Adventures in Bespoke Tailoring

MichaelAy or something. I used to have a large cache of his photos. Had a public flikr like walker

I think that's the boi...

There was another guy AY...something or other I think, nice chap, engineer studdied at Cal Tech IIRC. Had a penchant for A&S or was it Tom Mahon DBs.......anyway it was that A&S style. Looked good in it too.
 
I think that's the boi...

There was another guy AY...something or other I think, nice chap, engineer studdied at Cal Tech IIRC. Had a penchant for A&S or was it Tom Mahon DBs.......anyway it was that A&S style. Looked good in it too.
Yes an asian american mahon client
 
MichaelAy or something. I used to have a large cache of his photos. Had a public flikr like walker

i posted these in the disagreeable thread under the friendcustomer name in early 2017, all london lounge cloth :
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Can you tell us about Frank: is he a nice bloke, how good are his suits?

Looks like he is a tough fella and would take no nonsense, be he seems passionate and has a really nice side to him, and you see it in this video shine through. He makes a smashing coat in this video.

Does he still makes suits?

I'll try to give you a neutral, non-controversial answer, as Frank is a controversial guy and I don't want to contribute more gas to the fire.

Frank cut 4 suits for me, two SB and two DB (sequentially, not all at the same time). I only met him in person in upstate NY as he has finishing the 3rd one, so most of the work was done remotely, via pictures, skype tests, and muslin fittings. I think he has a very well developed eye for non-standard physiques like mine, and knows how to capture that in his patterns, and the fact that he has been able to cut these 4 coats for me (the trousers he has someone else do) with such good fit all remotely, I think is a testament of the quality of his trained eye. He does everything himself, so while the fit is superb (I think, but you can judge in the pictures), the finishing of his suits lack, and his attention to detail is not great. I told him several times that if he had a finisher, his suits would be at a different level than they are at today.

On this, as on many other things, as you well know, he is very opinionated. He pontificates about old school techniques, about the craft, the cloth, other tailors (he is particularly critical of current Savile Row houses), and about customers. Some of it is part of the character and can be interesting and entertaining and amusing, some gets extreme and it rubs people the wrong way. It's fine if you stick to business, and I was quite ok with the banter and the criticism to others, but I know quite a few people who were "burnt" by the interactions with him, and won't interact with him anymore. Having said this, I learned a lot from Frank, and I really mean a lot. He knows his stuff, and can explain well.

Ultimately, I stopped working with him not because of his manners or opinions, but just because the remote operating model was not good enough, at least not at his price point. The suits always required some work here or there, and it became impractical to pay 100-150 bucks for UPS every time. He is also very much of the philosophy of "once the suit is out of the door, it's the customer's problem", and I ended up having one of my local London tailors "finish" his last 2 suits (alterations, pressing, etc.)

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I'll try to give you a neutral, non-controversial answer, as Frank is a controversial guy and I don't want to contribute more gas to the fire.

Frank cut 4 suits for me, two SB and two DB (sequentially, not all at the same time). I only met him in person in upstate NY as he has finishing the 3rd one, so most of the work was done remotely, via pictures, skype tests, and muslin fittings. I think he has a very well developed eye for non-standard physiques like mine, and knows how to capture that in his patterns, and the fact that he has been able to cut these 4 coats for me (the trousers he has someone else do) with such good fit all remotely, I think is a testament of the quality of his trained eye. He does everything himself, so while the fit is superb (I think, but you can judge in the pictures), the finishing of his suits lack, and his attention to detail is not great. I told him several times that if he had a finisher, his suits would be at a different level than they are at today.

On this, as on many other things, as you well know, he is very opinionated. He pontificates about old school techniques, about the craft, the cloth, other tailors (he is particularly critical of current Savile Row houses), and about customers. Some of it is part of the character and can be interesting and entertaining and amusing, some gets extreme and it rubs people the wrong way. It's fine if you stick to business, and I was quite ok with the banter and the criticism to others, but I know quite a few people who were "burnt" by the interactions with him, and won't interact with him anymore. Having said this, I learned a lot from Frank, and I really mean a lot. He knows his stuff, and can explain well.

