The best businesses are ones with passionate people that enjoy sharing knowledge about their craft and take their customer relationships seriously. Yuri is an individual who has clearly taken great care in refining his art- twice as long as I've been alive might I add (around 60 years total). In addition to his independent tailoring business, he has spent years working at high end Italian clothing stores (ask him about it!)
When I came in to get my groomsman suit done he complimented the fabric quality and explained to me how it would behave with each alteration. We had an enriching dialog during the fitting process, discussion on how he could perform each modification to achieve the silhouette I wanted. Naturally he is knowledgeable on formal fashion and gave me advice on building my outfit including what to look for in good dress shoes.
When he sat me down to discuss pricing Yuri was gentle yet firm. What you are paying for here is not simply the labor but the wealth of knowledge accumulated from tailoring suits for over 6 decades. This is a man who knows exactly what his skills are worth and has self respect to never compromise the quality of his work. With all that said, the price was higher than average but still less than I expected for someone of his expertise. If you came in here thinking you could haggle and get a deal, I'm afraid you've missed the point. Take your business to the dry cleaner on the corner so Yuri can spend his time working for people who have a true appreciation for his craft.
Finally, you can tell that Yuri has a high level of respect for his customers by his time management. Once he accepted the job, "You will come back here on August 29th", he said. "And it will be ready." Every single other tailor or seamstress I've worked with has at least once not been ready when I came to pick up my clothes, telling me to "come back in a week" or "I'll do it today, come back later". Not very confidence inspiring when your tailor literally rushes to finish your clothes in a few hours. I came back to Werner's on August 29th, and true to word, my suit was ready.
For those who care about technical details, I only had him do the hem of the pants, but on the jacket I had him shorten the sleeves by about 3/4" and he did a really nice tapered pinch. I have lanky arms so this greatly improved the silhouette of the arms, and the taper was very natural from the forearm up to the armpit so it didn't stress the fabric at all. To improve the waist silhouette we decided on adding 2 darts in the back. This was more difficult and costly than taking in the rear seam, but doing the latter would have made the vent spacing look awkward and the fabric wouldn't behave naturally around the shoulders. I was apprehensive because the jacket was a double vent, meaning the rear panel looks most natural when it falls relatively flat, so adding darts would mean it would have a contour and be at risk of unnatural tension. When it came time to put on the jacket however, I was absolutely elated. Yuri simply nailed it. Both of us stared at the back of the jacket for a few minutes before he threw his hands up and declared, "It's perfect!" It was almost too good because I had to make sure not to outshine the groom. read more
