What to expect;
your every visit explained
For your first commission, you will likely visit us 6 times;
5 of these are purely for fittings, 1 is for taking your measures, creating a colour profile.
Here is an overview of your expected visits:
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Understanding your tastes, personality and lifestyle and creating your colour profile. We will take your measures during this visit.
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First fitting
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Second fitting
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Third Fitting
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Fourth Fitting
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Fifth and often the last fitting
Are all steps required for every commission?
No.
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Creating a colour profile will not be necessary for future commissions.
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New commissions based on the same pattern require only 1 or 2 fittings.
This reduces your visits for future commissions to an average of 2.
Your time is valuable and we are highly aware of this. Our priority is to make your visits as productive as possible. However, we will never rush you nor the process. You and your garment will get our full attention at all times.
Understanding your needs
We begin the process with a list of questions to understand your practical needs.
For example, if you often travel by plane, you'll need more sleeve movement for placing your luggage in the planes carrier.
You may need more hip room in your trousers if you're spending long hours behind a desk.
We must understand these needs, regardless of your style or model. Bespoke garments are and must always be practical.
Your measures are taken at this stage.
Examples of questions we might be asking you:
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Do you often wear jumpers underneath your jackets?
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Do you change many outfits during the day?
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Do you carry any items in your pockets? If so, are these sharp edged (keys) or heavy (phones)?
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Do you keep your jacket on when driving?
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Which areas of your garments consistently wear out?
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Do you often wear turtle necks or other neck covering accessories such as ties and scarves?
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Do you wear suspenders (trouser braces)
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Do you wear boots or any other high ankle shoes?
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Do you experience bloating after eating?
Creating a colour profile
Do you look older with a blue scarf?
Colour analyses guides our use of colour and eliminates guesswork. It helps us understand which colours complement your natural features and which don't. Colours can have a remarkable impact on you. For example;
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Dark scarves emphasise a light hair colour
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Your eyes can seem darker in the presence of lighter colours.
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Colours that are similar to your skin tone can make you look older, while darker colours brighten your overall look by creating contrast.
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Colourful accessories reduce the formality of a garment
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Dark brown tones emphasise freckles while lighter tones mute them.
To make your colour profile, we will compare a range of colours against your hair, eye and skin colour. We discuss and note down our observations which we will use during the cloth selection process. How do you know which hue of brown to choose? Colour analysis provides an answer.
Your colour profile will be added to your personal commission page. This page is private and only accessible by you. Your colour profile is extremely useful when you're shopping on your own. It helps you build a wardrobe with colours that are unique to you.
Does this mean that I can't wear some colours?
No. Colours are subject to context. Their impact depends on the presence (or absence) of other colours and light; a blue jacket can look green in yellow lighting. If anything, colour analysis helps you to wear colours you usually struggle with.
Optical illusion demonstrating the impact of surrounding colours. All orange squares are of the same shade. A change in the background colour makes them seem lighter or darker.
Designing your model
In this stage we explore moods, styles and themes. We will present you a range of colours, photographs, fabrics and sketches to define the theme you're looking for and the direction you would like to take. Most clients enjoy this playful part of the process as it's less technical and more intuitive.
We will use our skills to translate your theme into a garment which you can wear with comfort and confidence.
Fitting your model
Based on your measures and figuration, we will draft your personal pattern that reflects your desired model. Once we have your pattern, we cut your fabric and temporarily sew it together by hand. This allows us to repeatedly try the garment on you and mark the necessary adjustments.
Fittings allow you to see your model on you as it develops. They give you a chance to contribute to the final result that we're creating for you.
Our fitting process can be compared to Reductive Sculpting, a method of sculpting that reduces the material to its final shape. Similarly, we begin with a fitting that is larger than your measures and final model. This allows you to understand the changes we are making as we pin away excess fabric and makes it easier for you to have input.
By starting with a fitting that is larger, we can pin away excess cloth and easily demonstrate the results. This leads to a deeper understanding of our fitting process and allows you to have input. 2-piece suit starting at £6500 excl. vat.
Finishing your model
After months of dedicated work (and patience), your garment is ready to be worn with confidence and joy.
Your final pattern will be used for future commissions and contains all the adjustments we made during fittings. This means less fittings for future commissions that are based on the same pattern.
Your suit cover will be made in-house. You can choose between a standard all canvas cover or one with a leather top. The cover size is based on your shoulder measure and garment length.
Your commission includes our signature hanger. The sculpted bronze wolf emblem of Akeilā hallmarks our passion for the creative process in the service of art and culture.
You can personalise the wolf emblem and choose between five patina options. The wolf is sealed with a layer of Renaissance wax, a special wax used for the preservation of museum artefacts.
This jacket tells the story of Pablo, the Spanish painter who impatiently wrote love letters in a small Latin café in London to his lover back home. You could tell if Pablo was in; the warm scent of Burley tobacco would give away his presence. He always carried a small book with him. It brought him closer to his youth and the sea, he once told.
Included with your hanger and handmade leather cover is a bottle of pure cedar wood oil.
To protect your wardrobe against moth larvae, put 2 drops of cedar oil in each eye of the bronze wolf emblem. Repeat this process every month. Leather cover sold separately starting at £1630 excl vat. Leather can be customised.
Enjoying your suit
Your garment will leave our workshop to become part of your life. We will help taking care of it by providing services such as pressing, cleaning and repairing whenever it's required
Most garments last 25+ years when properly taken care of. This means minimising dry cleaning, alterations and heavy pressing. Our priority is to create garments that express your personality and you enjoy wearing. With that in mind, we try to recommend fabrics with longer lifespans.
However, not all fabrics last long. Our job is to recommend fabrics that satisfy you. Only recommending military grade fabrics would limit our creative process and even take away the romance of wearing a garment out.
It's OK for garments to wear out. It's a sign of life. Have you ever entered a house where everything was covered with plastic and the only scent in the air was that of a cleaning chemical? Those spaces don't signal life and all its ups and downs. Life is only precious due to it being finite. The same goes for your garments.
