Measure of a Man (27 page)

“That’s fast, but we can handle it,” said Jay. “Get him in here and we’ll measure him up.”

“That won’t work. Michael doesn’t do Brooklyn.”

“How can we make custom costumes if we can’t, well,
measure
him?”

“Simple,” said Zaldy. “Michael is my size. You can measure me. If it fits me, it will fit him.” Zaldy was rail thin and looked about Michael’s height. “Here’s what I want to create,” he said, laying out sketches.

He needed silk and wool fabrics featuring metallic buttonholes with dangling gold chains. He said the lining should be red and feature pictures of Michael moonwalking. Also, he wanted a blue Italian silk suit with a tapered waist, two inches of shoulder padding, and slanted flap pockets and peak lapels. “Piece of cake!” I joked to Jay.

This was hardly our usual assignment. But then again, Michael Jackson was no ordinary client. The challenge of bringing Zaldy’s whimsical design to life excited our team. Zaldy has since gone on to work with Britney Spears, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Jennifer Lopez, and many other top musical talents. Judging from the creativity of his designs, it’s easy to see why.

We constructed a muslin mock-up. Zaldy flew it to Los Angeles and sent us back faceless pictures of Michael wearing the mock-up. The photos were extremely helpful. They allowed us to modify the design and reconstruct the muslin to better fit his form. Zaldy took the updated muslin back to Los Angeles and flew back with a new set of pictures of Michael wearing the muslin. In early June, Zaldy did yet another cross-country muslin run and returned with yet more faceless photos—eight in all.

In an all-hands-on-deck effort, our team finished two costumes with identical backups and shipped three of them to Zaldy
by the middle of June. Michael wore them at a rehearsal two days before he died. The fourth and final suit went out June 26, 2009, just hours after Michael’s passing.

We had hoped these would be the first suits we made for Michael. Instead, they were the last.

Sometimes films require that we make clothes from less-than-fortunate fashion periods like, say, the 1970s. Take, for example, the 1970s suits we made for Ben Affleck in the Oscar-winning film
Argo
. The film’s costume designer, Jacqueline West, wisely didn’t allow corny bell bottoms and super-wide lapels to upstage the film’s characters. Still, for Affleck’s character to look true to the times, we had to create some ’70s styles. The suits we made matched the era perfectly but are hardly considered great looking today. Still, I was pleased that Affleck liked the clothes so much he kept them. (Our apologies to Jennifer Garner.)

A similar thing occurred with one of the suits we made Al Pacino for his Oscar-winning role in
Scent of a Woman
. The designer sent cloth for one of Al’s plaid suits that was riddled with moth holes. When we pointed the holes out to the designer, she explained that they were intentional. The goal was to make the suit look old and worn. Thankfully,
Scent of a Woman
also featured some gorgeous suits that allowed us to dress Al stylishly. Given the film’s famous tango, we took extra care to create a suit that looked spectacular while still allowing Al to move freely for those all-important scenes. Afterward, Al said to me, “Martin, I’ve never danced in a suit like the one you made for me.” A terrific compliment from a terrific actor—and dancer!

Part of the challenge in making suits for movie characters involves giving the director and costume designer the look they’re after while also meeting a star’s individual preferences and fitting needs. In 2010, we worked with the always wonderful costume designer Juliet Polcsa to create the wardrobe for Russell Brand’s character in the
Arthur
remake. The film called for Juliet to style Russell’s clothes with an aristocratic Savile Row flair. Russell, however, preferred low-rise, tight, skinny pants and shrunken jackets. Our team worked hard to marry the two by creating elegant clothes that also embodied modern style notes, including custom-tailored details like working sleeve buttonholes that gave Russell the latitude to irreverently unbutton and roll up his jacket sleeves during scenes. His character also needed a jacket pocket large enough to accommodate a flask. We made all his clothes for the film save the Batman suit. Juliet received high praise from top costume designers for her work. In her gracious way, she said she “couldn’t have done the film without [us]” and called our company “a national treasure.”

One of the more encouraging developments in the evolution of men’s fashion over the last few decades has been the elevated style with which many professional athletes now dress. Lucrative contracts, around-the-clock sports channels, endorsement deals, and a competitive drive to outshine their athletic peers have propelled today’s sports stars to build serious and stylish wardrobes.

From LeBron James’s teal paisley tuxedo to Kobe Bryant’s ESPY Awards suits, we’ve hand tailored for the best. And not just basketball players. Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, boxing great
Evander Holyfield, and my very own New York Giants’ Michael Strahan, who has made us so proud by moving from an All-Pro football career to become a cohost on
Good Morning America
—Martin Greenfield has dressed them all.

Dressing athletes poses several challenges, not the least of which is that many of them are giants. But few are as large as the seven-foot-one-inch, three-hundred-pound NBA star Shaquille O’Neal.

We received a call from a sports agent who said one of his clients needed a suit. “I’ll have him in New York. You can measure him at the Four Seasons Hotel,” the agent said.

