A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.
Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers, and similar garments, usually of wool, linen, or silk.
The term refers to a set of specific hand and machine sewing and pressing techniques that are unique to the construction of traditional jackets. Retailers of tailored suits often take their services internationally, traveling to various cities, allowing the client to be measured locally.
Traditional tailoring is called bespoke tailoring in the United Kingdom, where the heart of the trade is in London's Savile Row, and custom tailoring in the United States and Hong Kong. This is unlike made to measure which uses pre-existing patterns. A bespoke garment or suit is completely original and unique to each customer.
Famous fictional tailors include the tailor in The Emperor's New Clothes and Brave Little Tailor. A more recent title is John le Carré's The Tailor of Panama.
Read more about Tailor: Types of Tailoring, Related Terms, Tailor As A Surname
Famous quotes containing the word tailor:
“We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he can divide.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Kings and queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)