A SARTORIAL PHILOSOPHY AT FINANCIAL DISTRICT

The story of Libre Dauphin
through the words of Beijing flagship store manager Mr.Wu

Founded in 1994, Libre Dauphin is the pioneer of suit tailoring business in China. Its first store was opened at Maoming Road in Shanghai, the core space where some of the most established tailors have chosen to start their business. And the things have changed a lot ever since. It was a sunny day in late May when we met Mr. Wu – the store manager in Beijing. Mr. Wu welcomes us smiling and never ceasing to give the last touches to a sparkling customized smoking begins to talk, telling us something about his story. He invites us to sit at a very comfortable space.

“The entire store is designed with pure british style, with solid wood furniture for its main timber, a british Savile Row street tailor shop symbol – a remarkable stone fireplace – large british leather sofas, and pure wool persian handmade carpets. The atmosphere is a key element ” he says. Here in Beijing the flagship store of Libre Dauphin is located within Westin Hotel on the financial street where Libre Dauphin serves the elite financial professionals, government officials, etc.

“I know exactly when I should buy stocks just by observing the frequency my customers change their clothes”

Over the course of 20 years, the store has witnessed the evolution of Chinese financial industry and it has well established itself as one of the most high-end tailor shops in the district.

Mr Wu himself has been within tailoring business for more than 20 years. He started as a tailor, during the early stage of tailoring business in China – “we did not have machine measurement, advanced manufacturing, etc. Hence you have to be very very precise

“Only through hand-making we can best express our taste, our aspiration for perfection and quality”

in order to build a positive mouth-to-mouth reputation and become successful until today.“ He joined the Libre Dauphin as it was one of the only few leaders within this space.

“The core philosophy of Libre Dauphin is that it respects the individualism of each piece of its work, among them not only tailor-making through unique fabrics, style and craft, but also the taste & spirit to be expressed; all of its work are 100% hand-made, with the belief that the individualism can’t be copy-paste by machine and only through hand-making we can best express our taste, our aspiration for perfection and quality. And we have 80 people considered among best in the industry”

Libre Dauphin offers a wide range of style choices such from casual to formal and ceremony. And at the same time, it provides its customers variety of top fabrics from Britain and Italy, including Scabal, Dormeuil, Zegna, VBC, Stylbiella, etc. Although the whole industry has been progressing a lot in recent years, Mr.Wu still sticks to his ‘old-school’ style and believe the ‘hand-made’ value can’t be replaced.

“Over the years, I served various financial professionals on ‘Chinese’ wall street, through which” – he joked – “I know exactly when I should buy stocks just by observing the frequency my customers change their clothes.” We ask Mr. Wu how he would define a Stylbiella fabric. He stops for a moment to find the right words. “Definitely modern, I would say a perfect synthesis of quality and price, in every collection we can find a series of truly innovative and surprising fabrics.”

Our visit is up and Mr. Wu moves away to shake hands with a client who has come to pick up his double breast in a wonderful super 120’s blue ocean wool. Not a very common color, but the suit is really wonderful and the fit is unobtrusive. Mr Wu wants to deliver him personally. He does. His day is not over yet, there are several other clients to meet. With the usual passion, with the usual devotion.