The other day, my wife and I were counting the institutions that have perished in the last decade. “Coming home for lunch,” I recounted my father’s office calling ahead so that the meal could be laid piping hot as his car drove up to the porch. “High tea,” she added, though, in truth, I cannot recall my mother-in-law bothering herself with cucumber sandwiches or freshly-out-of-the-oven cakes, or with tea either, come to think of it, Irish whisky being more her style. “Honeymoons,” I slipped in, for being an over-rated indulgence. The list grew. Writing letters the old-fashioned way, family mealtimes, barber Sundays at home; joint families, homemade ice-cream and grandma’s pickles. Bucket baths and sleeping on open terraces. “Chinese shoemakers,” piped in my Kolkata-raised wife. “Tailors,” I chucked in for good measure. “Tailors,” my wife paused, “but you still have tailors.” “Hush,” I hissed back at her, “you have designers, you have bespoke tailors, you even have personal tailors, but you no longer have ordinary tailors.”
The neighbourhood darzi as well as the sophisticated, upmarket master-cutter of gentleman’s clothes who we reverentially addressed as “masterji” is now obsolete, having been replaced by the trendy designer who you can only meet by appointment. That the designer has a team to measure your arms and chest, stapling swatches of fabric and sketching double breastcoats and skinny pants in the order book, suggests that his role is little more than that of a choreographer with an ensemble cast of hierarchy-conscious masterjis and darzis. “You’re right,” I conceded to my wife, “the tailor still exists, only, he got himself a different designation.”
He may be known as a designer but he continues to behave like the tailor of yore. I recently took a trip out of town especially to present my case before a bespoke tailor who seemed to have attached the sleeves from some very small person’s jackets on to mine. Unhappy about the fuss over short cuffs, the designer’s masterji heard me out, said “Tchah!” about the wastage of his time over such minor contretemps, the jackets were carried off to his workshop and have not since been seen.
People party with their doctors and their lawyers, they socialise with dentists and cosmetic surgeons; I have a designer who I keep summoning for coffee just so he’ll deliver. “I’m bespoke, my friend,” he tells me when I ask why the clothes he measured me for several months back haven’t yet seen the light of day. He prefers to deal with gentlemen who like gold embroidery and other doodahs on their lapels and sleeves, believing himself to be a couturist. Commissions I’ve got him for his customised wedding wear that should take him months to complete are done in a couple of weeks while he puts me “on hold for a few more days”. When I crib, he says he can’t stand nagging, he doesn’t want such cussed clients. “You deserve store-made clothes,” he dismisses my complaint that, like the fashion weeks, I present myself in summer for my winter wardrobe but can only hope to get my woollen outfits in the height of summer, when they’re totally useless. I’ve got him cake on his birthday, I’ve squared him over lunch, hell, I’ll even pay for his drinks — if only he’d be a little less bespoke and a little more punctual.