Interlude: Tailors

Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life.  This time with think about tailors and handy they can be when it comes to leather.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Fool Cow, a podcast about leather, kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I am your host. And this is another interlude the episode between episodes offered raw and unfiltered but with leather creaking, and lately I've been thinking about tailors. Now this is going to take a little bit of a setup, so I need you to kind of stay with me for a little bit.

Speaker 1: 0:30

On Instagram and this is primarily, I think, an Instagram thing I've started pretty regularly posting a little twirl video of 9 to 13 seconds when I am geared up and getting ready to go out to the social or go to the bar. And this started because, you know it's easier for me to take a video than it is to take still photos. I was like God, why am I trying to take a still photo of my gear when I could do a little twirl? And here's what's disheartening, right? So I do all this educational, all these educational videos. I put them on Twitter, I put them on Instagram, really deep stuff about leather and leather culture and fetishes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can do a really deep, meaningful video on Instagram and say it gets 8,000 views. I can spend 10 seconds twirling in leather and it'll get 30,000 views. So my audience on Instagram is definitely training me on what they want to see from me, and what they want to see is me in gear. Now I will often get comments about my gear, about how well it fits. Now we're getting a little bit closer to tailors, aren't we?

Speaker 1: 1:50

I have to say, part of that is that I do carry a nice load of body privilege in terms of being able-bodied, in terms of being to some extent cis, but I'm also a fairly well-proportioned body. And then, in addition, I have the economic privilege that allows me to train my body, which means I have the money to afford a gym and a trainer and high-quality protein to eat, and then I have a job that gives me the time to devote to the gym and to working out. The body that I end up with has just loads of different kinds of privilege that I have to acknowledge. That being said, there are, I think, maybe three items of leather in the leather closet that fit me the way leather fits me off the rack. The oxblood rough trade shirt, which everyone loves, that fit me off the rack. The long sleeve Mr S leather uniform shirt, which is, granted, very gorgeous, fit me off the rack. And then I have, I think, one of my black with white piping that I bought used. It's from Mailhide. That used to be out of Chicago. I got that at the leather sale at Mates in Provincetown. That fit me, no alterations needed, thank you. But it's actually pretty rare that things fit me off the rack.

Speaker 1: 3:18

There is a good chunk of custom leather in my closet. That's another reason why things fit me really well. I have one, two, three, I think three custom shirts. I have one, two, three, four, probably at least four pairs of custom pants. That's another great reason why things fit me so well. But the truth in the matter is the primary reason that things fit me so well is that I bring them to a tailor. The blue rough-trade shirt that everyone loves that's been tapered by a tailor and the arms were let out a little by a tailor. The green leather uniform shirt that everyone loves, that was tapered by a tailor. The gray uniform shirt that had the arms fixed by a tailor. My black uniform shirt with red piping, also touched by a tailor.

Speaker 1: 4:18

And I want to talk about how important I feel it is for leather folk to find a tailor. Now, historically I didn't know crap about tailoring until my ex Tom, who is my XXX. He was three relationships ago. Tom was an Aussie living in London. Some of you may know him because he had a beautiful mustache, huge cigar smoker, more leather gear than anyone I have ever known. But he also had a suit fetish and so he had a guy on Savile Row he had all his suits were bespoke, obviously, and he's the person who first introduced me to tailoring. While I was seeing him we were going to Cleveland Claw and both got CHP uniforms and that was the first time I brought something to be tailored. I brought it to just you know, I literally googled tailor and found little seamstress who are right near me and this little shop with seamstresses and they completely tailored that whole uniform for you, which is why it fits the way it fits.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Since then I have discovered the extraordinary value of having a good tailor this important, I think, for a few reasons. First of all, almost no one has access to a good leather couturier. There are no great leather tailors who can alter leather for you. So it's important for you to have resources that work that you can use. And the reason it's really important is because all clothes fit better when they fit better, and I don't care what type of body you have, If you're large, if you're small, clothes that are well tailored make you look better. They fit better because they fit better. They look better because they look right on you.

Speaker 1: 6:29

The truth is that clothing is often made as though people are cardboard tubes. Clothing is tube shaped. People, generally speaking, are not tube shaped. I happen to be wider on the top, smaller at the waist. Other people are smaller at the top, wider at the waist. That doesn't matter. In order for you to find, say, a leather uniform shirt that fits, either your chest or your waist is probably going to be big or small at the chest and waist. That just never really lines up, or lines up for very few of us. That's why you need a tailor, because the tailor can bring in what needs to be brought out. Bring in or bring out what needs to be brought out.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Now, the caveat here is most tailors the tailor that you're going to find in your local town they can only work with lighter weight of leathers and really heavy leather requires a special sewing machine. It requires, ideally, the seams are going to be glued. It requires a lot more labor and a lot more skill than most tailors are available to do. But I had a lot of luck, in part because particularly something with a shirt tends to be a thinner, weight leather, and actually Mr Regilio, who has amazing prices, and part of the way they do that is they use a thinner, lighter lamb skin or sheep skin leather. Tailors can work with that. So essentially, you can buy a really affordable shirt for Mr Regilio and get a tailor to your body and you've won. So to the extent that you're dealing, the one limitation you tend to be dealing with is what a tailor can actually work with in terms of the weight of leather.