Jay and I entered the hotel room to find the largest man I had ever seen in my life. We had dressed the New York Knicks legend Patrick Ewing, but Shaq made Patrick look scrawny. When I shook Shaq’s hand, I came up to his belly button. He wore a size 58 suit, which required enough suit fabric to make a small tent. I needed a step stool to measure him properly. When I ran my measuring tape down the sides of his legs, I couldn’t take my eyes off his feet. “My goodness!” I said. “What size shoe do you wear?”

“I wear a size 22,” he said with a giant smile.

Sometimes our Hollywood work has influenced the styles we create for our pro athletes. Case in point: New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony. Carmelo, whom
Vanity Fair
has named one of the NBA’s top-ten best-dressed players, has a sophisticated fashion sense. Not surprisingly, he likes rag & bone. Jay measured Carmelo at the rag & bone showroom, and we’ve had him out to the factory for fittings as well.

Carmelo’s stylist asked me to help convince him to wear tails to the 2014 Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. “Here’s a picture of Steve Buscemi’s character, Nucky, wearing tails on
Boardwalk Empire
. Carmelo loves that show, so maybe if you show him that picture and tell him we can do something similar, he’ll go for it,” she said.

I smiled so wide I could have eaten a banana sideways. “You do know that we make all the suits for
Boardwalk Empire
, right?”

Her jaw dropped. “You what?! Wait, you mean all the suits the characters wear are ones you all. . . .”

“Every single one of them.” She couldn’t believe it.

When Carmelo came to the factory, I told him the old-school elegance of tails never goes out of style. “Carmelo, here’s a picture of the tails I made for President Clinton,” I said, handing him a photograph.

“That’s real nice,” he said. “But that’s President Clinton. He’s the president of the United States. He
has
to wear tails.”

“Trust me, Carmelo. We’ll do yours with a modern twist. All the clothes you love on
Boardwalk Empire
, we make those by hand. You’re going to love the tails we do for you. You’ll be the talk of the Met Ball.” Still unsure, he trusted us enough to show him what we could do.

We made Carmelo’s tails in a smart navy fabric. Just in case, Tod and Jay also suggested we have a made-to-measure navy tuxedo jacket ready in the event Carmelo didn’t like the tails. In the end, though, he loved the tails. His stylist outfitted him with dapper finishes, and Carmelo ended up being one of the most stylish men at the event.

The sports world’s frenetic pace forces you to get creative to find the time necessary to properly measure and fit sports figures. During our decade working with Donna Karan, Fox Football
approached us about dressing all of the network’s announcers, including Terry Bradshaw, John Madden, Howie Long, Pat Summerall, Jimmy Johnson, and James Brown. The producers said they would bring the whole gang together in Los Angeles for preseason preparations. We could come out then and take measurements. The session was pure insanity. Terry was being his usual joker self, Madden and Jimmy wouldn’t stop yapping, and the show’s producers had poor Howie on the roof of a building filming a skit while riding a motorcycle. Somehow we pulled it off and created looks each of them loved.

One of the sweetest souls in show business is Brooklyn’s own Jimmy Fallon, a true-blue New Yorker and a diehard rag & bone fan to boot. My rag & bone boys, Marcus and David, introduced me to Jimmy in 2009 when he got his first gig with NBC taking over for Conan O’Brien, whom we also dressed, on the
Late Night
show.

“Jimmy,” said Marcus, “I want you to meet the one and only Mr. Martin Greenfield.”

“Such an honor to meet you, sir,” said Jimmy. He had a sincerity and genuineness that let you know he meant it. I loved the kid the minute I met him.

“What kind of suits are your stylists putting you in right now?” I asked.

“It’s a lot of Italian designer suits,” said Jimmy. “They look good but the fit is so tight and uncomfortable that I can’t move around on stage.”

I thumbed through the rack of suits and saw all the usual labels and understood the problem immediately. I showed him a few of
our rag & bone samples. He loved the shorter jackets, higher armholes, and slender lapels. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I told him. “I’m going to give you this rag & bone look you love but with the comfort and flexibility you need each night to do your show.”

“That’s awesome.”

“I’ve seen your show. You like to jump around all over the place. You do that in those suits over there and you’ll break an ankle,” I joked. He laughed and said he couldn’t wait to see what we could do for him.

When Jay, Joe, and I returned for the fitting a week later, Jimmy was beside himself. After trying on several of the made-to-measure rag & bone suits we made for him, he knelt on one knee and started kissing my ring. “I’m not the pope, Jimmy. I just make your suits,” I said.

“To me, Mr. Greenfield, you’re the pope of fashion.”

When Jimmy got the call to take over for Jay Leno, he did the right thing: he brought the show back to New York like a good Brooklyn boy. He also put in an order with us for six more suits. Every time Jay and I visit him for a fitting, true to form, Jimmy kneels on one knee and kisses my ring. No ego, all class. Jimmy’s going to do a beautiful job with the new gig and make Brooklyn proud.