The difference between being dressed and well dressed, between well dressed and Best Dressed, is not an unlimited budget and a purchase history at Hermès, although those are nice. The real clincher is fit. When the Best Dressed buys new clothes, they call their tailor. When their body changes or styles shift, back comes the tailor to nip in a bit here and lengthen a touch there.
One seamstress I know spends two weeks at the beginning of the summer in a client’s East Hampton guesthouse, whipping everything into shape for the season. Lars Nord, who’s been working on photo shoots and fashion shows for 30 years and just did alterations for the Chanel ad with A$AP Rocky and Margaret Qualley, says he sometimes goes to clients’ apartments “as a comfort … to give them a second opinion from someone who isn’t trying to sell them something.” Nord was recently called to do alterations for a television show and didn’t ask which one. “Toward the end, the stylist said, ‘This is something Carolyn would have worn,’” and Nord discovered the show was Love Story, and the Carolyn was Bessette. She and John F. Kennedy Jr. were clients of Nord’s in the 90s.
