THE TAILOR 

    The tale of this tailor began in Istabul, Turkey- the old country, for Ismail 
Yulkselen, who started sewing at 13. Ten years later, he came to America. He identifies 
today's customer as the business person, the white collar worker, the lawyer, the banker.
And forty percent of his work involves women's clothes. 

YULKSELEN: Everything comes today long so you gotta shorten and taper. The latest style 
is short skirts and you gotta shorten always every single skirt for the ladies. They want
everything perfect fit. 

    Here's a guy who feels qualified to judge how Americans dress themselves. 

YULKSELEN: They need help. This is my business so I'm looking how you dressed up. 
Matching, mostly.. if it doesn't match, it's funny. I will say 80 percent got it right. 
But 20 percent.. just trying. You know, tie doesn't match or pants bell-bottomed- I say, 
where does this guy come from? If you like suspenders, nothing wrong there. But I saw 
someone wearing suspenders the same time he was wearing belt- that's unusual. If you have
the belt, what does the suspenders mean? 

    The toughest parts of the job is negotiating the sleeves and the arm holes. But you 
get the hang of it, working 14 hours a day. 

YULKSELEN: Hand and eye, yes. After a certain age you have to use the glasses because 
it's a very small hole you gotta use to get the thread in there. It's really makes tired,
your eyes. With factory-made and machine, you gotta do it with machine. If they do it by 
hand, you have to finsh by hand. Can you imagine how many stictches you will put in an 
arm hole like this? From here to there I would say maybe five inches, there's one hundred
stitches there. 

    A tailor must sometimes be the bearer of bad news. 

YULKSELEN:The problem is when someone has gained really heavy weight and there is not 
much inside to let out. So with that, sorry I can't help 'cause you need more than what 
you have. You gotta go get another suit yourself. (laughs) 

    Even with the miles of stitches to his credit- stars in the sky as he puts it, 
Ismail won't admit to daydreaming through the tedious task as we do going back and forth 
with the lawn mower. 

YULKSELEN:Oh, when lunch time comes, you think about that. But with customers, you gotta 
know what you're doing in this business. If you don't, you get in deep trouble sometimes. 
When you use a scissors every minute, you can't go too far, you have to be careful. 

    To me, sewing isn't all that difficult. I would think men wouldn't be so stymied by 
it. I mean, even I can sew a button on. 

YULKSELEN: Good for you! 

FLYNN: It doesn't seem so hard to me. 

YULKSELEN: Well, you must be pretty handy. Alot of my customers will bring something in..
really, they don't know how to sew the button. "I can't sew back this button," they say. 
Probably, they never really try very hard. 

    The hazards of sewing, thimble notwithstanding, frustrate the amateur, and plague the
veteran. Even Yulkselen keeps stickin' himself with that needle. 

YULKSELEN: Oh, it's many times it's happening. But if you would do it, it would hurt. But
when I needle myself it doesn't really hurt much as somebody else doing it. Because I get 
used doing it very long time. It doesn't hurt me really. 

    Tailor Ismail Yulkselen. I'm Bill Flynn.