Imagine, having a brand new wardrobe every season without the toil of trekking from store-to-store looking for the perfect items. Imagine your new wardrobe not only fits perfectly, but is designed for just one person: You.
The Tailory New York, which opened late last year in NYC’s midtown, goes way beyond simple custom shirts. Founder Shao Yang caters to clients with a slew of complementary services in addition to tailoring, including personal styling and designing with the individual in mind. The result? A one-stop shop for a one-of-a-kind wardrobe.
The process starts before the client arrives for their first fitting. “We use social media to do a little bit of stalking,” says Yang with a sly smile. We look at the client’s Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts to see if we can get an idea of what kind of style the person has, so we are ready with options that are a good fit.”
With more than 10 years in the custom industry, Yang understands the subtle differences in how to dress for various industries: finance vs. law vs. real estate vs. creative jobs. Her background in fashion started at Parsons where she got her BFA in Fashion Design. School was followed by professional stints in fashion design, fashion styling, tailoring and brand development.
In the beginning of her career, Yang gravitated toward custom tailoring for men, but today the focus, she hopes, will be on designing and creating custom clothing for women. “Women’s custom has been underserved for a long time,” says Yang. “Lots of places make custom shirts for men, but not many places cater to women. We want to empower woman to reinterpret their professional look, and to look to custom clothing outside of the work place as well.”
With the services that The Tailory New York is able to provide, a woman can walk into the office or the boardroom alongside their male counterparts and be just as impeccably tailored—feeling confident and in control.
But what The Tailory New York can provide goes far beyond just work clothes. “We can do polo shirts, cargo pants, outwear… anything really,” says Yang. “And once we have worked with a client for a season, we can provide sketches for custom designed clothing for each season going forward, which we share with the client and discuss via Pintrest. A whole new wardrobe can be designed without a client setting foot in the showroom at all.”
In a quest for a perfectly fitting shirt, we went to The Tailory New York on a rainy evening in March, with no idea of what we were looking for.
Greeted with a glass of bubbly rose, Yang guided us though books filled with fabrics, designs and buttons. In about 40 minutes we were on our way.
A little over two weeks later we picked up our shirt: the styling and fit was impeccable and polished. More importantly, it was the most comfortable fitted shirt we have ever worn.
What else is there to say, really?
