes family drama played out in newspapers and on the news. If Lambert didn’t talk about it, Cutler, of course, would never ask. There was an understanding between tailor and client; the relationship was not unlike that of doctor and patient, based, above all, on discretion and trust
.
    Lambert accepted the coffee Cutler offered—it was a bit early for scotch—and told him why he had come. He wanted a new overcoat. He was going to be spending more time in North America and needed something suitable for real winters. For the next hour or so, Cutler teased out Lambert’s vision for the garment. Before he suggested a style or fabric, he always tried to understand how his client was feeling and how he hoped to feel when he had the garment on. For Cutler, tailoring wasn’t simply a matter of disguising paunches or squaring off round shoulders. Sometimes it was about shoring up a wounded psyche, giving a man renewed confidence to take on the world—whatever the world was throwing at him
.
    “You fit a man’s mind as well as his body,” Cutler liked to say. “If you give the wrong suit to the wrong man, you fail as a