A young tailor cut from fabric of the old

On a windy Saturday in Ardmore, a crowd of gentlemen poke around Centofanti's Custom Tailors.

The packed house isn't unusual for the Station Avenue salon, which has been there for 51 years. Closing time is 1 p.m. on this day.

While some gents try on the fruits of Centofanti's labor - custom pattern-crafted cut suits costing upward of $2,500 - others look at swatches of fine Italian cashmere or dashing British wool.

There's a handful of tailors around the room, older gents like Luigi Russo, peering deep into their fabric like a hawk gazing at its prey.

But if you ask for Joe, the first thing Helen Centofanti, a master handmade shirt designer and tailor, says is: "Do you mean Old Joe or Young Joe?"

For the last two years, Helen's father, Joseph Centofanti, 89, has had a young apprentice, Joseph Genuardi, 27, painstakingly learning the aged and unique craft of fit-to-the-body pattern-making, cutting and sewing in slow, step-by-step fashion.

The end result: exquisitely tailored men's suits that would make the masters of London's Savile Row jealous.

At a time when even the toniest of designers make patterns or cut and stitch by computer, seeing and feeling a true couture suit is one of life's guiltiest pleasures.

Especially in this fast-track digital era, it's doubly impressive to see a young guy learning an Old World skill like tailoring and pattern-drafting by hand.

But Genuardi is no ordinary student, and Centofanti is certainly no ordinary teacher.

"In our family, we learn and we work," says Helen Centofanti, 54.

Joseph Centofanti learned, at first, from his mother and father, Nicholas and Marietta. His father even taught him the way of the British Walker - a suit whose cut is lean with broad, defined shoulders and a flare on its sides to show a fitted waist.

"It was not my choice, you know, at first," says Centofanti about becoming a tailor.

Centofanti was born on Columbia Avenue in Philadelphia's Northeast. But the family returned to their native Abruzzi when Joseph was 5. After all these years, Joe still speaks with a broken Italian accent.

"The first male born always followed the father's steps. That was automatic," he says. "It was also for economics. My father had a store. He needed help, so naturally he took advantage of having a son."

Not only did Centofanti learn to love the art and skill of tailoring, he wanted to do it right. "And differently than anyone else," he emphasizes.

That meant studying human anatomy in school in Italy while learning pattern-making and sewing in training with Torino's Rocco Aloy - a legend of Italian finery.

It is Centofanti's own education that made Genuardi an appealing apprentice.

"His studies may have been more scientific and mine artistic, but Joe really appreciated that I studied anatomy and graduated college," says Genuardi, a Carnegie Mellon University design graduate who practiced anatomical drawing since childhood.

"The study of science gave me the best idea of what true size and shape was," says Centofanti.

A person's line and build, not standardized sizing, would define his brand of suit-making.

That's how his motto was born. "We make the suit to fit the person, not the person to fit the suit."

That's a necessary dictum for Centofanti's clientele. He says his customers know what they want and are educated in the weight and feel of the material.

Dale Petrovitch has been going to Centofanti since 2003. The 56-year-old head of a mobile communications company that services emergency systems for Delaware and Chester County went to Centofanti first looking for satisfaction rather than just fit.

"I'd had suits made by other tailors before and wasn't extremely happy with the fit," says Petrovitch.

He estimates that he's had several suits a year made as well as a legally sheared llama coat. Plus, as recently as last week, a handful of shirts.

"As someone who lifts weights, I had problems with my suit jackets and coats riding up. But Joe's experience with measurement makes it so mine line me perfectly."

Petrovitch points to Centofanti's personal touch, what with Joseph being the guy who measures the customer as well as doing the designing and cutting. "Plus I have to say, his daughter, Helen, does an amazing shirt. Seriously, Centofanti gives you the steak and the sizzle."

The power look with good taste is Centofanti's trademark.

"My look is for the chairman of the board," says Centofanti.

"It's about them, not me."

His CEOs, bankers, lawyers and stockbrokers certainly include old and new money.

But youth also came into Centofanti's mind when it came to passing on the torch of his craft.

"When you live long enough, you become more altruist," he says with a laugh.

He wanted to give something back to the art of tailoring. Though he'd had a few apprentices previously, Centofanti says they were either too impatient to learn the painstakingly detailed skills or didn't make enough money doing so.

Not Joe Genuardi. "I'll work on whatever's handed me and look at each piece I get as an opportunity to learn."

After graduating with honors from Carnegie Mellon's Industrial Design program in 2002, the Norristown native ended up building custom furniture in Pittsburgh and later did graphic design for Penn State Industries, a tool company in Philly.

He admits he was a bit of a dabbler when it came to all things design. But he's found a home in bespoke tailoring.

"My other jobs didn't satisfy me," says Genuardi. "I always had tailoring in the back of my mind."

Genuardi was preparing to go to Italy to study custom tailoring when he read something about Centofanti's Old World skill and training.

So he headed to Ardmore on a Sunday just to peer into the master tailor's window. There was Centofanti - working.

The two spoke that day. Young Joe told Old Joe what he wanted to do.

"The first thing I said to him was that he must be crazy to want this," says Centofanti.

Genuardi discovered something right away. "I knew I'd made a good decision when I realized that it wasn't hard to go to work every day."

It will be years before Genuardi is making suits. "I started him from the top and the bottom; to learn the cutting and how to make and trace patterns with some anatomy on the side," says Centofanti. "The tough part is in the middle."

The master stitchers and tailors at Centofanti's can sew rings around him. "I'm nowhere near their level," says Genuardi.

But he's developing skill and confidence through repetition.

"It's like Joe says, 'You have to do things a thousand times over, then a thousand times more just to make sure,' " says Genuardi. "You see yourself learning and developing skills that you don't realize you're getting."

And while Old Joe isn't ready to retire anytime soon ("I'll die here," he laughs), Young Joe notes that in the age of computer simplification, he thinks it's the Old World that's ahead of the game. He believes that a lot of people his age are getting away from the "cookie cutter" and want things hand-crafted.

"That's what was so attractive to me about custom tailoring - the physicality of it, the problem-solving, too. And in the end, what you get is something totally unique and yours."