When I travelled to Korea back in December, one of the places I was keenest to visit was B&Tailor. Because, like many people, I’d been impressed for years at what I’d seen from Chad Park and his colleagues, but hadn’t had the best experiences in Europe. The agent they worked with here hadn’t worked well, and it had left a good few people with bad associations.
Yet the work always looked good from afar, and Chad’s style came across well on Instagram – a combination of old-world influences and modern touches that created a genuinely distinctive look (something rare in the world of bespoke tailoring).
There is also something about following a tailor on the other side of the world that makes you a little unsure what’s going on. Is the work actually that good? Is it all just artful photography? We all know how easy it is to position a suit just so and make the fit look pin-perfect.
I’d heard good things from friends in New York, where B&Tailor do trunk shows, but there had been nothing in Europe to see in person. Hence my keen interest when I finally arrived at the shop in Gangnam, Seoul.
Gangnam literally means south of the river in Korean – it’s a very large area, not a neighbourhood. But the word does indicate something culturally, because this area is all essentially new development from the past 30 years. The river Han (above) is huge, and it took a long time for there to enough bridges for the south to be viable.
B&Tailor relocated five years ago to a new building in Cheongdam, the richest areas of rich Gangnam. The store is set a block back from the highway, which is dotted with sports cars and lined with designer-brand HQs. It’s like Beverly Hills if they started from scratch. And the money men were in charge.
The B&Tailor shop is quiet and modest by comparison, but still impressive. It has four floors, with the third the tailoring workshop. Chad’s father, Jung yul Park, who started as a tailor back in 1967, runs the operation here and while we had no language in common, he was obviously proud to show off the work.
In the 20 years since Chad and his brother joined the business – and gave it the style it has today – B&Tailor has expanded into quite a lot of ready-to-wear and made-to-measure.
I always thought of the RTW as not me, as I’d seen largely the jeans and chinos, which were more Italian in style – not made in the more robust fabrics I prefer. But there is more to it than this, as you can see from the online selection.
The tailoring is made to their house block and there is the kind of tailoring-adjacent designs we see from The Anthology and similar brands with their own tailoring: blousons, field jackets, safari jackets, often made in tailoring materials.
The made to measure is also an interesting option, given this is operated by stores rather than the B&Tailor team, so there is better access. It isn’t made fully by hand like the bespoke, but you get the B&Tailor style and that local connection. I’ve listed the locations and prices for MTM and bespoke at the bottom of this piece.
The bespoke tailoring is quite soft and comfortable, but style-wise is more influenced by Milan than Naples. Chad’s brother studied at Istituto Marangoni and Istituto Carlo Secoli, and that 1930s-50s elegance that influenced them is closer to Milan today than the south.
You can see this most obviously in the wider shoulders and body shape of the B&Tailor jackets, which have a generous chest and gently suppressed waist. But it’s most expressive in the lapels: wider shapes with larger notches, more horizontal peaks on the double-breasteds. B&Tailor were doing lower gorges before anyone else.
That extends into trousers and other clothing. Generally the trousers are higher waisted and pleated, and the shirts have longer point collars. Although Chad was keen to point out that most of these things can be changed – my mid-rise flat-front trousers would not be a problem, for example.
This openness and flexibility is key, I think. It’s all very well loving vintage tailoring, but you need to be able to adapt to a modern business customer, to work with their preferences on non-essential things, and to evolve over time. This is where livable style comes from.
“It’s interesting, you can really see how the customer has evolved in the past 20 years,” says Chad. “People prefer more comfortable clothes, which isn’t a problem, but they also prefer more casual ones, so they want well-cut knitwear and easy trousers alongside the suits and ties.
“Korea is a country that learns quickly – styles have evolved, but so has the craft. The standard of sewing is much better now than it used to be, as are the fabrics.”
I thought the latter point was interesting. It explains a lot about the appeal of Korean bespoke, as is something I’ve observed in the work I’ve seen – yet I don’t think has happened in the same way in similar Asian markets, such as Hong Kong or Singapore. Korea’s growth and luxury-fashion influence, as well as that keenness to learn, seems to have spurred a higher level of tailoring.
The jackets and coats I saw around the shop backed this up, and influenced my decision to have a double-breasted coat made with Chad. I was after a fairly standard navy DB, but with their style and in a great Fox cloth (CT10).
Interestingly, Chad used an old-fashioned method of measuring with elastic straps across the chest and waist. I’ve only seen images of this before, but it’s intended to set the position of the chest and waist to measure everything against, as well as to give a visual cue for the balance.
I’ll review the coat soon. In the meantime, I’m pleased to say that everything I saw at B&Tailor corrected my previous impression and assuaged any concerns. It’s an exciting place for bespoke tailoring to be coming from.
Bespoke details:
- Suits start at 4,000,000 KRW (£2360) in Seoul
- Abroad, prices are set by the partner retailers – in New York, Singapore and Beijing. Bespoke suit price in New York is $3800
MTM details:
- Suits start at 2,800,000 KRW (£1655) in Seoul
- Abroad, prices are set by the partner retailers – in New York and Singapore MTM suit price in New York is $2800
