A material for the big stories
Text by SIMON STRAUSS
Photos by JENS GYARMATY
January 19, 2023 · Egon Brandstetter is one of the few true bespoke tailors in Berlin.
He'll make it big in the film "Tár" with Cate Blanchett in February.
The cosmos of the tailor begins where a café used to be called “The End of the World”.
The studio of tailor Egon Brandstetter is on Berlin's Chausseestraße, where Mitte merges into Wedding, directly opposite the spaceship-like headquarters of the Federal Intelligence Service.
So far only known to a small circle of enthusiasts, his name could soon become famous.
Because his shop is the central place in the first minutes of the new Hollywood film "Tár", in which Cate Blanchett plays a lesbian conductor who is the first woman to direct a large German orchestra.
For her role, the fifty-three-year-old was awarded "Best Actress" at the Venice Film Festival.
The film opened to great acclaim in the United States in October and will hit theaters in Germany in February.
In the official trailer you can see Blanchett in Brandstetter's studio during a fitting, you can see how large scissors cut through dark green fabric.
And you see him, Egon Brandstetter, playing who he is: a tailor.
View of Egon Brandstetter's studio
When the American director Todd Field was in Brandstetter's shop one day to look around for possible locations, the latter treated him like any other customer.
He let him look at fabrics, put a jacket over his shoulder to try it out, and raved about the differences in quality and high-quality materials.
When Field spontaneously asked him if he wanted to be in his film, he initially brusquely turned him down, as if the man had made him an indecent offer.
"I didn't even know who he was," Brandstetter recalls today.
For "Tár": Cate Blanchett came to Egon Brandstetter's studio to have it fitted.
It's the opening scene of the film.
We are sitting in the kitchen, right next to the tailor's workshop.
Cars rush by outside.
It's just after 7 p.m., but Brandstetter has just said goodbye to the last customer.
His working hours are not set by the union anywhere, he usually works from morning to night, he is not used to it any other way.
Ever since Brandstetter left his home in Upper Austria, where he completed a classic apprenticeship as a men's and women's tailor in Linz, he has entered the self-exploiting clutches of the tailoring business.
His first stop after training was London, where he worked in the costume department of English National Opera for £800.
Since his room alone cost 100 pounds, Brandstetter hired out to designers and tailors after work.
From London he moved to the Cologne Opera, in the department of an overambitious young costumer.
Soon everything should be faster and more complex.
Brandstetter fled to Italy, sat in on tailor shops, traveled through the land of fabric dreams and lived from hand to mouth.
Finally he returned to Austria and was employed in Vienna for a few years at “Art for Art”, one of the largest costume design workshops in Europe.
Together with 35 other men's bespoke tailors, Brandstetter cut and tailored in competition.
There again: extreme hierarchies and a social environment that drove him to despair.
"The large-size tailors didn't talk to the waistcoat tailors, and the hat makers didn't talk to the trouser tailors," remembers Brandstetter.
At night he helped fashion students at the "Angewandte", Vienna's art university, with their collections.
Gradually he developed a taste for tailoring clothes to be worn instead of just costumes for one stage performance.
Another fling to Paris – without Paris experience, he thought at the time, you can’t be successful in fashion –,
In the meantime, his business partner Marc Martin Straub has joined him.
With him, the story of the wandering tailor took a decisive turn.
Because although Brandstetter was now working in the film business in Berlin, for example in Nico Hofmann's two-part film "Der Turm" he was jointly responsible for the set design and was also asked for the Hollywood film "Grand Budapest Hotel", he did not get anywhere with his own tailoring work.
Rented in the front area of another tailor, Brandstetter tried to make his shop window more attractive at night under neon lights.
He was observed by Straub, who had also just fled from Paris to Berlin and had worked for years in middle management at an oil company, which had wrecked his nerves.
The business economist sought support in the Berlin nightlife,
he lived in a small apartment on Chausseestrasse.
One night he spoke to the strangely restless worker in the neon lights.
A few days later, the half-Frenchman Straub was at Brandstetter's to have his measurements taken, although he had actually sworn he would never wear a suit again.
The first suit soon became more.
An intensive business relationship developed between the two.
In 2014 they founded their own civil law partnership (GbR), designed a website and sold their first suits to New York.
However, the big profits did not materialize.
Only since they rented a shop next to Straub's apartment in 2018 has things slowly started to improve - in addition to the elaborately crafted tailor-made suit, they have since been offering a made-to-measure clothing line under the Egon Brandstetter brand.
suit,
Tuxedo or tailcoat – each of his items of clothing is tailored to the customer.
He also makes bespoke shirts with a small team of two trainees and one intern.
As one of the few tailors, he has been training junior staff since 2015 – also because he cannot afford another full-time employee after the increase in the minimum wage.
Customers keep telling him that there are much cheaper tailors in the city.
Then he has to explain to them what the difference is between a dubious middleman and a serious tailor.
"I'm a real craftsman," Brandstetter exclaims, indignant at the ignorance of many who apparently can't assess the effort it takes to do his job.
A buttonhole alone, he says, requires 60 stitches, which takes him about 20 minutes.
A tailor-made suit consists of more than 10,000 stitches, which means at least four months of work including fitting.
It is easy to understand that the starting price for such a valuable product is 5500 euros.
But Brandstetter and Straub also have cheaper suits on offer - a two-piece suit, i.e. jacket and trousers,
you can get them made to measure for about 1400 euros.
Shirts from the made-to-measure line start at 180 euros.
A buttonhole alone requires 60 stitches, which takes him 20 minutes.
A full bespoke suit consists of more than 10,000 stitches.
This means, including fittings, a working time of at least four months.
Two men, both 46 now, have dedicated themselves to the tough business of making beautiful clothes.
The effort has left marks on their faces, the tension that their work means for them every day - tailoring is not simply a profitable business, especially if you have, at least the full measure, produced entirely in Germany and not in low-wage countries.
So, in a way, being in the big Hollywood movie is a kind of gratification for their hard work and perseverance.
The team shot at their place for four full days, the two report, and the entire street was blocked off for this.
However, the suit that Egon Brandstetter tries on with Cate Blanchett in the film is not a product he made himself.
There was simply not enough time for that – but the colleagues from the costume workshops in Babelsberg did a good job.
The director had his own suit tailored for the gala performance in Venice.
If he could wish for something for the future, Brandstetter says at the end, it would be for the difference between traders and craftsmen to be recognized in his trade.
After that he retires to his tailor's workshop – there are still some stitches to be done tonight.
that the difference between merchants and artisans would be recognized in his trade.
After that he retires to his tailor's workshop – there are still some stitches to be done tonight.
that the difference between merchants and artisans would be recognized in his trade.
After that he retires to his tailor's workshop – there are still some stitches to be done tonight.
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