A Tailor in Los Angeles

Mr James is a tailoring house at 221 Culver Blvd, Playa del Rey. We draw a paper pattern for one person, cut it, and have it made by hand in our own atelier in Southern Brittany, France. Suits from $1,795, full canvas at every price. We also alter and repair good clothes, at $80 an hour.

Robb Pollard founded the house in 2010 with Max, who has made every garment to leave it. It came to Los Angeles in 2015 and has stood on Culver Boulevard since 2021. Robb or Ben is in the room at every appointment, and whichever of them you meet first sees the garment through to the end. We dress women by the same method and for the same money.

Four trades go by the name tailor

Anyone looking for a tailor in this city will be offered four quite different things, and the first job is working out which of them the errand actually wants.

• The counter at the dry cleaner. Hems, a trouser waist, a sleeve taken up. Cheap, quick and adequate for what it is. Nobody there is looking at how you stand.
• The alterations workroom. A proper bench that will recut a jacket waist, taper a leg, replace a lining, reweave a moth hole. The right door for a garment you already own and like, and ours is on the alterations page.
• The made-to-measure shop. A standard factory block adjusted to a handful of your figures, with the chest structure usually glued rather than stitched. We do not make it, and the reasoning is on the made to measure page.
• The bespoke tailor. A pattern drafted from nothing for one body, cut and made by hand, fitted on you while it is still in pieces. That is the whole of what we do.

None of the four outranks the others. A hem does not want a bespoke house, and a wedding does not want a hem.

What happens between the measuring and the first fitting

This is the part nobody describes, and it is most of the work.

Your figures and three photographs travel to Brittany with notes on posture: a shoulder sitting lower than its partner, a head carried forward, a seat fuller than the chest would have predicted. From those a pattern is drafted on paper, piece by piece, each one drawn rather than traced off a block. The cloth is then laid, chalked and cut, which is the irreversible moment and the reason a cutter is paid for judgement rather than speed.

Then the jacket is built from the inside out. A chest piece of horsehair and wool is shaped and stitched in by hand so that it floats between cloth and lining instead of being bonded to either. The lapel is padded with rows of small stitches that draw a roll into it, which is why good tailoring curves gently away from the chest while a glued lapel lies flat and dead. The garment returns to us loosely basted in white thread so that it can be taken apart again, and that is what you first put on.

A fitting, then, is not an inspection. It is a working session on an unfinished thing, and the chalk marks made on you are instructions going back to the bench. Robb and Ben do the measuring, the drafting and the fitting; Max does the making. That division is old, and it is the reason we call ourselves a European house rather than a shop that imports.

How to judge the work when it arrives

You do not need a trade eye. Eight things tell you nearly everything, and a mirror will do.

• The shoulder seam ends where your own shoulder ends, neither past it nor short of it.
• The collar sits against the neck with no gap behind it and no ripple across the back.
• The lapel rolls, lifting a little off the chest before it turns.
• The two fronts hang level, and stay level while you walk.
• The sleeve follows the line your arm actually takes, slightly forward rather than straight down the side.
• Half an inch of shirt cuff shows beyond the jacket sleeve.
• The waist follows you, and the button still does up without strain.
• Reaching forward does not pull the collar off the back of your neck.

The first two are also the faults nobody can alter out of a finished garment, which is why they are worth checking before money changes hands. The rest can be corrected, and here they are corrected without charge for a year.

What the hour costs, and what the garment costs

Alterations are $80 an hour, usually a week. We look at the garment on you and say whether it is worth the money before any is spent on it.

A commission begins with the entry two-piece at $1,795. Add a waistcoat and it becomes $2,045. A dinner suit is $1,795 as well, an overcoat $1,200, a pair of odd trousers $450 and a shirt $295. In the finer mills the suit runs from $2,995 in Drago, $3,495 in Zegna or Holland & Sherry and $3,995 in Loro Piana. Half is taken when the cloth is chosen, the balance on delivery; a rush adds a quarter; a wedding party comes down by a fifth. Unlimited fittings and a year of alterations sit inside every one of those figures, and the making never changes between the cheapest cloth and the dearest. The longer account is on custom suits in Los Angeles.

Where to find us, and when

221 Culver Blvd, Playa del Rey, CA 90293, a storefront with free parking in front and behind. Monday to Sunday by appointment, roughly nine until six, with forty-eight hours' notice. The first hour costs nothing. If you cannot get here at all, we come to your home or office anywhere in the city for $300, cloth and all.

Questions we are often asked

Which kind of tailor do I need?

If you own the garment and like it, you want an alterations bench. If you want one that fits because it was drawn for you, you want a bespoke tailor. We are the second and we keep a bench for the first.

What does a cutter do that a tailor does not?

The cutter measures you, drafts the paper pattern, cuts the cloth and fits the garment. The tailor assembles it at the bench. Both skills are needed and they rarely sit in one pair of hands.

Why is a jacket basted in white thread at a first fitting?

So that it can be unpicked. A basted garment is held loosely together on purpose, which is what lets a seam be moved by half an inch rather than argued with.

Can a tailor make a suit I already own fit properly?

Up to a point. The waist, the sleeve and the whole of the trouser can be changed. Shoulder width and collar balance cannot, and anyone who says otherwise will disguise rather than cure them.

Do you work on garments from other makers?

Yes, from any maker, at $80 an hour. If something will not come right we would rather say so than take the money for it.

How many visits will a commission take?

Three for most people, counting the first consultation, and four or five for some. There is no limit and no charge, and nothing is decided on the day you first walk in.

Come and see us

The easiest way to take that free first hour is to book a private consultation. Telephone 310-503-3592 if nothing on the calendar suits, or write to mrjames@bespokemrjames.com. Wear fitted trousers or jeans and a close shirt, and bring the shoes you expect to wear with the suit.

More: bespoke suits and the tailor in Playa del Rey.