Tailor Romualdo Pelle is Master of a Disappearing Art

Romualdo Pelle is a Master Tailor with a shop in Madeira, Ohio just outside Cincinnati.  The 73 year old Mr. Pelle has some big name customers from the business and entertainment world, including Neil Armstrong and his wife Carol.  Most of his work, from measuring clients and drawing patterns to cutting and sewing fabric, is done by hand, but he does use a sewing machine for the long seams on a suit’s arms and legs.  He says that his garments match his clients’ measurements to within a quarter of an inch and that he makes clothes to flatter the body since he understands his clients shapes.

The painstaking method of the master tailor, or “bench tailor,” as they are sometimes known, is a dying art in the U.S. There are only about a dozen master tailors left who are members of the Custom Tailors and Designers Association, the industry trade group, down from several hundred in the 1950s. The few hundred master tailors who aren’t members are probably well past retirement age, says Mark Metzger, the association’s president. The group had to cancel its annual “lunch with the masters” two years ago because most of the masters couldn’t make the trip to Las Vegas.  Read more about Master Tailors and Mr. Pelle at the Wall Street Journal.

Why don’t YOU learn how to make patterns using the easy step by step instructions as given in the variety of downloadable pattern making classes at PatternsThatFitYou.com.  By learning how to make clothing patterns according to a person’s individual measurements, and with a little practice in honing your skill, you could be the next Master Tailor the Wall Street Journal would be writing about.