Johannesburg - The nouveau riche might have money, but they don’t always have style and very few have patience.
It takes a certain class to realise that the instant gratification of buying expensive shirts off the peg just doesn’t match the true style of having them made to measure, believes Grant van den Berg, the founder of Frank Bespoke.
His company is one of extremely few outfitters in the country still offering made-to-measure shirts.
“It’s a lost art, a lost craft,” he says. And you can tell, he adds. “There’s not many men out there who know how a shirt should fit, believe it or not. If you’re wearing a well-cut jacket you need to show half-an-inch of cuff at the bottom of your sleeve,” he says.
“Guys buy shirts way too big so they’re billowing. A rugby player might have a thick neck and broad shoulders but a small waist, so if he buys a shirt for the neck size the rest of his body is swimming in it.”
Frank Bespoke is based in an office block near Melrose Arch in Joburg. The reception displays snazzy bowties and other accessories, while another room looks like a gentleman’s lounge, with a black sofa, black walls, and bottles of whisky waiting expectantly on a bar. Heads of mannequins are stuck on the walls like a bizarre version of hunting trophies. They’re displaying different styles of collars: club, where the ends are round instead of pointed, cut away, widespread, extremely cut away, and extremely cut away club.
Some hands stuck on the wall below them show different styles of cuffs, like single, double and notched double. “A notched cuff goes well with the club collar,” Van den Berg says wisely.
“We help you choose which collar you want for your style, your frame and the structure of your face,” he says. “I have a very round face so I can’t wear an extremely cut-away collar because that makes my face look rounder.”
Except he isn’t wearing a shirt at all, just a white T-shirt under a white linen jacket, with jeans, pale blue tasselled suede shoes and big, bold spectacles. His own taste turns out to be quite conservative.
He holds up a blue shirt with contrasting white cuffs and collar, and tells me this is the fashion. I remember my father wearing those, which proves that fashion repeats itself. “With shirts and suits we’re starting to go back to where it started with a 1920s resurgence of club collars,” he says.
One fashion that has changed is wearing a wing-tip collar to black-tie events where bow ties are de rigueur. Now you wear your bow tie with a normal collar or a club collar.
Wing tips are making a fashion resurgence, but without a bow tie. Van den Berg founded Frank Bespoke 12 years ago by buying bales of cotton and having some shirts made, which he sold from his Alfa Romeo like a boutique in the boot. Some customers struggled with standard fits and suggested he started making to measure. “By trial and error I got them made right. A bespoke shirt is a lot more intricate with the size of the stitches and the weight of the fabric.”
Shirts cost from R1 200 to R1 600, depending on the material, and once you’ve been measured, a paper pattern is made specifically for you.
“Guys want to be individual and they’re wanting to have more fun in the way they dress for work. They want to choose exactly what they want with the collar and the cuff, with the fabric and with a monogram of their initials.”
The Frank in the company name comes from Frank Sinatra. “I was going through a hectic Frank Sinatra phase and I wanted something quirky that people would remember.”
His clients are 25 to 65-year-old bankers or lawyers, with an even split between black and white.
It’s certainly cheaper than Savile Row, and the quality is just as good.
In Cape Town, you can get a handmade shirt from Neil & Danyal from R650, for a cotton and polyester blend with built-in crease resistance. The price is tailored for younger executives who like the crumple-free look when they’re going to meetings, says owner Farhat Danyal. Older clients and her British expat customers prefer pure linen, having the confidence to look ruffled. On the fashion front, Chinese collars are making a comeback, and black shirts are popular for evening attire.
Danyal’s shirts are made by a third-generation Pakistani tailor who doesn’t make paper patterns, but cuts intuitively by hand. Because good tailors are so scarce, they run a training programme for township kids and have sent several into the industry.
The shop in Sea Point offers a choice of 90 fabrics and 12 collar options. Collars are the backbone of the shirt, says Danyal, so they’re made stiff to hold their shape but slightly loose around the neck for comfort.
One customer had a shirt made with different colours for each sleeve, the cuffs and the collar.
Most people are less gregarious, and merely allow a colourful inner lining on the collar and their initials embroidered on a cuff to subtly show that they have their shirts handmade.
Details
l Frank Bespoke
3rd Floor, Melrose Place,
Willowbrook Close, Melrose North
Tel: 079 015 9623
www.frankbespoke.co.za
l Neil & Danyal
85 Regent Road, Sea Point, Cape Town
Tel: 083 650 3959
Sunday Independent