A 3 part series between Ken Stauffer from OceansOgrapher and I. We speak to Jay Greenfield, one of the owners of Martin Greenfield Clothiers. We talk about the long history of the brand and the rich clientele they have made clothes for over the many decades they have been in business.

Part 1

“I guess, Todd and I work side by side with my dad for about, you know, 30 years, I would guess about right like, he start, he came to this country in 1947. And his first job in America as a Holocaust survivor, was he had a friend working in the old three G factory, here in Brooklyn. So he started off kind of as a job that he thought would be like, part time jobs, so he could like, learn, go to school at night, learn English, and get set up in America for whatever he was going to actually do as a career.

Jay Continued..

From carrying bundles from place to place, he gradually advanced. 30 years later, he was running the factory and all the manufacturing and quality control and production.
He was able to then buy in 1977, from the Goldman brothers, that’s when it became more Greenfield clothing stores. And I joined him right out of school out of dental school in about 1981.” – Jay Greenfield from Martin Greenfield Clothiers.

Part 2

Episode two of our three-part interview with Jay Greenfield, President of Martin Greenfield Clothiers in Brooklyn, NY.

Jay discusses his father’s journey to tailoring six US Presidents, including Eisenhower, Clinton, and Obama. He goes into depth about the fabric selection process that he personally undertook with Former President Barack Obama. Including a certain choice in tan.

Martin Greenfield Clothiers Obama tan suit

“President Obama came across a Brioni suit, and realised how much nicer it was in quality and feel. He asked, isn’t there somewhere in America that can make a suit like this? They did a little research and the fashion editor of The Times, contacted us. The next thing we know we were at the White House.
We had the honour of going to the White House eight different times during his presidency. We more or less made all of his clothing.” Jay Greenfield from Martin Greenfield Clothiers.

Part 3

We conclude our interview with custom tailor to the stars Jay Greenfield, President of Martin Greenfield Clothiers in Brooklyn, NY.

Today’s discussion covers Jay’s personal experience working with A-list actors. Also costume designers on huge Hollywood productions like The Great Gatsby, Joker, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Hear all about Joaquin Phoenix’s fittings and how Armani took credit for Greenfield and @leonardlogsdail’s work by clicking the link below.

About Joker

“Mark Bridges was the designer. So he came to us first and you know, discuss this whole idea. And he said, You know, it’s going to be a three piece suit. But it’s not going to be like, three matching pieces, like, the style of the jacket won’t match the style of the pant, or the style of the vest. And then, you know, here there was orange and red, there probably were four different shades, which through the show are intermixed and random multiples, too.

But, you know, all the pants were the pant, regardless of the colour and the same thing with the vest in the jacket. But so he gave us an idea for like the lapel of the jacket, a peak lapel and kind of a funny shape. And as we were making the first prototype, working off, like measurements we had for Joaquin at the time, like so we get the jacket ready, and we go, we’re like, we’re really rushing to get it ready.

Martin Greenfield Clothiers Joker costume

Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker (2019)

Jay Continued..

And we weren’t really happy with the shape of the lapel. It didn’t turn out the way we had planned it to be. So that was one thing we were saying, you know, all the dimensions, everything’s right, but the lapel is a little off. So that’s gonna have to be like fine tuned, going forward.

And then he came in, and we did the first fitting here. That was quite an experience because, I don’t know, maybe he, you know, he becomes the character a little bit. So that was really an experience for one on to stare at him staring at the clothing in a mirror. But we put it on. They loved the lapel, the way it came out.

The weight issue

And that became the lapel like there was no going to the one that we had planned. The one that we did like was perfect. Except he was like 30 pounds smaller than the measurements we made that first prototype of because he was losing weight apparently for the part. And like every time we made the next garment, he was smaller again and smaller. Yeah, we just have each time smaller, smaller, smaller until we finally got to where we need it to be. That’s it.”

 

The full transcript of our chat can be downloaded as a document Greenfields_otter_ai. Please consider rating the show on iTunes if you found this useful and if using this content in any way, please reference us.

The podcasts are also available to listen on Stitcher or Spotify or in any of the players above below.