One of America’s Best Tailors Lives in Middle-of-Nowhere Maine
Tony Parrotti’s company name says it all. He goes by Tony. And he makes shirts.
Therefore, he runs Tony Shirtmakers. As the saying goes, it does what it says on the tin. Despite his meek-as-a-country-mouse moniker, Tony, 34, is something extraordinary in the American apparel industry: a young, small-town tailor who is not just staying afloat, but finding great, year-plus-long-waitlist success from his in-house studio in Damariscotta, Maine.
(I’ll call him Tony because everyone else does.) To his clients, Tony’s sly custom shirts—heavy linen westerns with mother-of-pearl snaps, chartreuse green oxfords with sly hidden plackets, thick canvas shirt jackets in slate gray—are the contemporary equivalent of a bespoke suit. Starting at $675, they’re something to invest in, wait several impatient months to receive, and wear weekly, if not daily. “I wanted to stick to one garment because I just wanted to get very, very, very good at it," said Tony.
“I personally don’t think that you can do that with all garments." America was once littered with Tonys: tailors operating tidy shops brimming with reams of fabric and paper patterns. These tailors knew every bend in their clients’ biceps, each awkward tilt of their shoulders, how their waistlines expanded over the years. But the dawn of department stores (and later online shopping) with their deep array of ready-to-wear clothes squeezed most tailors.
In 1997 the nation had 31,840 custom tailors and sewers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Today there are about half that number.
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