ABSTRACT
This chapter follows in Max Cohen’s footsteps, as it finally crosses the shop’s threshold, and focuses on what happened once the consumer had selected a particular outlet, whether on impulse, after some deliberation, or, as in Cohen’s case, only when driven by absolute necessity. The focus is on the purchase of made-to-measure garments, generally (but by no means exclusively) from bespoke tailors. The chapter sets the scene of the tailor's shop, a scene whose sober masculinity, it is argued, would have been both familiar and reassuring to most contemporary shoppers. It takes a closer look at the various stages when the consumer enters a shop, paying particular attention to the differences between independent and multiple retailers. The chapter reveals the pressures at play in the interaction between retailers and customers, and the complex negotiations involved in the seemingly simple matter of shopping for clothes.
