Menswear as a Family Business
After being raised as a child at Spallone & Son , Rosalie Morrison, 46, continues to thread together a business that originally started as a tailor shop. Her father, Umberto Spallone, began the business, and over the years expanded it into a full men’s clothing store. Her brother Joseph Spallone, 49, and their mother Velia Spallone, 75, also run the business. How did the business start?
1965 is the year when I happened to be born. My parents came here. My father clearly didn’t have his license yet, so he would get a ride to Natick everyday and work at Sears Roebuck as a tailor. Then he tailored at night in Milford, too. He was working two jobs. He was working in a little tailor shop and renting a little apartment upstairs. They put the building up for sale and he didn’t know what he was going to do because he had nowhere to go. They went to the bank and mortgaged the building and took a huge chance. My father opened the tailor shop and my mom would stay in the tailor shop. She didn’t speak English. My dad would go to work every day. He would come home and do whatever tailoring was there at night. I was literally born and raised in this building. The tailor shop got bigger and bigger. This space had been rented out to Lincoln Auto School. That’s what used to be here.
In 1979, he decided to put a few suits in the store. They opened half of the store. My brother was at Bryant University at the time, so he would commute and come home and do the store thing. Then the store took on a life of its own. Joe expanded it. We added on the downstairs when I graduated from Bryant because, at the time, I was working at all different places. Inevitably, I always ended up working here too because we lived upstairs. Then I started helping my brother, and the four of us worked here. The business grew and we did really well. So, we all stayed. Then, I got married and had two babies. I basically did the same thing. I brought them here every day. They were raised in the tailor shop. My dad died in 1999. Joe, my mother, and I kept the business going.
What do you sell here?
Primarily we sell men’s clothing, which are not just suits. We sell a lot of Tommy Bahama casual. I do a lot of destination weddings. If people are going to get married on an island, then guys want to wear Tommy Bahama type clothing. I do all that, put it together and do the ordering. My mother and my brother and I do all the alterations. If you buy clothes here we won’t charge for alterations.
Tommy Bahama Menswear - News
Rosalie Morrison standing by some of the Tommy Bahama shirts. After being raised as a child at Spallone & Son, Rosalie Morrison, 46, continues to thread together a business that originally started as a tailor shop.
Menswear Schmenswear
Okay. So don’t wear lapel pins. Or, better yet – wear them on the right side. Well, the pins that I want to wear should be worn over the heart.
And it’s not just the pins. Seat belts tend to eat buttons off your suit jacket. Chairs tend to snatch buttons off your back pockets. Ties get caught in paper shredders, and tend to carry germs. Collars are too tight and choke your neck. Cuffs get caught in your loafers. Undershirts ride up with normal wear.
Dry cleaning bills are exorbitant.
I don’t want to wear suits anymore. But, I also like my job. Therefore, I guess I’ll be wearing suits to work for the rest of my professional career.
More and more lawyers are showing up for depositions and even occasional conferences in court wearing collared shirts and no ties. Sometimes, these rule-breakers wear gasp turtlenecks.
As appealing as doing away with ties and collared shirts sounds to me, I cannot condone this practice. It just doesn’t look….lawyerly.
Religious leaders wear clerical garb to set themselves apart from their parishioners. There’s a reason for this.
Military members, police officers and fire fighters wear uniforms to announce to society that they play a special function.
It’s not really the same thing with lawyers. We don’t have a uniform per se . But, our job is to persuade. Shouldn’t we look our best when attempting to bring others around to our point of view?
And a Tommy Bahama, $200 “hide-my-gut shirt” is not persuasive. Neither is a red mock turtleneck.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that, until society evolves into another acceptable dress code for men, I’m stuck with business suits.
Today’s business suit was not always the norm. In the past, gentlemen wore powdered wigs and breeches. Glad that noise is done.
What will business attire look like in the future?
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