Behind the Seams
Paper City Magazine
January 2000

by: Carrie Cloud

Ah, we’d all love to have the leisure of flying to Saville Row, having an intimate meeting with a tape measure and, several months later, enjoying the suits of our prosperity, for a pretty penny. Now, imagine saddling up to your iMac in your pajamas at 3 am, clicking a few boxes and ... zoom! You have the same suit in a little less than 10 days, at half the cost. And the best bit is the brains behind the broadstripe: Robert Sakowitz. After walking away from the 1990 conclusion of the Sakowitz department store dramas, Sakowitz has since 1997 been in clever cahootst with entrepreneur Tim Belton. Their company, Express

Custom Tailors, a bastion of bespoke, opened this year in the dead center of suit city Houston’s Pennzoil Plaza
and made a heady expansion southward to Atlanta and the mega-established Rich’s men’s specialty stores. Of course, you’ll have to make a little effort upfront - standing like a scarecrow for 30 separate measurements, providing a few intimate desires (two or three buttons; single or double breasted, double-pleat, triple-pleat or plain-front) and being prepared to part with a reasonable $500 to $800.; At about 30 to 50 percent less than the cost of similar ; quality suits,

Sakowitz’s renderings are e-mailed to the company-owned plant in Cleveland Ohio, where cutters and tailors begin the weave within 24hours. Based on an innovative blend of today’s informational technology and Europe’s Old World tailoring precision, Sakowitz’s vision allows each client’s profile to remain permanently in the company’s system, enabling reorders to be as simple as deciding on fabric and cut.

Express Custom Tailors, at Pennzoil Plaza, 711 Louisiana. 713.356.9556

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