Much rumour and speculation surrounds the mystical world of the tailor and we thought we’d make an attempt at finding out a bit more of the fact.  We were having coffee with an associate of ours a few weeks ago and he reminded us of the phrase “A tailor is a man’s best kept secret!”.

So, are you the sort of person that wants to keep us to himself?   Or do you prefer to shout about us from the rooftops?  To vote, click here now. The results will be in next month’s e-mail.

Firstly let’s start with the producer. The best wools come from Australia and Tasmania from sheep bred primarily for their fleeces. Ideally sheep farmers are looking to provide a fleece that has long, fine fibres as each bale will be graded by these factors and the appropriate ‘Super’ number applied. You may remember an earlier article on the Super Number system, but basically the finer the fibre the higher the Super Number. That’s why cloths at the higher end of the scale are more expensive – it takes a lot more animal husbandry and care to produce what is a rare commodity. Also the wool used for Super 120’s and above is taken from the neck and shoulders only and because the fibres are so delicate (believe it or not, these sheep get covered in rugs to protect their fleeces) the machines that spin the yarn have to run at very slow speeds to prevent breakages which all adds up to the exclusivity of the cloth.

The vast majority of the cloths we use for our suits are worsted wool, as opposed to woollen wool, and go through a number of processes to prepare for spinning (we will cover ‘woollens’ at a later date). The essential feature of a worsted yarn is straightness of fibre, in that the fibres lie parallel to one another. Long staple wool, that is wool with long fibres, is ‘combed’ to remove any fibres less than three inches long and to stack the fibres side-by-side from butt-end to tip. The result is then spun into worsted yarn which differs from woollens in that the natural crimp is removed in the process of spinning. Worsted cloths, which are woven in either a plain weave or twill, have great natural recovery, meaning that they are resilient and quickly return to their natural shape. Over time, and I’m sure we’ve all seen this, with use or abrasion the cloth can become shiny and that’s why we suggest that you rotate your suits on a daily basis to give it the opportunity to recover and to delay the onset of the dreaded shine.

And one last thing – the name ‘worsted’ derives from the village of Worstead in Norfolk which became a centre of yarn and cloth production after weavers from Flanders arrived in the 12th Century.

Isn’t it amazing how often we do something just because that’s what everyone else does? We may leave our ‘Metro’ on the tube seat because we saw someone else do it and therefore that makes it acceptable, or we stay with the same bank we’ve been with for the past 20 years because it’s too much hassle to change, even though it may save us money.

Well if you have you’re not alone, as we did exactly the same when we started Eveleigh & Read. Without really thinking about it we set up a company whose principles of operation were founded in those of our predecessors and competitors, namely, a business development model based on cold-calling prospective clients. But cold-calling is an uncomfortable experience for both parties concerned (which, let’s face it, is not an ideal way to start a relationship!) and it also takes up an awful lot of time which could be more productively used to provide an even better service for our clients. Besides which, everyone would rather deal with someone who has been recommended to them rather than getting a call ‘out -of-the-blue’ from someone they’ve never heard of, let alone met, before.

So, in January of this year, we decided to become a referral-based business. Yes that’s right, we resolved to never cold-call again and grow our business in the most natural way possible, by recommendations from our clients and associates. After all, what better way to advocate what we can do than through the very people with whom we already work?

That said, we’re not about to start press-ganging you into giving us the names of your nearest and dearest. If and when you come up with someone who you think could be helped by what we do, let us know who it is, and we can discuss how you think we should best approach them. That might be anything from dropping a business card in the post to them to a quick telephone call.

And as a thank you we’ve introduced a small gift for you for when that referral calls us and mentions your name….a £100 voucher for use against your next purchase when they spend a £1,000 with us in a year. One of our clients has already earned £400 of vouchers since January by recommending us to his colleagues! So don’t keep us a secret!