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THE CRAFTMAN'S SECRET OF GREATNESS

When I was much younger, I remember my father taking me to one of the nicest clothing stores I've ever seen -- Louis of Boston.

I never bought any clothes there, but I picked up their catalogue.

Louis of Boston gave me something much more valuable than their gorgeous clothes. Right in their catalogue was this story . . .

THE CRAFTMAN'S SECRET

Several years have gone by now since the day I learned the craftsman's secret. I was in Milan , writing an article on the great tailors, shirtmakers, and bootmakers that still thrived in Italy .

My first stop was to a small shop in the center of town, a shop famous throughout Europe for the luxurious quality and superior cut of its handmade shirts.

I introduced myself to the owner, an immaculately groomed gentleman in his mid-50s, soft spoken and terribly gracious. He showed me fabrics that would never have entered my most sybaritic fantasies.

The cut was a full poem: full without being sloppy, sleeves that tapered gently to the trim cuff, classic short- and long-point collars with just the exact amount of tie space for the knot. There was that sense of simplicity that only the purist really appreciates.

Need I add, prices were commensurate.

While we were talking, I noticed out of the corner of my eye an elderly gentleman, white haired and bespectacled, sitting on a high stool in front of a draughting-type table in the corner. My host caught my look. “That's my father,” he smiled. “Perhaps you would care to meet him?”

He introduced us, and I asked how long he had been cutting shirts. The son replied that his father had learned the art sitting on his father's knees, and as it happened, last week he had just celebrated his 84th birthday.

Might I presume to know, I said, what was his secret for being able to make such beautiful shirts? Is it, I wanted to know, that he has experience and the gift for it?

The son translated, and the father smiled and spoke slowly for a minute or two.

“My father says that you must excuse him, but he has no technical answer to the question. He says the experience is very important, and he is not sure about ‘the gift' because shirtmaking is all he has ever done. But he says that to make a beautiful shirt you just don't cut with the knife, you cut the cloth with love. My father is something of a poet, yes?”

To be sure. But it was the answer, nevertheless. As Thomas Carlyle blatantly put it, “There is practically nothing in this world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper -- and he who considers only the price is that man's lawful prey.”

The elderly gentleman knew very well the difference between art and industry. You care about what you are doing: That's the craftsman's secret!

-- from: Dr. Rob Gilbert with Joe DePalma

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