2023-08-16 11:47:00
In 1949, the American professor Joseph Campbell introduced the idea of the “path of the hero.” It is one of the most repeated narrative schemes throughout history, in which the protagonist of the story experiences a series of events that make him take a journey that is not only geographical, but above all internal. Because although this character’s journey usually ends in the same place where he began, the person he becomes to achieve it is totally different from the one who started the adventure.
to the history of Nicholas Zaffora this scheme closes perfectly. His life journey could not only inspire a movie or a bestseller, but also somehow contains this circular return, in which a trade served as a bridge between past and present: tailoring. That art that Nicolás learned at the age of 19, when he decided to be ordained as a monk, is what he perfected and sophisticated to become today the most recognized tailor in the country, with his own boutique on Arroyo street and a list of clients as exclusive as they are secret. .
News: How does someone become a monk?
Nicolás Zaffora: In my case, it was a need for containment. I was 15 months old when I lost my parents, who were Montoneros and were disappeared. At that time, my grandparents, in the military and who still lived in Azul, where my parents were from, took us and my older sister to live there. They were very hard-working people, but their communication was very clumsy. Almost nothing affectionate, there was no hug, no pat. They had tremendously strict parents and they had no tools to contain that generation gap. Therefore, my main interest in the monastery was to belong to a community. It was being founded when I met him, and its founder was a very charismatic father figure. However, everything I was looking for faded in time, because this man turned out to be a pervert with psychopathic traits. There was no physical harm or sexual abuse, but there was daily abuse of authority. All monastic practices were secular, there was even self-flagellation and forced labor with the punishment of not eating.
News: How did you manage to get out of it?
Saffron: I was pretty resilient, until I realized I was on the verge of breaking down psychologically. The truth is that I entered the monastery against my entire family. I didn’t have emancipation until I was 21, so I needed authorization from the Azul juvenile judge to enter, and I went to ask for it. At the same time, when I started the Military Lyceum, the school I went to before, my tutors became my uncles, a brother of my mother and her wife. She played a fundamental role in my life, she had not been able to have children and we got along very well. And before entering the monastery, my aunt told me that the founder seemed harmful to her and that although she let me enter, she needed to start therapy in parallel. I complied with that all the time I lived in the monastery, which gave me a space for reflection. But it took me five years to tell him what was happening… And that’s how I began to realize the need to get out of that environment and I was able to cut one of the last threads that had been holding me.
News: Do you salvage something from the experience besides having learned tailoring?
Zaffora: I wasn’t the tailor I am today, but he gave me the basics. I also achieved an incredible level of introspection, both spiritual and reflective. He allowed me to learn and transform pain into wisdom. Also identify those psychopaths who are everywhere, like the pervert or the narcissist, and put them aside.
News: He was 28 years old when he left the monastery. What was waiting for him outside?
Saffron: Although my inner core was intact, because I was able to decide to change things with the dignity that my life deserved, I was very hurt and beaten. Capitalism was very aggressive to me. I came from a monastery and from a context in which the most basic things were provided for me, so I didn’t fit into that idea that they had to pay me for something I could do. To make matters worse, he had the heavy baggage of not wanting to obey anymore.
News: So?
Saffron: I understood that I had to transition into a businessman or an entrepreneur. I had a few jobs and began to survive with the bare minimum. It took me five years to decide that I wanted to be a tailor. And I started at home, investing $90 for a sewing machine and a barbecue plank on which I cut. Later I rented a small place where I stayed for four years. And today I am turning eight in this place on Arroyo street.
News: How was that reunion with the trade?
Saffron: In the first stage I kept going to work with a tailor, because I had to polish my technique. I learned the basics and then I took off just to make mistakes and learn. I had a great job dealing with frustration, because holiness is perfection, and it came from years of that.
News: Did it cost you to find clients for something so exclusive?
Zaffora: I am doing a business totally out of date and growing every year in a bankrupt country. It makes me very proud to say it. It gives me the absolute certainty that I am good at what I do. Today I make about 140 suits per year.
News: You maintain great discretion about who buys from you, why?
Saffron: It is an ancient practice. Tailoring is very European, and the mecca for tailoring is London. The English aristocrat has it to himself that the mark must not be shown. I have known gentlemen who go to tailor shops on Savile Row, the street where the most important and oldest are located, and they ask the tailor not to put the label of the house on it. That is the level of discretion.
News: But could we describe a customer profile?
Saffron: It was very much reduced to a niche, the same as French haute couture. So many hours of work and so much qualification become expensive, especially compared to something that is done quickly… Today we are relegated to two profiles. One is the professional, who continues to use a work uniform that, due to its quality and gender, gives it a high rank. And then there is the stylish profile, because we can make garments that cannot be found anywhere.
News: Although the suit as we know it has been around for many years, it has also accommodated itself to trends. What prevails today?
Saffron: In 2010 there was a unique effect in history, because there were incredible amounts of elastane and the garments began to get tighter than ever before. Anything became a ballerina legging, both jean and dress pants. The pants were very tight, the jackets were tight and shorter, clinging to the forearm, and the lapel played as a lapel and it wasn’t, because it was very thin. But since 2018 we began to see European dandies with straight trousers with high-waist darts and a not-so-short jacket, a little longer but fitted, with less tight sleeves and a lapel that became a lapel again. That is seen today. But there is timeless fashion and correct suit pants. Because you can see a picture of Sean Connery playing James Bond and it’s immaculate.
News: You started making costumes for women, how are they different?
Saffron: The woman’s body has other lines, and they are more abrupt. Those men’s clothing with a man’s design, with man’s lapels, with men’s pockets, must be adapted to the woman’s body. And that’s what I like to do. Then, due to some phenomenon that I can’t figure out, that suit with all that masculinity achieves a femininity-enhancing effect. Perhaps for the opposite it will be possible to enhance…. It is also true that the suit generates safety and impact. It is a garment that has many centuries of development on the same body, no other has so many minds on it. So it’s hard to beat.
News: Is elegance being lost in Argentina?
Saffron: Very much. Common sense is being lost. In men it is very evident. What I have distinguished in recent years, very marked post-quarantine, is that it is very easy for everyone to grab a T-shirt, sneakers and jeans, no matter the occasion or social contact. It does not seem like a small problem to me, because there is a whole series of good customs forged in the last centuries that do not have to be lost. If you go out to eat once in a while, do you need to dress the same as when you take the dog for a walk at 12 at night?
News: Could you identify a stylish person from Argentina?
Saffron: There are people not so well known but who are. For example, Javier Iturrioz, an architect who I really like the way he dresses. He is one of those people that you are happy to meet. Jorge Lanata has a good style. Own, adjusted to be displayed in a specific way. I don’t know if he would call it classy given his mannerisms, but he has a very well done and polished style.
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