And it is none other than Jacobs who Fitzgerald credits for giving him the impetus to break out on his own. After his time at Douglas Hayward, Fitzgerald moved on to Kilgour on Savile Row, subsequently departing to Huntsman, which in turn sent him to New York to open the stateside satellite operation. “I was 22 and practically the only on the team who could just pick up and leave,” said Fitzgerald, who was then single. That was 2017.
When Jacobs introduced Fitzgerald to a potential client who had a short turnaround he took the commission under his own name, jumpstarting his business. It was a matter of New York serendipity that Fitzgerald landed a space at the Chrysler Building. He’s been working from there ever since.
Today, Fitzgerald’s customer base is about 50% women, a distinct change from his time at Huntsman. “With men there is less of a range,” he said. “With women, the idea of what each client wants to look like or wear is very individual and it’s always different, it’s exciting.” For him, nailing a cut is more psychological than a matter of mere skill. “What people want and how they want to look, it’s for me to figure out,” he said, “sometimes they’ll say they want a soft shoulder, but that’s not actually it. It’s my job to have the language and get there before them. The first fitting is mine to lose, but then the cow is out of the barn and you have to get it right.”
Another thing that’s different working solo is the freedom he has to draw, and cut, outside the lines. Take Jacobs’s pagoda shoulder suit. “It simply would have been harder to do then because it’s just not classic,” said Fitzgerald. A runway obsessive, he now spends some of his time experimenting with other silhouettes. “I mean, something like [Martin] Margiela at Hermès, you can’t find an archive like that anywhere, and that’s what inspires me.”
Fitzgerald likes to use rare or vintage fabrics, though he isn’t limited by his preference (“I have all those same cloth booklets every tailor has!”). He offers a flat rate for his garments—$6,000 a suit and $4,800 per jacket. This helps build loyalty. “It’s not a good experience when you look at a price on someone’s website and then show up and the rate increases,” he said. Fitzgerald may lose money in some and have a better margin in others, but, as he says, it’s what works best and makes people want to come back.