Measure of a Man (25 page)
He’s also been a great referrer of clients. Many of my political clients came to me through my trunk shows at Brooks Brothers in Washington, DC. The events became a magnet for politicos. Every time I came to town, politicians from both parties flocked to the store in a rare display of Beltway bipartisanship. That’s what happened with former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld—sort of. Secretary Powell told Secretary Rumsfeld he should attend one of my upcoming Brooks Brothers trunk shows and get measured.
“I already wear Brooks Brothers,” said Rumsfeld.
“You wear off-the-rack Brooks Brothers. You need to move up to a true custom-made suit by America’s greatest tailor,” Powell told him.
Rumsfeld called me to set an appointment. “I can’t come during the daytime business hours,” said Rumsfeld, “because I actually work all day!”
“Ha! I see.”
“So you have to either wait for me until evening hours, or we can do it on Saturday when I’m not here working.”
Secretary Rumsfeld brought his wife, Joyce, into the shop for his Saturday fitting. “Are you going to make me look like you?” he said, looking at my three-piece suit. “If so, I’m buying.” The Rumsfelds were true fiscal conservatives. They refused to ever charge a purchase to a credit card and always paid in cash, which the store appreciated.
Secretary Rumsfeld said he and his wife loved his suit. I knew he was telling the truth, because he came back and purchased
more. The secret to selling an important man more suits is to please his wife. Once she sees her husband resplendent in his suit, he’s a buyer for life. Or, for the life of the marriage at least. In the Rumsfelds’ case, that has worked out. They’ve been married since 1954.
Another military man with a great marriage who became a client is Senator Bob Dole, whom I first met when he came for a fitting at one of my DC Brooks Brothers trunk shows. The company is an American institution with a great history. If the brand was good enough for the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, it’s good enough for any American male.
I always enjoyed and respected Senator Dole. As a soldier in World War II, Dole was hit in Italy by Nazi machine gun fire that ripped through his back and right arm. He received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for valor. Despite his miraculous recovery, his right hand was permanently immobilized. Senator Dole reminded me of all those American boys who voyaged across the ocean to fight for the freedom of me and millions more they didn’t know. Every time I saw him, I thanked him for his service and told him how grateful I was for his sacrifice. Without men like him, I would have been killed in the camps and never been given the opportunity to live the American dream.
“It was an honor to serve,” said Senator Dole humbly. “Privilege of a lifetime.” A man like that deserved a great suit. I saw to it that he got one. In addition to precision measurements, I wanted to do something special for Senator Dole’s jacket closure to make it easier on him when buttoning his jacket. So I altered his button stance and created a hidden loop that made it easier to fasten his jacket.
Senator Dole’s wife, Liddy, who became a U.S. senator in her own right, called me to tell me how much she loved her husband’s suit. “Martin, I’d love for you to make Bob another suit,” she said.
“It would be my honor.”
“I want to give it to him as a gift and make it a surprise,” she told me. “Would he need to be measured again?”
“Not at all. I’ve got his measurements on file. Unless you’ve fattened him up, we should be good to go.”
Later, I saw Senator Dole wearing the suit at an event for the World War II Memorial he did so much to make a reality. I felt proud to see him looking so great while doing so much good.
Convincing political clients to make the leap to made-to-measure elegance was not always so easy, however. Before he became vice president of the United States, then-senator Joe Biden rode the train back and forth from Washington to his home state of Delaware. We bumped into each other frequently and sat together on many a train trip. He’s a loud, funny guy. After a few train rides together, I finally got up the nerve to tell Senator Biden the truth. “Senator, I think it’s time you let me fix you up with a decent suit.”
“What are you trying to say, Martin? What’s wrong with the suit I’ve got on?”
“Well, honestly, it’s not that great. Besides, it’s time we get you to change from a double-breasted jacket to a single-breasted suit.”
“But you don’t sell to Democrats! You only dress Republicans!”
“What planet are you living on? I’m an independent suit maker. I dress
many
Democrats.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“I make suits for anyone who has the money to buy them from me.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s why I’ve never heard of Democrats buying from you. Rich Republicans are the only ones who can afford you.”
“I dress Bob Strauss,” I said, referring to the former head of the Democrat Party.
“Yeah, well, Bob can afford it.”
“I make suits for all the Democrats in Hollywood, too.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have that kind of cash.”
When Biden became vice president, he called Brooks Brothers and said he needed his suit lapels altered and wanted me to fix him up. “Send it over to me,” I told them. “I’ll take care of the lapel problem and make sure the whole thing is done right.”
To Biden’s credit, he finally ordered a Brooks Brothers suit, but it was stock. The vice president had me alter it to make it fit right. It wasn’t as good as a genuine made-to-measure, but it was better than off-the-rack.
New York City is famous as the capital of the financial world, but it’s also the capital of the fashion world. And few men understood the importance of supporting our industry as well as the former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg. People always talk about Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth and success in business. But to me, the most remarkable thing about him is the way he listens and truly cares. And not in that phony, political way so many politicians do. He really
listens
to what people say.
