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Jan 15,2006 - Jan 22,2006 |
20 - Hosni Mubarak's Italian-Canadian tailor
Bruno Lepore talks about himself. From the roman experience with Caraceni to Toronto
By Antonio Maglio
Originally Published: 2002-12-22
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Bruno Lepore
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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."
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