The workroom
A cutter, a head seamstress, three more at the machines, an apprentice, a presser and the person at the counter who knows where every garment is. The workroom is upstairs; the fitting room, the bridal room and the counter are on the shop floor.
Apprenticed at nineteen in a Savile Row workroom, where he cut for eleven years, then a decade as head cutter for a Cardiff tailor. Opened Stitch & Press on Glebe Street in 2011 with one machine and a rail. Cuts every made-to-measure suit himself, does the jacket alterations, and still presses his own trousers every Sunday night.
Trained as a dressmaker in Porto, moved to Cardiff in 2008 and joined the shop in its first year. Has fitted more than eight hundred wedding dresses and runs the bridal room and the dress work. Brides ask for her by name; mothers of the bride ask for her twice.
Upstairs and at the counter
The workroom
Lockstitch, overlock, blind-hem and buttonhole machines, set up for each job, and a long cutting table by the window. Anything that shows is finished by hand.
Pressing is half of tailoring. Huw presses on a vacuum steam table with a buck and a sleeve board, so creases go where they should and shoulders keep their shape.
Every garment is ticketed at the counter with your name, the job, the price and the date, and hung on the rail for that day. Nothing is ever folded into a bag.
Joe is in the second year of a bespoke tailoring apprenticeship with Gareth. The trade only survives if somebody teaches it, and the workroom always has someone learning.
Most alterations and all dry cleaning need no appointment: come to the counter on Glebe Street and we pin it there and then, with the price and the ready-by date on your ticket. Bridal, made-to-measure and evening fittings are booked.