Speaker 1: 8:22

I will say I swear I saw this on my Facebook. It might have been somewhere else Someone had gone to a cobbler to get their chaps fixed or altered. So cobblers great shoemakers another great resource. Because you should find a good cobbler because at some point your boots are going to need to be resold or rehealed. That's why you need a cobbler. Cobblers, because they're usually working in boot leather, are more likely to have some of the equipment that will allow them to work in heavier leather. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to be able to really alter your breeches, but if your zipper is broken on your chaps, they might be able to help you with that. So I recommend getting into good tailor. I recommend getting your leather tailored, because I don't care what your body shape is when clothes fit. You look better and they fit better when they are tailored. And if you need more, then I suggest finding a good cobbler who might be able to work on heavier items of gear. I can also say it feels a little weird the first time you go to a tailor with a leather uniform shirt.

Speaker 1: 9:38

But what I have found is that people are more than happy to accept any plausible story that allows them to get on with the normality of their lives. So when I walked in with a full CHP uniform, it was a costume, and if they pressed I said it's a costume for a fetish event. When I brought in a leather uniform shirt, fortunately they didn't ask many questions about that. But we live in a culture that has a lot more costuming. Now People are cosplaying. Halloween is big here in the United States.

Speaker 1: 10:13

There's no reason why you can't bring in something that seems quote unquote costuming and just say I need this altered. I don't find that people ask a lot of questions. I find that they're more curious because they're not used to working with something that looks like this. Now I have, certainly because of the overall privilege I carry in terms of. I'm not even going to unpack the entire backpack. Let's just say I have a rolling suitcase full of privilege. I can go in and say yes, this is a leather uniform shirt, it's a fetish thing. Please just alter it for me. So I do have that amount of privilege. But if you don't, you just need to come up with some plausible excuse. It is a costume. That is a great one. It is for a play that I'm working on, that. I've been writing a play and this helps me get into the character. That's a great one. It is cosplaying, because this is from some obscure Japanese anime. That's a good one, right? They just need a story that satisfies their curiosity and then they can go on with their work.

Speaker 1: 11:20

In general, tailors are not crazy expensive. I will say my latest tailor, who I'm very happy with, is a little pricey, but I don't mind paying that again, rolling suitcase of privilege. I don't mind paying it because it gets me good work done, always within a week. But if you're concerned about price, if you're really on a budget, you might want to shop around a little bit. Notice that the alterations you're going to be doing for leather aren't.

Speaker 1: 11:52

It's not like getting a shirt made from scratch, right? It's more like you need, if possible, a seam taken out or you need seams taken in. That's all you're doing with leather You're taking things out or you're taking things in. I often have the sides tapered. Sometimes that also means removing some material from the back. I will occasionally have sleeves let out and that becomes very tricky based on how much leather there is to work with. But it's not so complicated and then it could cost that much. But when you are working with leather it is a skill and they may have to give it to a more skilled tailor who has a higher hourly rate. So I will say the most expensive alteration I think the shirt I had from Mr Regiglio. The shirt itself was like $120 or something. I think it cost me $80 to have that altered. I mean, really they were just. I don't even think they tapered it, I think they just let out the sleeves. That's the most I've paid, I think, for alterations A long time. It's about $40 to $60. Oh, no, wait, actually the green leather uniform shirt. I had that at another tailor. I remember that being really quite expensive.

Speaker 1: 13:06

So I want to recommend to everyone that you think about finding a tailor and that you think about having your gear tailored, whether it's new gear or old. This is also true. Ideally, if you had access to a leather tailor, so much more becomes possible. It's just really hard to find that. If you can't, then try to find a tailor tailor. If you have a leather tailor, oh my god, so many more options are open for something's not fitting having it altered, having legs opened, having things closed and tightened. I mean there's so many, so many more options, but the truth is there aren't very many leather tailors. I will say what's exciting is that I saw that La Claw LA Claw, also known as Leather Getaway is doing a leather making education track on how to make your own leather clothes. This is important because I feel like there's an extreme dearth of at least American custom leather makers or custom leather tailors or custom leather seamstresses or people who can work in leather. And not only is it exciting to think about people making their own gear, but man, if I had a resource list of four or five people that I could just mail stuff to them and they could do alterations. I would be really so much happier. So consider getting a tailor. If we're going to La Claw LA Claw Leather Getaway, which is happening next week over American Thanksgiving that is, the last weekend of November consider taking some of the leather making classes.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Other news I just wanted to share with you that I'm shifting. I think I'm going to be shifting some things with the podcast as a whole. So far I've been doing essentially two episodes every month. There's a full episode or an interlude every month, and that has gotten to be a significant workload to handle on my own and to do all the production and everything like that on my own. So I am to try to have my life friends, try to get together with friends, try to go on dates, try to go to events, try to play with people. It just gets to be a lot. I think.

Speaker 1: 15:24

Going forward, what we're going to do is have a two month hiatus. So the tentative plan right now is that next month's episode, which will be released the first Friday in December, will be our season finale for season two. A look back at season two and what was popular, and blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Then I will take a two month hiatus, so hiatus through January and February and return with season three in March. That is the plan. I just want to give you a heads up on that. That's the story. The story is that Instagram only wants to see me twirl in gear and doesn't want to learn anything from my Leather Educational Series. The story is that Leather that is tailored to you is amazing. The story is the podcast can be a lot of work, but I'm finding ways to balance that and the rest of my life. Certainly, I am grateful for all of you for listening to my podcast and for listening to this episode. I hope you're having a really, really joyful and excellent life right now and I will talk to you again soon.