Dissecting a Hickey-Freeman Suit Jacket - What's Inside?

[Zegnamtl]

Excellent work, nice pix!

Thanks.

 

[sho'nuff]

what's going on here? what is all this emergence of suit slashing threads these days? ive been not here in this forum for awhile and i come bak and everyone is sado masochists !

 

[amerikajinda]

Originally Posted by diorshoe

what's going on here? what is all this emergence of suit slashing threads these days? ive been not here in this forum for awhile and i come bak and everyone is sado masochists !

Well it seems as though a very touchy subject came up about how much handwork actually goes into a Kiton suit -- some thought (and had been told for years by trusted friends and those supposedly "in the know") that it was almost entirely handmade (it has to be, it cost $5,000!), while others claimed false advertising on the part of Kiton -- no way could it take more than 20 hours to make each Kiton suit because there was a fair amount of machine stitching involved. So a Kiton suit was taken apart and the insides were photographed - much to the horror of many - showing perhaps less hand-stitching than some originally thought... but then claims were made about the pictures being misleading, so offers were made to re-photograph the suit by a third party and roundtable discussions with tailors and clothing experts are scheduled (pronounced, "sheduled", mind you) to be held so as I understand it the suit is being sent "to the lab" for more pictures. The great Kiton Dissection got others thinking, "what's my Anderson & Sheppard look like inside?" and "what's my HF look like inside?" and "Is there more hand-stitching than machine-stitching in my Attolini/Bijan/Rubinacci/Brioni/Poole/Canali/Huntsman/Gieves & Hawkes/Caraceni/Gianni Campagna (which take more than 60 hours to make if you believe Gianni -- if anyone has a Campagna, please cut it open so we can verify the veracity of his claims)/Sartoria Campagna/Solito/Dege & Skinner/Napoletana/Battistoni/Knize/Sartoria Castangia/Saint Andrews/Belvest/Richard James/Norton & Sons/Kilgour, etc. or was it put together by robots? Or was it put together lovingly by humans guiding antique sewing machines? And if the sewing machines were themselves assembled by hand, then technically isn't it still considered hand-made?" Around and around the discussions went... the crowd becoming more and more agitated and whipped up into a proverbial frenzy where people just started tearing things apart to separate The Truth from false advertising claims and innuendo. (Many in the crowd were carrying pitchforks and torches - you should have seen it!)

Then people began questioning the gross indulgence of cutting up expensive articles of clothing for educational (or even entertainment value perhaps spurred on by mob mentality) when "around 2.8 billion people -- more than half the people in developing countries -- live on less than $2 a day and of these, 1.2 billion people earn less than $1 a day" so how in your right mind can you purposely ruin a $1,000 - $5,000 jacket when there are starving children in Africa? But then disclaimers started surfacing that the articles of clothing that were sacrificed were unwearable, had moth holes, were poor orphaned suit jackets, didn't fit and wouldn't fit any human on earth, etc. etc. And then someone made the astute observation that even had these sacrificed clothes been donated, they might have just ended up on eBay anyway, and thrift shops like Goodwill and Salvation Army are filled to the brim with clothes and there are tons of charitable programs that distribute these clothes to the poor and needy and besides, a Kiton isn't any warmer than a Polo University or a Men's Wearhouse suit and a Hickey Freeman doesn't afford any more protection from the elements than a Chaps Ralph Lauren or a DKNY suit and the supreme quality of the materials, subtle details in expert craftmanship, and the perfect fit of a house style Anderson & Sheppard versus an OTR Joseph Abboud or a Geoffrey Beene suit could potentially be lost on a poor person anyway, so...

But then somebody just went overboard and took apart a new Oxxford. Utter bedlam, I tell you! Hang on for the ride!

 

[lakewolf]

I knew this forum was insaciable and evil... after driving many of its members gay now it drives them sado-masochists

 

[amerikajinda]

A riot outside of Brooks Brothers when it first became known that BB Golden Fleece were mostly machine-made...

 

[Philip1978]

Originally Posted by lakewolf

I knew this forum was insaciable and evil... after driving many of its members gay now it drives them sado-masochists

Who went gay?!

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by DrCool1978

Who went gay?!

Conne.

Jon.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Originally Posted by imageWIS

Conne.

Jon.
Is that a list or a signiture?

 

[sho'nuff]

Originally Posted by amerikajinda

A riot outside of Brooks Brothers when it first became known that BB Golden Fleece were mostly machine-made...

wow, this is a great historical fact. thanks for the history tip.

and thanks for that exhaustive reply above. i knew all about it , just replied in that manner for affect. dang!

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by iammatt

Is that a list or a signiture?

 

[amerikajinda]

Originally Posted by diorshoe

wow, this is a great historical fact. thanks for the history tip.

Actually - made that part up about the reason for the riot! It was just a coincidence that some of the infamous New York riots took place in front of Brooks Brothers!

 

[Mark from Plano]

Originally Posted by designprofessor

"The Silence of the Lambs Wool"

I hope when you did this work you enjoyed a side of fava beans and a nice chianti.

 

[amerikajinda]

Originally Posted by Mark from Plano

I hope when you did this work you enjoyed a side of fava beans and a nice chianti.

and I had classical music playing in the background...