Click the MP3 player below to listen to the part 1 of the interview with Luke Mays and Sean Mckee
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Click the player below to watch part 1 of the interview
Click Here to watch the entire interview lasting 20 minutes.
Raw Transcript:
Sean: Okay. Hey, this is Sean McKee here from Seanmckeeclothiers.com, and in today’s interview I’ve brought in one of the top fabric salesmen in the country with a company called Dormeuil, which I’m sure you’ve heard me write about and talk about before. One of the [?] in the world, and Luke has been in the fabric business – Luke Mays[Sp] – for 20 years now, and he is head of sales for North America. So Luke, I really appreciate you coming on with me today to talk and teach us all a little bit about fabrics and Dormeuil in particular. And I’ll just kind of give the floor to you so to speak, and let you take it away. So Luke’s in New York – he lives in New York, so take it away, Luke.
Luke: Thanks so much, Sean. It’s a pleasure to be here. So, the wonderful thing about Dormeuil is it’s a 170 year old family-owned business with a Anglo/Franco sensibility. Jule Dormeuil – who was Dominic Dormeuil’s great-great-grandfather, who was the very first man to import British milled fabric into France for the local tailors and local couturiers in Paris, therefore the family name represents that English milling – the very best milling in the world – with a French sensibility for design and style. So the combination of those two things is very unique, and Dormeuil remains the very last family-owned business that is completely dedicated to making luxury cloth.
Sean: Great. Do you want to – let’s go in here and talk about this Dormeuil Amadeus 365, this collection. We’re going to start with this collection right here, Luke?
Luke: Absolutely.
Sean: Okay.
Luke: Following the great success of Dormeuil’s Amadeus 10 ½ ounce cloth, we created Amadeus 365 in a lighter weight – it’s only 8 ½ ounces with a compact yarn in the weft, which allows us to weave the fabric even tighter. And again, because of that tightness of the weave, the weight is reduced. Amadeus 365 can be worn all 365 days of the year – hence it’s name – and we’ve found it very, very popular in North America, particularly in the southern states, and in California – where 8 ½ ounces is really a good weight right through the winter as well. In the Northeast, we’re still selling a lot of heavier cloths for the winter, obviously – it gets a lot colder, but again, for the warmer climates, 8 ½ ounces is a perfect weight for a suit all year round. With Amadeus 365, when you look at the unique designs, we typically only make four 70-yard pieces of each of these designs. That excludes of course, the solid colors, the navy’s, the blues, the blacks – but in these unique pinstripe design, chic designs, and turn-on-turn designs, we only make 4 70-yard pieces, so there will only be 70 gentlemen in the world wearing that particular design from Dormeuil.
Sean: Wow.
Luke: I’ve been making Dormeuil fabric – the most exclusive luxury fabric in the world.
Sean: That’s great.
Luke: Yes. Nothing we make is mass produced, and we recognize there are some wonderful brand names of fabric out there with fantastic names in the market and we certainly respect those names, but Dormeuil is quite unique in so much as fabric is exclusively made at our mill in England in limited quantities.
Sean: That’s fantastic. That’s a beautiful collection. I’ve sold a lot of that fabric in the very nice, lightweight, year round – as you’ve said, has a great hand to it, and great performance – clients love it. Do you want to go ahead and talk about the jacketing collection now?