Ultimately, I stopped working with him not because of his manners or opinions, but just because the remote operating model was not good enough, at least not at his price point. The suits always required some work here or there, and it became impractical to pay 100-150 bucks for UPS every time. He is also very much of the philosophy of "once the suit is out of the door, it's the customer's problem", and I ended up having one of my local London tailors "finish" his last 2 suits (alterations, pressing, etc.)

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Looks like he's a devotee of the power suit style...
 
Yup, that's his jam allright.

Well, to be fair, that's what I wanted. I've seen other stuff he's cut for customers and not everything is big shoulders and f*ck you lapels. But yeah, he says that's what he learned on 57th St., that's the old NYC school, etc etc etc.
 
Well, to be fair, that's what I wanted. I've seen other stuff he's cut for customers and not everything is big shoulders and f*ck you lapels. But yeah, he says that's what he learned on 57th St., that's the old NYC school, etc etc etc.

Aye, the 57th St style. Fioravanti et al..
 
Ha ha...yeah I remember now, the multiple fittings saga. Didn't RJMan do a similar thing...

These tales represent the best of times on the clothing websites....there was some right lunatic behaviour. LOL.

I used to love reading when Foo come in with a question - to which he had already decided the answer - and argue vehemently with anyone who had an opposing view.

And the amazing saga of the ten pairs of Ambrosia trousers at a grand each. I still don’t know if they were ever delivered. But the resulting online argument with Sr Ambrosi resulting in him calling Foo an “oval headed dwarf” - you just don’t get internet banter like that these days!
 
I'll try to give you a neutral, non-controversial answer, as Frank is a controversial guy and I don't want to contribute more gas to the fire.

Frank cut 4 suits for me, two SB and two DB (sequentially, not all at the same time). I only met him in person in upstate NY as he has finishing the 3rd one, so most of the work was done remotely, via pictures, skype tests, and muslin fittings. I think he has a very well developed eye for non-standard physiques like mine, and knows how to capture that in his patterns, and the fact that he has been able to cut these 4 coats for me (the trousers he has someone else do) with such good fit all remotely, I think is a testament of the quality of his trained eye. He does everything himself, so while the fit is superb (I think, but you can judge in the pictures), the finishing of his suits lack, and his attention to detail is not great. I told him several times that if he had a finisher, his suits would be at a different level than they are at today.

On this, as on many other things, as you well know, he is very opinionated. He pontificates about old school techniques, about the craft, the cloth, other tailors (he is particularly critical of current Savile Row houses), and about customers. Some of it is part of the character and can be interesting and entertaining and amusing, some gets extreme and it rubs people the wrong way. It's fine if you stick to business, and I was quite ok with the banter and the criticism to others, but I know quite a few people who were "burnt" by the interactions with him, and won't interact with him anymore. Having said this, I learned a lot from Frank, and I really mean a lot. He knows his stuff, and can explain well.

Ultimately, I stopped working with him not because of his manners or opinions, but just because the remote operating model was not good enough, at least not at his price point. The suits always required some work here or there, and it became impractical to pay 100-150 bucks for UPS every time. He is also very much of the philosophy of "once the suit is out of the door, it's the customer's problem", and I ended up having one of my local London tailors "finish" his last 2 suits (alterations, pressing, etc.)

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Thanks for sharing, l read it with much interest. Good to see what his suits are like. Franks sounds like an interesting bloke.

Looks like he's a devotee of the power suit style...

Those shoulders and lapels are great.
 
definitely a tailor for the big daddies

who was his tailor again?

Yep, Michael Ay's definitely looks like a tailor to BIG daddies.

