Meet The Tailor Making Suits for Guys Who Hate Suits

P. Johnson links up with Barneys for a casual take on classic tailoring

When Barneys New York opened its doors on a flagship in downtown Manhattan earlier this year, there was one category that was noticeably absent: tailoring. The mecca of menswear's Chelsea outpost, had, it seemed, had adapted to our casual age and gave its customers a beefed-up selection of athleisure and more casual sporstwear pieces, featuring brands like Vetements, Off-White, and Balenciaga.

But the reports of the suit's death have been greatly exaggerated.

Barneys hasn't foresaken the cornerstone of men's wardrobes, but they are looking outside their usual arsenal of tailoring pros—the Ralphs, Giorgios, and Ermenegildos—for their downtown location and chosen a rather unconventional name to introduce suiting to their downtown audience. It's a collaborative effort between the store an P. Johnson Tailors, an Australian made-to-measure brand led by a genial man by the name of Patrick.

Trained in London, Johnson launched his label in Australia in 2008. "I wanted to create clothing and a business that really worked with the modern way of wearing tailored clothing, which I saw had changed a lot in the last 100 years—the last five years—and the market wasn’t quite there yet." While Patrick was raised on a farm north of the Australian city Adelaide, his father had his suits made on Savile Row, which required twice-yearly trips to England. "I kind of fell in love with it then, the craft of it and the beauty, and the idea that these clothes are made in a considered way."

The Barneys partnership includes an in-store offering of made-to-measure as well as an exclusive ready-to-wear collection featuring double breasted knit jackets, travel blazers, cotton trousers, and shirts. The MTM program will offer over 100 cloths—some of which are exclusively available at Barneys—from mills including Loro Piana, VBC and some Japanese cotton specialists. Combine that with multiple lapel widths and styles, single and double-breasted options, extensive canvasing options from completely unstructured shirt finish with an unstructured shoulder through to our soft but traditional canvas and roped shoulder, multiple lining options, dozens of button options and more, and there are quite literally limitless options. This is the stuff that suiting nerds dream about.

"It wasn’t really on our radar at all, to be honest," Patrick says of the partnership. "We don’t have an off the rack collection at all." But when Tom Kalenderian, EVP and General Merchandise Manager of Mens & Chelsea Passage at Barneys invited them to the new store and suggested linking up, Patrick was quickly convinced. "Barneys has always been one of my favorite stores, especially in New York. The downtown space, it's not like a department store at all, it's like a boutique, it's stunning."

Perhaps most importantly, though, is the softness, the lightness, and the ease of the suits, something that P Johnson has become known for, and in no small part due to its down under origins and for his desire to see suiting be made relevant in our current, casual era. "When you think of tailoring you think of something very formal and buttoned-up," Patrick says. "But to me, tailoring isn't about that."

P Johnson is available at Barneys New York's Chelsea store and online.

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