About the service
I have spent eighteen years with sheepskin and leather under a walking-foot machine, and I take in the coats that ordinary alteration shops send away. Every job starts with an honest inspection, not with a promise. I hold the suede side up to the light, pull the seams apart with my thumbs, look at the elbows, the hem and the underarm where the hide always thins out first, and press the leather with my palm to see whether the crease springs back. If the skin is still supple and only the stitching, the lining and the zip have given up, the garment has another ten winters in it. If the suede crumbles under my nail like dry paper, I say so on the spot rather than take money for a coat that will split along the seams at the first hard frost.
Refitting is done from fresh measurements taken on you, over the sweater you actually wear in winter, and never from the pattern the coat was born with. Leather has no seam allowance to let out the way cloth does, so every change of shape is a genuine re-cut: I open the side seams and the sleeve heads, take the surplus volume out of the back and the armhole, move the pockets if they sit wrong, and shorten a long shearling into a hip-length or a car-coat length with the hem faced so it hangs exactly as the original did. Everything is sewn on an industrial machine with a walking foot and a Teflon sole, so the grain feeds without dragging or track marks, and the needle is changed for every new hide. Seam allowances are set with fusible web under a cold press; an iron never touches the face side, because a hot sole glazes leather in one second and nothing will take that shine off again.
The finishing work is a block of its own. I replace linings in full, sleeves and inside pocket included, fit proper metal zips and a storm flap, rebuild worn cuffs and frayed collar edges with carefully matched hide, reinforce the pocket mouths from inside, and clean and re-fat the suede so it stops drying out. One request: do not send a shearling to a general dry cleaner first. The solvents wash out the tanning oils, the hide shrinks a full size and turns board-stiff, the wool mats, and after that nobody can bring it back. Lining and zip take five to seven days; a full re-cut with cleaning and re-oiling, ten to fourteen.
Refitting is done from fresh measurements taken on you, over the sweater you actually wear in winter, and never from the pattern the coat was born with. Leather has no seam allowance to let out the way cloth does, so every change of shape is a genuine re-cut: I open the side seams and the sleeve heads, take the surplus volume out of the back and the armhole, move the pockets if they sit wrong, and shorten a long shearling into a hip-length or a car-coat length with the hem faced so it hangs exactly as the original did. Everything is sewn on an industrial machine with a walking foot and a Teflon sole, so the grain feeds without dragging or track marks, and the needle is changed for every new hide. Seam allowances are set with fusible web under a cold press; an iron never touches the face side, because a hot sole glazes leather in one second and nothing will take that shine off again.
The finishing work is a block of its own. I replace linings in full, sleeves and inside pocket included, fit proper metal zips and a storm flap, rebuild worn cuffs and frayed collar edges with carefully matched hide, reinforce the pocket mouths from inside, and clean and re-fat the suede so it stops drying out. One request: do not send a shearling to a general dry cleaner first. The solvents wash out the tanning oils, the hide shrinks a full size and turns board-stiff, the wool mats, and after that nobody can bring it back. Lining and zip take five to seven days; a full re-cut with cleaning and re-oiling, ten to fourteen.
