20 - Hosni Mubarak's Italian-Canadian tailor

Bruno Lepore talks about himself. From the roman experience with Caraceni to Toronto

Talking about himself doesn't come easy to Bruno Lepore, tailor on St. Clair Avenue West. Words must be literally pulled out of his mouth, his reservation must be forced, all the expedients he uses to avoid the interview must be foiled. And in order to take some pictures of him, we have to wait for him to get distracted. "But I'm just a tailor," he says. "Why should my story be important?"
It is important, not only because Bruno Lepore is one of the few craftspeople left in a mass-producing society, but also because his is the story of a man in love with his job, the job he carries out in two small rooms at 1175, St. Clair Avenue West. In spite of this, he has some very famous customers. One among them is Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt.
"But I'm nothing exceptional," Lepore insists. "I do my job with a conscience, my customers are satisfied, they pay me and that's the end of it."
He doesn't understand that he represents the survival of an endangered species. Old-style craftspeople, those who make an object entirely with their hands, who love it even before it acquires a shape, who patiently adapt it to the customer's specifications.
"Ah, if it's only for this, I love the suits I sew. I start loving them since I purchase the fabric, Italian of course. And the fabric must immediately talk to me, transmit a feeling to me. Good suits, suits that fit perfectly without hindering movement, can only be made from a fabric with a personality. Let's take jackets as an example: many believe that jackets must have very wide sleeve junctions. They are mistaken: if the junctions are wide, when you move your arms the whole jacket moves. Essentially, a suit must be like a second skin. But in order to sew a suit, you have to love it first; it's not the scissors that cut it, it must be your soul."

Well then, Mr. Lepore, is yours an endangered species or are there chances for survival?
"No, no. On the contrary, I say that tailor craftsmanship, mostly Italian, survives right here in Toronto. Even more than in Italy. Do you know why? Because we tailors, but also barbers, who came here to Canada 30 years ago, had learned our trade in Italy and did not deviate from that way of conceiving our jobs. We could do it because the Italian style never disappeared; on the contrary, people looked for it with increasing frequency. They bought ready-made suits for everyday, but for more important suits they went to a tailor. Those, 90 percent of the time, were an Italian. That's why we survived."

There was demand, and there was supply.
"Exactly. Take barbers, for instance. One can have his hair cut by his wife: department stores sell a lot of gadgets. But if one wants to get that special haircut, he can only go to an Italian barber, like my friend Carmine Ranaldo, who has his shop next door. In the same way, if one wants what in Italy we called glove jacket he should not go to a department store: it must be tailor made."

Were you, Mr. Lepore, a tailor in Italy as well?
"If you please, I followed in my father's footsteps. My father was a rather well-known tailor in L'Aquila, where we lived. Since things were going well, he decided to make a tailor out of me. Initially I didn't like it, because the young are often rebellious. But later I became fond of this trade, and I went to Rome for experience, staying there for 10 years. There I had the luck of working for the famous Caraceni tailor's shop, on via Boncompagni. I had a piecework contract with them: a certain amount per item of clothing I made.
"The job gave me great moral satisfaction, because to work for Saraceni you had to be worthy of that name, but little financial satisfaction: I laboured for 60 or 70 hours per week, and my income barely allowed me to go on. At the time, I mean in the Sixties, craftspeople were not well-off. Meanwhile I had married Italia, and we had Roberto, then two and a half years old."

What then?
"One day, learning that Canada was looking for labourers, I went to a travel agency, filled out the paperwork for expatriating and came to Toronto. I left my wife and son in L'Aquila: I wanted to see how things were before having them come over. When I arrived here, I found a job in a factory producing ready-made clothing: it was neither an industry nor a tailor's shop. I wanted to be a tailor, not a seamster; there's a difference, you know. To cut a long story short, I was so disillusioned that I decided to go back. I had already bought the air ticket when a friend of mine, Roberto De Simone, told me that the famous Clark Eunson tailor's shop was looking for Abruzzese workers, because all their workers were from Abruzzi and they only accepted teammates from their own region.
"I called in and the owner, who was 99 at the time and yet kept selling and measuring suits, put me to the test. The test was OK and I was hired. I worked 36 hours a week and earned 110 dollars, a nice sum. I regained heart and remained. I had Italia and Roberto join me, seven years later Tina was born, and here I am. But I told you already: mine is an ordinary story."

Maybe it is, Mr. Lepore, but how come that among your customers you have also the President of Egypt?
"Nothing special. I have an Egyptian customer who lives here, and his brother is a friend of Mr. Mubarak's. One day my customer's brother came to Toronto and I made him a suit with a safari jacket. He was very satisfied, and when he went back to Egypt he spoke about me to the President, who had admired the jacket. After a while, I received Mr. Mubarak's measurements with an order to make three suits with safari jackets. I made them and shipped them to him. I was told the President was very satisfied."

But I know that among your customers there are businesspeople, industrialists, sportspeople...
"Yes, I won't deny it. People like Rey Adams, for instance, for whom I made 27 suits in one year, or like Mark Rush. Bay Street people. And then Anthony Blake, one of the Raptors. These are customers who appreciate a tailor-made suit, made with a good fabric."

Which means at least $1,500 for a suit, doesn't it?
"Let's say between $800 and $1,000, including the fabric: this is my average fee. But a good ready-made suit does not cost any less, you know. On the contrary."

When did you begin to work on your own, Mr. Lepore?
"After a rather unpleasant experience with an American partner. Not that he was a bad person, but you know how it is: often in a partnership you have a partner who does the slave work and another who looks on. So we separated and I went my own way. I rented these two rooms on St. Clair and I work here with my four workers. All of them Italians, of course. Because, I told you, we Italians still have a craftsman's way of conceiving our job. There are many great tailor's shops in Toronto, and many have Anglo-Saxon names. They're good, but if you visit them you'll see that their workers are Italian. Take Harry Rosen: the man in charge of tailor-made work is Francesco Pecoraro, a Sicilian, a very good tailor. Everybody calls him Sir Francesco, because he once owned a shop with that name, but he deserves that 'Sir' because of the quality of his work."

Out of curiosity, Mr. Lepore, why didn't you want to tell your story? Don't tell me it is ordinary: I found it interesting, because it is the story of a man who didn't want any kind of job, but his own job, the job he loves.
"Thank you for what you say, but I think about all the Italians who built Toronto, from its skyscrapers to its subway, to the CN Tower. People like me, but who had harder and riskier jobs, and who sometimes lost their lives. Those were real heroes. After all, I just sewed suits."
There is something Bruno Lepore, tailor by trade, underestimates: the valour of modesty, nowadays, is a very rare commodity. u

(translated by Emanuele Oriano)

Publication Date: 2002-12-22
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2195