Who writes this, and who checks it.

Who writes them

The guides are written by the Sam’s Menswear editorial team, working from interviews with Sam Talkar, notes taken in the fitting room, and the service facts of the business: what he makes, how he makes it, how long it takes, and what he tells clients when they ask.

The byline says the editorial team rather than Sam because that is the accurate description. Sam is a tailor with over thirty years at the bench, not a staff writer, and it would be a small dishonesty to present a hundred articles as if he had sat down and typed them. What he does is supply the expertise and check the result.

What “reviewed” means here

When a guide carries the line Reviewed for tailoring accuracy by Sam Talkar, it means Sam has read that page and checked every tailoring claim, recommendation, process statement, number and anecdote on it. Not that he approved the topic, and not that he glanced at the headline.

Guides he has not yet reviewed carry no review line at all. We would rather a page say less than say something it has not earned, so the library is being worked through in batches and the line appears as each one is genuinely done. A page with no review line is not a page we think is wrong; it is a page that has not been through him yet.

Review dates are recorded per page, on the date the review actually happened. Nothing is backdated to publication.

Where we stop

A good deal of this site touches traditional Jewish dress: the kapota, the bekishe, the kittel, what a chosson wears, when a boy starts wearing a tallis. Sam has made these garments for the community for decades and can tell you how they are cut, what fabric behaves, and what he sees families choose.

That is tailoring knowledge, and it is where our competence ends. Customs differ between families, communities and rabbanim, and we do not issue religious rulings. Where a question is halachic rather than sartorial, the answer belongs with your rav, and the guides say so.

Prices, and why you will not find them

We do not publish prices, and this is deliberate rather than evasive. A garment’s cost depends on the fabric, the construction and the work, and a number on a page would be wrong for most of the people reading it. You are given a firm price before any fabric is cut, and never after.

Where a guide discusses what custom clothing costs in general, it uses third-party market figures and says where they came from. Those are not Sam’s prices and are not presented as such.

Clients, photographs and stories

Client stories on this site are anonymised, and details are changed where they would identify someone. We do not name the venues people married at. Photographs are either of Sam’s own work, of fabric and materials, or clearly captioned as illustrative, and we do not present a picture as a finished commission unless it is one.

When we get it wrong

Occasionally we will. If you find a tailoring claim on this site that is wrong, or a statement about the service that does not match what actually happens when you walk in, tell us and we will correct the page rather than quietly delete it. Corrections are made to the page itself, and the review date is reset.

Write to samskosher@gmail.com or call 647-458-0711.

What a guide is for

These are written to answer the question you actually came with, whether or not you ever book anything. If a guide tells you that you do not need a custom suit, or that the thing you are about to spend money on is not worth it, that is the guide working correctly.