‘Master tailor’ suits some of city’s elite

North-side business caters to Pacers, CEOs

By Peter Schnitzler  IBJ Reporter 

There aren’t many tailors like Jin K. Lee around these days. In fact, there are only about 300 in the whole world.

 His trade is dying, but Lee’s Custom Tailoring is thriving, Catering  most frequently to CEOs and the Indiana Pacers, Lee is one of a dwindling number of people to earn the title “master tailor.” He’s an anachronism in today’s off-the-rack world. 

 Under his shock of gray-flecked black hair, Lee is an efficient tradesman, a throwback to a time of meticulous service and personal attention. Impeccably dressed, he has a pincushion on his wrist, a measuring tape around his neck and a thimble on the middle finger of his right hand. Every suit he creates takes 35 to 50 hours to measure, design and stitch. 

 Fortunately for Lee, customers are willing to pay handsomely for them. One particularly well-heeled patron even commissioned a suit with a special fabric featuring his own name stitched into each of the pinstripes. 

 The price? $9,000. 

 “I don’t want to sell suits,” Lee said. “I want to sell my skill, my technique.”

 That technique is a highly prized commodity. At 47, Lee is among the youngest master tailors in the world. He’s also among the last. Only 25 master tailors live in the United States. The dying trade has only about 300 members around the globe. 

 Born in South Korea, it took Lee decades to achieve his master tailor designation. Several more years’ toil made him a master tailor instructor, which means Lee can pass his skills on to apprentices. German Andrea Schwoch is one. 

 “I have the chance to see professionals,” she said. “It is the best thing that could have happened to me.” 

 Four employees stitch away in the narrow workspace behind Lee’s spacious store. English is not their first, or even their second, language. They share Lee’s careful attention to detail. 

 With shelf upon shelf stacked with fabric, Lee’s shop itself is welcoming for the well-funded executive. Customers can relax in the leather chairs, but Lee seldom gives them time, so quick are his measurements. Before a three-way mirror, he wastes no movements, quickly noting the length from shoulder to cuff or about the waist in seconds. He takes digital photos of each torso from several angles, to remind him how to approach a tricky fit. 

                With 2600 active customers, Lee’s prices start at $650 for a new suit. He also offers alterations at $25 per hour. 

                The shop is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but Lee keeps working long after the doors close, sleeping only two to four hours each night. He takes only one day a week off. 

                “I think he’s positioned himself to be one of the leading tailors in the whole Midwest,” said customer Donald A. Shuel, chairman and CEO of H.P. Products Corp. “It’s not necessarily the clothes. It’s the fit. You can buy the material anywhere. It’s the way he designs the goods to fit your body.” 

                Custom tailoring may be a dying profession, but Lee believes he has found a new way to breathe new life into it. In the face of mass production, Lee uses computer-aided design to shave time from the tailoring process. He still hand measures and crafts each suit, but now measurements can be permanently stored. And the computer spits out patterns in minutes that once took hours to draw by hand. 

                Syndicated host Chet Coppock of Sporting News Radio moved away from Indianapolis in 1980, but he regularly drives in from Chicago. Lee is one of the main reasons he makes the trip these days. At 6-foot-6, Coppock finds it difficult to buy clothes elsewhere. 

                “There is nobody in Chicago who is in this guy’s league. This guy is just stupendous,” Coppock said. “What I find most fascinating about Jin is he has a fascinating way way of synergizing your thoughts with that you think you’ll like and what he ultimately knows you’ll like.” 

                Lee’s prices might be higher than you’ll find at the mall, but Coppock said the quality is worth the additional cost. 

                “I can’t go $9000 per suit, but I would rather buy one from Jin at a fairly high-end price than find two suits and spend similar dollars,” he said. “I know it will last for years and not go out of style.”

Email: pschnitzler@ibj.com