I saw that side of the mayor during the first of many fittings at my factory in Brooklyn. For nearly an hour, America’s eleventh-richest person sat and asked me questions about my time in the concentration camps, listened compassionately as I struggled to speak about losing my family, and even wiped a tear or two from his eyes.
He has my respect.
He also has my suits—lots of them. As the mayor told the
New York Daily News
, he buys all his suits from us. “Every suit,” he said. “And they’re cheaper than Paul Stewart, where I used to get my clothing.” What can I say? The man knows what he’s talking about. You don’t get to be a billionaire without knowing value when you see it. Just ask another of our billionaire friends, the one and only Donald Trump. Working with Mr. Trump has always been an honor. His larger-than-life style and brilliant business savvy have been a blessing to New York City, creating thousands of jobs. He’s a wonderful guy—and a terrific father who understands that life’s greatest investment is in one’s children.
Everyone knows who Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump are. But sometimes I’ve dressed power players without even realizing it. Once, while I was doing a Brooks Brothers trunk show in Washington, DC, a man in a wheelchair rolled in and said he wanted me to make him some suits.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked.
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Great. What kind of suits are you looking to buy?”
“Well, I may have some television appearances here in the near future and want to look my best. You come highly recommended, so I was hoping you could fix me up.”
“Let me ask you a personal question: Do you always stay in your wheelchair?”
“I’m always in it, unfortunately.”
“Not a problem. Not a problem. It’s just important for me to know so I can measure and fit you properly.”
I made sure to pay careful attention to the drape of his jacket. I wanted to make sure his jacket buttoned flat while sitting to give him a crisp, clean look on camera. “How many suits are we looking to create?” I asked.
“Six.”
“Six? Wow, you must really be expecting some serious TV time,” I joked, trying to coax him to volunteer more details. He chuckled but said nothing.
Several weeks later, I went home after work and heard a voice I recognized coming from the television in the kitchen, where Arlene was making dinner.
“Arlene,” I said, “what are you watching?”
“President Clinton’s impeachment trial,” she said. I rounded the kitchen corner. There, on the television, was my client sitting in his wheelchair. He was Charles Ruff, President Clinton’s chief attorney.
“That my client!” I said.
“Your client is President Clinton’s lawyer?” asked Arlene.
“That’s the one.”
“Well, I must say, he does look sharp in that suit.”
Later, I learned that President Clinton had referred Ruff to me. Great salesman, President Clinton.
One of my closest Democratic client friends was the legendary Bob Strauss. The last American ambassador to the USSR and the
first to post-Soviet Russia (under the Republican George H. W. Bush), chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Middle East negotiator, cofounder of the powerhouse law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—Bob did it all.
Strauss was a likeable, straight-talking Jewish Texan whose father had emigrated from Germany and ended up in New York. Bob’s mom thought he would become Texas’s first Jewish governor. As influential as Bob was, that would probably have been a demotion.
Bob loved fine suits and had more than enough money to afford them. In 1985, he called me a few weeks before President Ronald Reagan’s groundbreaking for the U.S. Holocaust Museum. “Get your best suit ready,” he said. “I’ve got you and Arlene front-row seats to the Holocaust Museum groundbreaking ceremony. I’ve taken care of everything. A limo will pick you two up and take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Bob, I don’t know how to thank you,” I said, my voice cracking.
“Marty, are you kidding? It’s my absolute pleasure.” He meant it. Bob was the consummate giver. He loved nothing more than to give unexpected and meaningful gifts to his friends. As it turned out, his gift proved far more special than even he intended. During the ceremony, an old rabbi got up to make some remarks. His face looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
“I know that rabbi from somewhere,” I whispered to Arlene. The rabbi continued speaking. He explained that he had witnessed the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust firsthand as a chaplain in the
U.S. Third Army, which liberated Buchenwald.
No way
, I thought.
It can’t be him
. And then, as if God Himself were winking down at me, the rabbi told a story that I knew well. After the liberation, he recounted, a young boy had asked him a question he could not answer: “Where was God?”
“It’s him!” I said excitedly to Arlene. After the ceremony, I found the rabbi. “Rabbi Schacter, my name is Martin Greenfield. I was at Buchenwald. I was the little boy who asked you the question.”
Rabbi Herschel Schacter told me he lived in the Bronx. We stayed in touch until his death in 2013. Every time we visited, no matter the occasion, we relived the story together. But standing there at the Holocaust Museum dedication, which had turned into a Buchenwald reunion, with tears streaming down our faces, all we could do was hold onto each other. I didn’t want to let go of him. He didn’t want to let go either. To experience once again that connection, to stand with the man who had held me as a boy when my spirit had been shattered by the Nazis and their lust for death and darkness—I felt as though I’d been kissed by an angel.
