There is a new tailor in city, and though he learned his trade in Brooklyn, the pieces he crafts are generally inspired by the Maine outdoor.
Due to the fact 2014, Tony Parrotti has owned and operated Tony Shirtmakers, a bespoke shirt and jacket business enterprise that he and his wife, Laura Fraser, brought to Damariscotta in July 2021.
A little something like a tattoo artist, each and every shirt or jacket Parrotti models is custom-produced in collaboration with the person client, producing every single garment a a person-of-a-form piece that displays their possess preferences as well as Parrotti’s artistic fashion.
Significantly like a high excellent tattoo, the rate details for bespoke clothes are steep and the hold out time for a garment can span months, but for many it is value the wait around.
“It’s just … (a) incredibly discerning, believed-out way to include parts to your closet and not have a closet filled with points. It’s just the factors that you appreciate, and you adore them for the reason that you had been able to create them from the begin,” Parrotti reported on March 29.
Prior to relocating to Maine, Parrotti and Fraser both of those labored in the New York trend sector for a long time. Fraser worked for a identify model trend company though Parrotti operated Tony Shirtmakers in Brooklyn.
All-around six or seven a long time ago, the two of them started getting road outings to Maine and before long resolved that they needed to shift to the condition.
“Our prepare was to go to all these various sites but we just retained going back again to Maine and exploring Maine due to the fact it is so massive and beautiful,” Parrotti reported.
They’d at first assumed that they would only have a summertime home in midcoast Maine and work in New York the rest of the calendar year. Having said that, when the pandemic began in March 2020, the pair recognized that they no longer experienced to are living in New York to do their work opportunities remotely. They commenced to glimpse for a residence in the Pine Tree State and have been lucky more than enough to discover a property shut to downtown.
“We’re like … pinching ourselves that we live in this article just about every day due to the fact … we’re so applied to a pretty various day by day lifestyle,” Parrotti explained.
When the pair designed the transfer to Maine, Fraser had arrived at 16 years in manner retail, merchandising and inventive route with a women’s design and style home, and she determined that she required to stage absent from the globe of pattern-centered vogue to husband or wife with Parrotti total time.
“I was just ready to do something new, which was extremely terrifying for me,” Fraser reported. “There’s some thing definitely attractive about a smaller business enterprise and recognizing everyone.”
In New York, Parrotti experienced staff members who targeted on manufacturing function for non-public label models to deliver in supplemental earnings, but in the course of spring 2020 quarantine he realized that he genuinely wanted to target on earning each individual garment himself and partaking with each individual customer he was producing a shirt for.
“I recognized how critical basically bodily producing the shirts was to my pleasure as a company proprietor,” he explained. “Obviously there’s a ceiling to that simply because I can only make so several shirts for every year, but I also imagine that is what makes it specific.”
Nicely in advance of he’d even imagined of earning dresses, Parrotti was interested in earning a residing with his artwork.
“I always required to have my personal business enterprise undertaking a little something creatively, and it didn’t floor that it was going to be fashion until afterwards on in college or university,” he claimed.
He started out generating shirts with his mother’s sewing device when he was attending the Parsons University of Layout in New York since he couldn’t locate clothing that he needed to wear in other places.
Nevertheless, Parrotti did not basically discover how to make shirts from a person else, he realized by systematically deconstructing a shirt with a seam ripper, taking photographs and notes each individual action of the way. He would then set jointly a shirt centered on that procedure, about and in excess of yet again, till he seen improvement.
Just after Parrotti gained a enterprise degree in structure administration, he labored in the business enterprise side of trend just before he took a position with a tailor who assisted him study the fine finishes and abilities affiliated with currently being a official shirt maker.
“For four several years, I was primarily stitching 3, 4 shirts a day. That is how you get actually … great,” he reported.
Soon after four a long time as the direct shirt maker, Parrotti began Tony Shirtmakers in 2014.
Credit: Nate Poole / Lincoln County News
Parrotti’s typical style very a great deal represents a mix of New York manner and Maine-motivated, outdoor-oriented utility. His dresses are intended to be cherished and worn in, relatively than exhibited or cherished.
“My shirts are major, weighty, they can just take a beating,” he mentioned. “When people today acquire it, we’re normally like, ‘Don’t be important with it. You bought this, don it all the time. That’s what it’s for.”
When Parrotti’s outfits are created to be beaten up, he continue to makes use of all of the tactics that are usually utilised to make a formal shirt and he applies them to way of life parts like shackets, barn jackets, camp shirts, fly fishing jackets, and anything else a customer may well fee.
“It can be worn somewhere where you want to seem polished but not far too dressed up, and it can also be worn … on a hike,” he said.
Fraser reported that Tony Shirtmakers resources the optimum good quality fabrics from all in excess of the entire world, frequently focusing on what a place is properly-identified for. For occasion, they supply moleskin and corduroy from London, wool from Italy, and denim and flannel from Japan.
“We’re deciding on the best of the best for each unique variety of fabric, and that’s I think what elevates almost everything,” Parrotti reported.
Parrotti also uses deadstock material, or cloth which is no extended created, for plenty of his garments. Deadstock cloth is extremely exceptional, outdated and extremely restricted in its availability, generating it notably practical for individuals that want a jacket or shirt that could not be replicated everywhere else.
Parrotti and Fraser mentioned that they have purchasers that will arrive to them from up and down the east coast that they related with in New York, but they have also been happy to come across a market for their services in Maine as effectively.
“We’ve been super amazed and really grateful and fired up that so several folks in Maine have been fascinated in coming and having shirts made,” Fraser said. “We in essence have somebody coming from Maine just about every week at least.”
With the summer months in advance, the few is fired up to welcome back seasonal Lincoln County residents and introduce them to a new way of locating garments. Fraser reported that some have by now scheduled appointments months ahead of time.
“We just really feel seriously grateful ideal now that we’re living off of generating shirts and that we stay in lovely Maine and [that] folks maintain inquiring us to make items,” she claimed.
For far more info about Tony Shirtmakers, go to tonyshirtmakers.com or abide by tonyshirtmakers on Instagram.