Yes, I'm serious. 😁 I'm watching videos on sewing, cutting, pattern making, alterations, and Reza's conversations with tailors or people in the tailoring business, and how to make a jacket, but who, exactly, is included inside the circle of tailors?

One of Reza's guests mentioned in his conversation that before he went to school to become a tailor, he considered the people in the back of the clothing department or dry cleaners who alter clothes to be tailors. So do I. He also was surprised that someone could and would earn a living making suits by hand. Again, so was I, so what makes a person a tailor? What job or skills would put them under the umbrella of Tailor? What gives them the ability to answer "I'm a tailor," when asked their profession?

It sounds like an easy enough question, but is it? If I had to define it, as an outsider to the trade, I'd say a tailor makes clothing for people to wear. However, people wear hats; are milliners considered tailors? How about someone who makes hijab or burkas? Are leathersmiths considered tailors if they make a leather jacket but not if the make shoes? The word clothing narrows the list by excluding accessories like jewelry, but what about bags and purses?

Of the conversations I've watched, everyone has attended tailoring school. That alone gives me a sense of what a person can do, but does it really? If I go to a dentist, I have a pretty good idea as to what he or she can do, meaning, I wouldn't expect a dentist to give me a prostate exam or ask a proctologist to check my teeth, but if someone tells me they're a tailor, well, hopefully you see what I mean. 😁

Maybe the answer is left to the employer. If I walk into a place called Professional Tailoring Ltd. and ask for a job, they might ask what tailoring school I attended. I give them a name, and they make certain assumptions as to what I know whether they are familiar with the school or not. If that's the case, what's their list of things they assume you know? Attending school might qualify you for the job, but if you don't have the right knowledge and skills, you might not keep it very long.

One thing Reza reiterates is House Style or "this is the way we do it here," which probably throws a wrench into the criteria of being considered a tailor, just like the use of fusable interfacing. With that in mind, I wonder what would happen if a well known and respected tailor of thirty or forty years walked into a tailoring school to see what and how students (the tailor's potential future employees) were being taught.

As an outsider, it's interesting to watch how Reza takes on the question and teaches tailoring. The analysis of the making process to create that course is fun to watch because experts in any field have a hard time maintaining high levels of discussion, since they're eager to dive into the details.

At 55 years old, I won't become a tailor, but I am enjoying learning about the trade, even if I don't know precisely "what" a tailor is. 😁