There's nobody more humbling than a tailor

There are a couple of events in the social calendar up-and-coming for one RDW. As I write I sit two weeks away from the wedding of a friend in Bristol. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, I’m not close enough of a friend to make up any part of the bridal party. As such, I get to become a spectator, free of responsibility, and even freer of libation. There is no prescription for my outfit - except that it be wedding-appropriate, and I’m choosing to wear a double-breasted sage-green corduroy piece that I first wore to a wedding a couple of years ago, back in the slender, if tumultuous, chaos days.

Crucially, when I went to try on the piece - coupled with a white shirt and brown trousers, I found that the Whitehouse waist had grown rather more than the Whitehouse jacket would allow for, and I surmised that I rather ought to have it taken out.

Fortunately again, my new home - just around the corner from my old home - is in close proximity with a tailor that I walk past regularly, and a small and smiley middle-eastern woman can be found sit at a sewing machine at almost any time of day. So mystical a figure is she that I have been wandering home from the station on Vyse Street late into the night, and passed by her light as she sat occupied by her trade. Such was her position when I walked in this afternoon, having been waiting for a gap in the rain that marked the end of summer, and the start of the wedding season.

I explained the issue, tried on the piece, showed her the buttons that were bulging and one that had become loose from it’s moorings, and she suggested we could move the buttons inward so that it was looser, as is the benefit of a double-breasted jacket. I tried the thing on and she took a walk around me with a scrupulous eye, tutting and shaking her head. When she had finished she gave me an appraisal of the work. In my mind it sounded as though she said “my, my, young man. How you have become fat and lazy in your peace (and indeed piece). No longer does this garment fit your immense stomach and generous bosom. Why, I shall have no alternative but to create a whole new coat for you, perhaps out of this sail cloth I have been preparing for the Lord Admiral. One of the larger main sails from the middle of the ship will have to be spared, as we may find no alternative.”

In fact she didn’t say anything of the sort, but suggested some opening up around the middle might feel more comfortable, that I should come back in a couple of days with cash.