Far from the bourgeois hustle and bustle of the Square, set back in a cluster on Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge's own Fifth Avenue, lie three of the most amazing clubs in the world. Their initiation fee, a mere seventy-five to a hundred and ten dollars, is the only concrete barrier to membership. Their quarters are small but comfortable. Their purpose is neither exactly intellectual nor precisely social; it is to sell clothing.
Chipp, Press and Ross, Cambridge custom clothing's big three, have a unique business technique. The three-button-natural-shoulder-loose-fitting long coats which they produce are, in their eyes, works of art, and they should be sold as such. The ordinary good tailor won't sell a suit unless it fits well; he's a piker compared with the Mount A. Street trio. They won't sell a suit unless it fits the personality of the buyer. Every piece of clothing that goes out of the little brick shops is designed to fill a definite function in the wordrobe of its owner.
When it comes to a question of discovering tastes, more than a casual sales talk is necessary, so the shops have adopted their clubby atmosphere. A couple of comfortable chairs, a radio, and an engaging personality at the head of the sales force will sell more custom suits than the pressure of the more conservative stores. The salesman is such an integral part of the organization that when one changed stores a few months ago, his clientele went along with him. And when another was in the hospital for twelve weeks, his store sold three suits instead of the usual one hundred and fifty. Little conveniences, like fifty-yard line seats to football games, cashing checks, and bailing valuable sinners out of jail, all serve to keep the tailors and their "church school" clientele "a nice congenial group." This "congenial group" motto is the real secret of the custom tailor. It is a group made up of boys who have known each other as children, gone to the same schools, become even closer in college and who will stick together in the business world after college. Chipp, Press and Ross sell them blazers while they are still in school, follow up this acquaintanceship from the time they graduate till they die . . . and more often than not, a man has mortgaged his soul to the friendly tailor with the Glen Urquhart plaids, Vavasseur silks, and hand-woven Shetlands long before that day arrives.
If he has mortgaged his soul, it is because he has been hypnotized by fascinating visions of genuine, hand-woven Cashmere which comes only from India, Tibet and China; of sheep which live in the outer Hebrides on the Isles of Harris and Lewis, from which must come all real, native-spun yarns for tweeds. It is because he has known the mysteries of the notch lapel, the peak lapel and the semi-drape lapel. . . because he has heard tales to the effect that side-vents were originally made for grouse shooting, and has dreamed of fine virgin wool that has been stored on the wharves of Glasgow for over seventy-five years. But, most important of all, it is because he originally had the funds to invest in these dreams.
