This bespoke tailor is bringing custom-made fashion to Damariscotta
There is a new tailor in city, and though he discovered his trade in Brooklyn, the pieces he crafts are usually inspired by the Maine outdoor.
Given that 2014, Tony Parrotti has owned and operated Tony Shirtmakers, a bespoke shirt and jacket business enterprise that he and his wife, Laura Fraser, introduced to Damariscotta in July 2021.
Anything like a tattoo artist, every shirt or jacket Parrotti models is custom made-built in collaboration with the specific shopper, generating just about every garment a one particular-of-a-variety piece that reflects their own tastes as well as Parrotti’s creative model.
A great deal like a higher good quality tattoo, the price factors for bespoke clothing are steep and the wait around time for a garment can span months, but for lots of it is worth the wait around.
“It’s just … (a) quite discerning, assumed-out way to increase pieces to your closet and not have a closet filled with points. It is just the matters that you appreciate, and you adore them because you were able to create them from the get started,” Parrotti stated on March 29.
Prior to going to Maine, Parrotti and Fraser each labored in the New York vogue business for years. Fraser labored for a identify brand name vogue organization although Parrotti operated Tony Shirtmakers in Brooklyn.
Close to 6 or seven decades ago, the two of them commenced taking road journeys to Maine and quickly decided that they required to go to the state.
“Our prepare was to go to all these distinct destinations but we just saved heading back again to Maine and exploring Maine since it is so large and attractive,” Parrotti reported.
They’d initially thought that they would only have a summer months dwelling in midcoast Maine and operate in New York the rest of the 12 months. Even so, when the pandemic commenced in March 2020, the pair understood that they no extended had to are living in New York to do their jobs remotely. They started to glimpse for a home in the Pine Tree Condition and were fortunate enough to come across a residence near to downtown.
“We’re like … pinching ourselves that we dwell here each and every day mainly because … we’re so utilized to a very various everyday way of living,” Parrotti claimed.
When the pair built the shift to Maine, Fraser had attained 16 decades in style retail, merchandising and inventive path with a women’s design and style dwelling, and she made the decision that she preferred to move away from the earth of craze-centered style to companion with Parrotti total time.
“I was just all set to do one thing new, which was pretty frightening for me,” Fraser said. “There’s some thing really appealing about a modest enterprise and recognizing all people.”
In New York, Parrotti experienced workforce who targeted on manufacturing perform for non-public label models to deliver in supplemental revenue, but during spring 2020 quarantine he realized that he seriously preferred to concentration on creating every garment himself and engaging with each individual buyer he was creating a shirt for.
“I realized how important basically physically creating the shirts was to my pleasure as a business proprietor,” he explained. “Obviously there is a ceiling to that because I can only make so lots of shirts for each calendar year, but I also imagine that is what tends to make it specific.”
Effectively in advance of he’d even imagined of making apparel, Parrotti was fascinated in building a living with his art.
“I constantly wished to have my personal small business undertaking a little something creatively, and it did not surface that it was likely to be fashion until later on on in higher education,” he mentioned.
He began building shirts with his mother’s sewing equipment when he was attending the Parsons University of Style and design in New York due to the fact he could not discover clothes that he required to wear somewhere else.
However, Parrotti did not simply study how to make shirts from anyone else, he figured out by systematically deconstructing a shirt with a seam ripper, having shots and notes every phase of the way. He would then set collectively a shirt based mostly on that procedure, more than and more than again, right until he recognized improvement.
Soon after Parrotti acquired a business degree in layout administration, he labored in the organization aspect of fashion just before he took a position with a tailor who served him find out the fantastic finishes and competencies connected with becoming a formal shirt maker.
“For 4 yrs, I was fundamentally stitching three, four shirts a day. That’s how you get genuinely … fantastic,” he said.
After four yrs as the lead shirt maker, Parrotti commenced Tony Shirtmakers in 2014.
Credit score: Nate Poole / Lincoln County News
Parrotti’s basic design and style really much represents a mix of New York trend and Maine-influenced, out of doors-oriented utility. His dresses are made to be liked and worn in, relatively than exhibited or cherished.
“My shirts are large, weighty, they can just take a beating,” he said. “When people buy it, we’re normally like, ‘Don’t be valuable with it. You bought this, don it all the time. That’s what it’s for.”
Though Parrotti’s outfits are created to be overwhelmed up, he even now utilizes all of the strategies that are usually utilised to make a official shirt and he applies them to way of life parts like shackets, barn jackets, camp shirts, fly fishing jackets, and just about anything else a shopper could possibly fee.
“It can be worn someplace where by you want to glimpse polished but not as well dressed up, and it can also be worn … on a hike,” he reported.
Fraser explained that Tony Shirtmakers sources the greatest high-quality materials from all over the environment, usually concentrating on what a region is properly-recognised for. For instance, they supply moleskin and corduroy from London, wool from Italy, and denim and flannel from Japan.
“We’re choosing the most effective of the best for each specific kind of material, and that is I consider what elevates every thing,” Parrotti said.
Parrotti also takes advantage of deadstock cloth, or material which is no for a longer time developed, for a lot of his clothes. Deadstock fabric is incredibly one of a kind, old and very constrained in its availability, producing it particularly handy for individuals that want a jacket or shirt that could not be replicated anywhere else.
Parrotti and Fraser mentioned that they have customers that will appear to them from up and down the east coast that they linked with in New York, but they have also been delighted to come across a marketplace for their companies in Maine as perfectly.
“We’ve been super surprised and very grateful and enthusiastic that so lots of men and women in Maine have been intrigued in coming and getting shirts manufactured,” Fraser claimed. “We essentially have an individual coming from Maine just about every 7 days at the very least.”
With the summer months months forward, the few is thrilled to welcome again seasonal Lincoln County residents and introduce them to a new way of locating dresses. Fraser claimed that some have by now scheduled appointments months ahead of time.
“We just truly feel definitely grateful appropriate now that we’re dwelling off of making shirts and that we reside in stunning Maine and [that] individuals maintain asking us to make matters,” she stated.
For a lot more details about Tony Shirtmakers, go to tonyshirtmakers.com or stick to tonyshirtmakers on Instagram.
