A few centuries ago, the only way for a respectable man to get a suit was to have it made to order. Today, it’s merely a way of perfecting it – to eliminate folds and creases, and to make sure the suit hugs the figure perfectly.
While it’s women who have a reputation for being obsessed about their looks, Kateryna Vozianova, 29, realized long ago that men, too, care about style. In 2009, right after the financial crisis, she took a gamble and opened an atelier to make custom-made suits with a single tailor. Today her Indposhiv employs 16 people and is expanding.
“We desperately need another cutter right now, we’re overloaded with orders,” says Vozianova, sipping tea in a spacious fitting room inside her shop. “At the moment we have 25 suits being made, that’s not to count other things like shirts.”
Indposhiv is an acronym for “custom tailoring” in Russian, which is exactly what this workshop does. It focuses exclusively on menswear. Apart from suits, they make coats, blazers and shirts.
But their biggest earner – making tailored suits – is also the priciest. Starting at Hr 10,500 clients can purchase perfectly fitting hand-stitched suits. For suits with up to 20 percent of machine stitching, prices start more modestly at Hr 8,500.
To explain the price, Vozianova shows a button loop. A machine would stitch it perfectly, she says, but all the stitches would be exactly the same size, while it is better to have them almost the same size, not boringly perfect. Plus, she explains, hand-made stitches make the suit more flexible. Thus, a client can lift up their arms without fear of tearing the jacket.
Prices for suits can rise if clients pick expensive fabrics. The most expensive suit in the studio’s history cost Hr 28,000, and was made of British wool and had diamond studding.
To place an order, the client first spends 10-15 minutes in privacy with a cutter, who takes measurements and listens to the client’s wishes.
“But it is not just about measurements,” says Hryhoriy Samodiy, a cutter at Indposhiv. “In that time, I must delicately learn all the disproportions the client has – for example, if one of his shoulders is lower than the other. I’ll note that down silently, and the client will never even know.”
It takes one month and three fittings to get a suit. The price includes lifetime service from the shop, which means the suit can be dry-cleaned, professionally ironed or even re-sized if the client gains or losses weight. “One of our clients lost about 18 kilograms, and we re-sized his suit,” Vozianova says.
Indposhiv has a number of tricks up its sleeve to make their clients feel they are getting special treatment. For example, the interlining of the front part of the jacket is made of horsehair, which is sewn on with tiny stitches. This makes the jacket a lot lighter than the cheaper alternatives that use fusible interlining.
Vozianova says there are about three studios in Kyiv, including hers, that can perform that kind of tailoring.
She may have inherited her strive for perfection from her father, Fedor Vozianov, a well-known designer in Kyiv who has won international recognition. He only specializes in women’s clothes, though. His daughter started her own business after a job at a multinational corporation and a stint as a business development manager for her dad’s company.
Apart from bespoke hand-made suits, Indposhiv has a cheaper alternatives: fitted suits, starting at Hr 6,500. But Vozianova says many of her clients consider a custom made suit a good investment, and go out of their way to get one.
“In post-crisis time we had some clients for whom the suits they ordered were worth a month’s salary, if not more,” she says. “For them it was clearly a career investment.”
The studio’s clients are mostly businessmen and politicians. Maxym Nefyodov, managing director of Icon Private Equity, has five or six suits by Indposhiv and about 30 hand-made shirts, and swears by them.
“Ready-to-wear suits hardly can be compared with custom-made ones,” he says. “Plus, shops here don’t give much of a selection. And the prices can be shocking. Ready-to-wear suits are supposed to be cheaper than custom-made, but with shops here that is not the case.”
But Nefyodov thinks that so far not so many people in Kyiv are fond of good suits.
“Brand name often matters more than real quality,” he says.
Vozianova claims she is trying to wean her clients off that bad habit. She says one client asked Indposhiv to use Brioni-branded lining for his suit. The studio refused, and persuaded him to go for real quality.
Spotting a good suit
Tips by Kateryna Vozianova, founder of Indposhiv atelier
1. No folds anywhere.
2. Full canvas jacket, with no fusible interlining.
3. Buttons are made of horn.
4. No fake decorative buttonholes on jacket cuffs. Cuff buttons must be functional.
Ukraine’s politicians are good guinea pigs when it comes to studying men’s suits. Vozianova says President Viktor Yanukovych’s expensive Brioni suits appear to be fitted, not custom-made, which makes them look far from perfect. Suits of Ukraine’s political dandy, First Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, are nice, but lately Khoroshkovsky has been wearing non-flattering colors. An example to follow is his colleague, Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Tigipko. His suits, Vozianova says, are definitely custom-made and fit very well.
“He isn’t a client of ours, at least not yet,” she says, smiling. “But we keep sending him little presents on occasions and hope to make a suit for him once.”
Indposhiv atelier
353-4182
48B Shevchenko Blvd.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at rudenko@kyivpost.com