Remember Smoothjazz?....he was a BIG daddy too, one of the biggest daddies on the net. Always had the best stuff long before the forums ever existed.

Absolutely the best of times on the boards. The crazy shirt maker from ask andy alexander kabaz. The shoo pyramid guy. Horace. Grayson, FNB before he founded his own message board. RJ man, the guy with 600 pairs of EGs, dopey, the old man from a suitable wardrobe, marc seitelman (who’d want you to tell the oxxford suit salesman his name) lots of characters

Remember Mr Moo? I never knew a guy who tried so hard to be an igent. He tried and tried and tried, but he just couldn't make it. He bought ugly John Lobb poo coloured shoo on sale to raise his status on the forums, and he bought Oxxford orphaned suit coats and Vass etc, and he set up photoshops to TRY and make him look like the in-crowd, but he could never pull it off. Remember when he wore casual shorts with oxford shoos and a Tweed type of suit coat with tie and a pocketsquare? Moo tried his little heart out. Moo was the type of lad l would have liked as a son, he was a nice lad, and he tried to jump on the bandwagon and raise his status, but he couldn't even become a small daddy let alone a BIG daddy. He didn't have what it takes, and he fell flat on his face over and over again. Ahh...l miss Mr Moo. I bet his wife was glad he left the forums, he probably acts normal now.

old Horace is still around, and so is Raj. Raj has grown up alot and l don't mind him now.

Last week old Horace wrote:
Old Horace said:
I was just looking through the ol' PM's and noticed the last PM I had from Brother Vaclav was about 5 years ago. But I get a nice PM with news from Trip Chauncey every year or so for the last 15 years. Which is amazing when you think about it. We're all still here, in one form or another I suppose.
 
l miss Mr Moo. I bet his wife was glad he left the forums, he probably acts normal now.

The poo-coloured shoes (I think they may even have been ostrich) with long socks, shorts and a suit jacket were hilariously awful. I remember that he also tried wearing a folded sock as a pocket square. Then there was the infamous deerskin bag. He was very proud of a new bag that he bought, as it was made from deerskin - except that it turned out it wasn't. He popped up again a while back and started buying some more expensive watches - a Patek, maybe something else - but I'm not sure if he's still around.

Perhaps Moo was actually carrying out a long-running work of performance art?
 
I used to love reading when Foo come in with a question - to which he had already decided the answer - and argue vehemently with anyone who had an opposing view.

And the amazing saga of the ten pairs of Ambrosia trousers at a grand each. I still don’t know if they were ever delivered. But the resulting online argument with Sr Ambrosi resulting in him calling Foo an “oval headed dwarf” - you just don’t get internet banter like that these days!

I don't think that The Foosta ever received his full complement of Bespock pents.
 
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May be for the best since he’s now seemingly moved on to Patagonia vests and designer leather jackets with chino shorts. Must look great in his 911. You reckon he sits on the yellow pages when he drives?

As an actual outdoor Patagonia wearer from the 80s on, it hurts my heart to see that clown in it.
 
I read on here (so it must be true!) that it was his missus who was funding all his bespoke adventures. I wonder what she thinks about hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tiny bespoke clothes gathering dust in the closet while he goes to work in a fleece.

And we may all laugh at Mr Moo but it was he who considered that Foo was “a dapper marionette”!!
 
I read on here (so it must be true!) that it was his missus who was funding all his bespoke adventures. I wonder what she thinks about hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tiny bespoke clothes gathering dust in the closet while he goes to work in a fleece.

And we may all laugh at Mr Moo but it was he who considered that Foo was “a dapper marionette”!!

If Mr Moo said that, then he is a man of insight and intelligence...
 
Shopping for some trouser tissue to go with linen blend jacket. Got a couple mohair mix samples, and I'm intrigued. IIRC ASSHAT ASSHAT maybe did a bunch of mohair? I've got loads of all weather mohair suits but never considered summer pants, curious if anyone has tried this.

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