Michelsberg Tailoring
The Corona iceberg has been struck, and the good ship Victoria Quarter, is on her way down.
It’s ‘Lock down’ – to members of the public, verboten.
As I sit here at my desk, putting my business in mothballs, I am officially the last man standing.
Violin poised, bow in hand, I must serenade a sad farewell to you all, until the good times roll again.
But for now, this period is one of the biggest tests many of us will have to endure.
So this month saw the beginning of Brexit.
As an eighteen year old boy, I remember my father dragging me into the polling station in Bingley for my first General Election.
When I joked I was voting for Neil Kinnock, he entered my booth and to the gasps of poll workers, forcibly moved my pen towards ‘the correct’ box.
I didn’t really mind, and with the exception of watching “Yes Minister” and “The New Statesman” on the telly, my apathy towards politics remains the same.
It’s 6pm on a Sunday evening and I type this missive, sniffling in front of a log fire, wearing a dressing gown and sheepskin slippers.
Dear friends, it seems, to quote ‘Withnail,’ I have drifted into the arena of the unwell.
With a temperature over 39 degrees, there’s been more perspiration and sighing than in a Ron Jeremy production, but as your brave and stoic tailor, I’m digging deep, determined to have Christmas in good health.
Gazing wistfully into the flickering flames, a bottle of Night Nurse by my side, I can reflect back on 2019 and find many positives.
Heading into Leeds this morning on the train, I surveyed my fellow passengers with an air of melancholic despondency.
To a man, everyone was dressed in Anoraks.
More like a ski lift than a railway carriage, this huddled mass of high tech, zip-infested, shapeless Gore Tex smocks and goose down ‘puffer’ coats, left me mourning for the days when office workers dressed properly for work.
I’m not talking bowler hats, starched wing-collars, brollies and the pink pages of the Financial Times.
This month welcomed the Jet2Ski Snow report back into my inbox.
As a young boy, I first strapped on skis at a dry ski slope in Queensbury.
Howling winds, driving rain, and not a clue what I was doing, left me bundled into the passenger seat of the manager’s Triumph Spitfire, heading to the Bradford Royal Infirmary with a multiple compound fracture.
Time (and orthopedic surgery) is a great healer, so I decided to give it another bash in Chamonix and have never looked back.
What better way to spend a grey, wet Sunday with family, than a trip to the cinema to see The Lion King.
Snuggled into our seats, we contentedly munched away on popcorn, as Mufasa proudly presented his cub Simba to the animals of the Pride Lands.
How many fathers have stood on the touch line, watched their son score a magnificent goal, and wanted to raise them upon their shoulders and howl, ‘this is MY son, the fruit of MY loins, bend thy knee in his magnificent honour!’
This month, the Michelsberg social calendar hit a serious purple spot, when my friends, Paul & Jo Flynn, invited my wife and I to attend Royal Ascot.
The first, and indeed last time, I wore my bespoke morning suit was at my wedding, eleven years ago.
Cut and sewn by three tailors based in North Leeds, they were some of my earliest manufacturing partners when I launched my business.
The cutter, Barry, had a sign outside his atelier (wooden shed) declaring himself a “sartorial artist.”
My entry-phone buzzed, a mournful, ‘it’s Tim Parr,’ bewailed down the line, then the plod of heavy footsteps, culminating with a groan as he trudged into the Michelsberg showroom.
Partner at the financial services firm RSM in Leeds, and owner of several Michelsberg bespoke suits, I could see pain and anguish, etched all over his usually jolly face.
“Tim, what’s wrong?”
Removing a pair of tweed trousers from his briefcase, he pointed out a ragged hole on the thigh.
“Kaiser” Karl Lagerfeld, head of the fashion house ‘Chanel’ for 36 years, died last Tuesday.
His high, white collared shirts, black frock coats, swishing silver ponytail, dark sunglasses and cut-off leather gloves had all the dramatic swagger of a modern day Mozart at a steampunk festival.
The self-declared, “fashion nymphomaniac who never gets an orgasm,” was responsible for rutting the ten billion dollar life back into what was a near dead-in-the-water brand in the 80’s.
Eight days to go and ‘Dry January,’ penance for my considerable sins in December, will soon be over.
It’s not been easy.
Last week, I took Lindsay Taylor and Nicolas Guilbaud, directors of Savile Row cloth company, Holland & Sherry, out to lunch at Sous le Nez.
Watching Nicolas and their sommelier discuss the wine list, was a painful introduction into the world of masochism.
As far as alcohol withdrawal goes, I’ve had no, baby-on-the-ceiling, ‘Trainspotting’ moments, however, I did feel a welling of emotion, whilst watching ‘The Greatest Showman’ with my family.