The Artful Gentleman is a couture suit line by fashion designer Jake Wall, who was inspired by Hong Kong's long established custom clothing industry. Having apprenticed in Hong Kong's version of Savile Row, designer Jake Wall is on a mission to bring handmade clothing back to the US.

Jake Wall - The Artful Gentleman

Justin Howard - How was that process of apprenticing in a different culture like Hong Kong?


How long were you there for? What was the experience like?

Jake Wall - The first time around I was just there for a couple of weeks. I took an extended vacation. Then I continued the relationship with them, continued to work with them on different things. I created my own items. We got to joking one day and they were like "You are not some much a client as you are a designer. You are incredibly particular and you make us work hard for things." From there we have continued our relationship, and by continuing the relationship we have continued my education. So my skill set has just improved and I am no where near as good as these guys who spend every day churning out suit, after suit, after suit. My space is much different in the way I play. It was definitely an immersive experience and continues to be now after three years.

Justin Howard - They make all of your suits now, correct?

Jake Wall - Right now they do about 70% of the overall work, yes.

Justin Howard - I have heard the design element in Hong Kong is very traditional, suit-wise, while is a very fast emerging young fashion designer community growing there.

Can you speak to that at all?

Jake Wall - Only in the essence of how we work with our partners. Our partners are very old school. I think they get it. They are an ethnically Chinese but Hong Kong-raised family. So they are very westernized in a sense. They definitely have the British influence in their tailoring. There is an aspect of Hong Kong that is emerging to be more of a designer element, going back to Hong Kong returning to Chinese control and seeing things settle out of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has maintained its position of quality and is, I think, cutting edge. I think cutting edge fashion, I think cutting edge styling.

The dust has settled now and it is still the quality of style. It is not the 'norm' of China which is just low quality and high profit. It still really is very much about the highest possible quality.

All of our fabrics, for example, are all Italian wool and Italian cottons with the exception of a few of our patterns which are New Zealand cotton. Beyond that we aren't dealing with anything you would see that is mainland China made.

Working with me, I have found that what they appreciate is my willingness to push the envelope and that also has created some interesting… cultural experiences… I will definitely say that. We make androgynous women's wear and we have pushed the envelope quite a bit with them. Doing the custom tailoring with people who have been doing this for 70 years, the history, they have a lot that goes into their culture as well.

A great example is that during my time in Hong Kong I wandered into the one gay bar and I remember being like, is that a gay flag? I found it with a friend. She was so excited and she wanted to go in and take a picture with someone. The guy was like no pictures, no one can know that I am here. It is interesting to work with a culture where perceptions are a bit different.

When we push the envelope and we are doing androgynous women's wear, they push back in the design process. We have pushed some comfort zones and envelopes, yet we have created some great items in the process of that. It really is interesting to see it happen because they are like "We need to put this over to the women's tailor" and I am like "No no no. We don't want the women's tailor on this. This is someone who is a woman, yes, but she wants a masculine suit so we need our masculine tailor to do it. We need our men's expert here."

There is a very big difference between women's wear and men's wear, in very basic terms of how we construct things. We also have different experts that are assigned different clients.

Justin Howard - That speaks to your core mission, that the 'Artful Gentleman' is aimed at reconnecting both male and female with getting a handmade suit for them.

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