Stitch in time

Royal Flying Corps aircraftman James Armishaw, in 1917 tunic tailored by Beauchamp & How.

First, they told me to stand still. For an hour. Then, a man I didn’t know except through my father ran a tape measure across my shoulders, down the length of my arms, around my waist and chest. A little later, when he needed a measurement down there, he ran the tape measure from my ankle up into my crotch. I kept on smiling even though, at about age 10, I had never done this sort of thing before. The man with the tape measure finally smiled and gave me a pat on the back.

“Ted, you’re going to love this,” he said, “your first ever tailor-made suit.” (more…)

Giant leaps for humankind

U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 lunar landing in July 1969.

It was the summer I turned 20. It was also the summer of anti-war demonstrations on Canadian and U.S. university campuses. It was the summer of Chappaquiddick and then Woodstock. Then, in the middle of the night, on July 20, 1969, we heard those indelible words.

“One small step for a man,” Neil Armstrong said between bits of static on the TV feed from the moon. “One giant leap for mankind.”

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