I have a tailor. I've never met him, never had him take a tape to my shoulders or my arms or comment on my girth. And yet, there he is. Please let me explain.
Several years ago, I got hooked on Hyde Park Oxfords over at Lands End. Really nice, thick oxford cloth shirts that could take an iron over and over again and not look terrible. And then they changed how they made them. Started making them of inferior fabric. Didn't last as long. Very disappointing.
I also like the label "Made in the USA". Now, I'm not a complete nut. One of my cars is made in Canada, the other, Japan. My shoes are made in Minnesota. Many of my electronic gadgets are not made here. My bandsaw and jointer are both made in the USA. My coffee, well my coffee is made all over. (I found a local roaster but can't seem to get my schedule and theirs in sync.) Still, there's something about the "goût de terroir" (taste of the earth) when you open a bottle of wine that was grown in the same Lake Erie watershed. (But I digress.) I am deeply disappointed that much of our nation's manufacturing has fled our shores. I buy my cars from Honda to thumb my nose at Detroit's arrogance and I buy my shirts from David Mercer because he has a shop in Maine. Well, that, and he makes a really nice shirt.
My last pink Lands End Oxford died a few weeks back (wore out too soon) and so I picked up the phone. David was on vacation at the time so I carefully left a detailed message and a week later he called back. "How about those Indians?" he started. (We live in Cleveland but I follow the Cubs.) "Just checking the measurements" and he read back what I'd ordered before. "Still want the half size on the sleeves?" My arms are weird, OK?!! He verified that I still wanted to use the xxxx credit card, he wished the Indians a better next year and gave me a hard time about my Cubbies. And that was it.
Soon, I'll receive a small package in the mail. It will have the most beautiful pink oxford known to mankind in it. It will have a hand-written thank-you note somewhere. It will have pins in all the right places and will be a joy to open (like an Apple iPod). It will fit. It will last (a reasonable number of years). And I will know, that somewhere in Maine, David and his crew are working on someone else's shirt.
So. I buy my shirts from a guy in Maine whom I've never met. He once replaced a blue shirt because one of the seams burst open. We never did determine if it was my cleaners or workmanship. He didn't argue, he just made me another one. I called him once and explained that although I work at a financial institution, I am a people-person technologist (the subject for another blog). I don't want to look like Wall Street. And he recommended a fabric for those days when I meet with the LOB. And I look great. Like a technologist who works for a bank (oops!).
So I may never have met David. But one of the reasons I buy my shirts from a little shop in Maine is that he treats me like he has run his tape from my shoulder to my wrist. I may just be another entry in his Rolodex but I'd never know that.
He's my tailor.
