A truly bespoke service, Passagio Cravatte is one of those businesses that thrives from the advent of social media. You can see their work being done each day on their handle @passagiocravatte and then over the weeks that follow, how their customers wear their ties.
The owner, Gianni, from time to time follows us on Instagram and it piqued my curiosity a couple of months ago when I trawled his wall and was 'deep liking' some of his content. 'Deep liking' a cultural phenomenon in the years that followed Instagram, is trawling through very old content, sometimes going right back to the start. It's apparently a favourite pass time of stalkers and let's face it, most of us voyeurs following someone's account are to some extent stalkers.
So there I was looking back on his work when I found a burgundy and cream silk twill that I became instantaneously enamoured with. I reached out to Gianni Cerutti, owner of this small artisan label and he wrote back something which began with "Hello Dear" . It was off putting, but that's what you get with Italians from time to time. Something of a 'lost in translation' thing. Still, I was bent on having something made so I soldiered on.
I must add here, and this says something more about me than it does about them, that a few years back Gianni had upset some of his English customers and they trolled his wall so badly that it became something of a fappening. So, as I proceeded with my orders and winced at the emails, I already had some prejudice in the back of my mind.
To be fair, they never offered a set time to finish the work but I gave them a rough idea of when the work had to be finished by. As that date approached I became more and more agitated, mostly because they were unresponsive to email requests but the entire time they were not answering emails, you could see them working on Instagram each day on somebody else's tie. Alas, this is the conundrum of small artisan brands - everybody thinks - just like those that use lawyers - that they must certainly be their best client and entitled to round the clock service. It is my experience that bespoke often attracts all the special snowflakes. This was affirmed recently when I sat down with my shirt maker for lunch and he talked about some of the city workers that bust his balls over half a centimetre.
In my own brand, I often try to turn out custom work in 72 hours. It's one of the benefits of having a cutting table in my Studio and a dedicated seamstress who can receive and process orders sometimes in as little as three hours if needs be.
Donc, we arrive at the point where the customer is now frustrated and writing emails like some sweating madman and using social media to make a point. It wasn't right on my behalf and I offer Gianni an unreserved apology, because, when the product arrived this week, I was supremely happy.
We don't do silk twill. Not for bow ties anyway. Mostly because they don't provide enough body to tie a great knot. So for silk twill we only do pochettes and scarves, leaving that realm of printed silk ties to those that do them as their main source of income. Gianni has on file a great deal of them, all so very beautiful, classic, elegant, timeless in many respects. But what is more, he offers them hand-made and the very act of seeing your tie being cut, folded, pressed and slip stitched on his Instagram only adds to the charm of his small atelier which consists of himself and his wife.
I am honoured to now own two pieces of his work and if you are willing to put up with emails that start with 'Hello Dear' then you will find yourself pleasantly surprised by the end product and a small amount of wincing for a larger payoff.
Need a printed silk twill tie? Gentlemen, go directly to their Instagram and click on the link. I give them a thumbs up.
No comments:
Post a Comment