Ayres Goncalo: bespoke tailor, Porto
The next young tailor I wanted to highlight on Permanent Style is Ayres Goncalo, a Portuguese who worked at Gieves & Hawkes in London for four years, before returning to Porto to set up his own shop in 2011.
I met Ayres over the summer while in Portugal with my family. My wife is half Portuguese, and her language skills were useful in translating the odd technical word - although otherwise Ayres’s time in London means his English is fluent.
Ayres’s grandfather was a tailor, and quite famous in his day, with his own shop and a client list that included ministers and celebrities. As a boy, Ayres would work in the shop after class.
His uncle and mother ran the shop, rather than being tailors. Like many of his generation, Ayres’s grandfather saw no future in tailoring, and didn’t want his children to take up the trade.
Ayres, however, developed a passion for it, and studied at the tailoring school La Confianza in Madrid, finishing in 2005. He also made an initial trip to Savile Row that year, just to look around, and remembers Dege & Skinner being particularly welcoming.
Six months later, he travelled to London with the aim of finding a job, and was lucky to meet Gieves’s general manager at the time, Andrew Goldberg (now at Scabal).
Andrew gave him a three-month placement in the workrooms downstairs and - in a further stroke of luck - Ayres was placed under Spanish tailor Andrew Gomez, who also spoke Portuguese.
“I remember those days very well,” says Ayres. “It was just after Jose Mourinho had moved to Chelsea from Porto, and it felt like that was another sign - that everyone was in London!"
Work was very hard to start with. “Getting up to the level of the London tailors was not easy, and everyone worked long hours, often 7am to 7pm,” Ayres remembers.
“Some also worked seven days a week, but at the weekend you were allowed to make your own things too, so I made a few pieces for friends.”
After four years, he took the opportunity to move to New York and help set up Michael Andrews Bespoke - but that only lasted for a year before he returned to Portugal.
Today, Ayres has a top-floor studio overlooking one of Porto’s beautiful squares. His grandfather (now 86) works there one day a week, and there are two tailors in-house, plus one outside.
His style is Savile Row influenced, but definitely made for a southern European audience. The chest canvas is lighter, without any domette, and the pre-made shoulder pads are chopped down to give a softer shoulder.
Clients come from business and politics (he travels regularly to Lisbon) but also a lot of groups. “Things are very busy at the moment with wedding requests - they often want pretty bright materials or linings,” Ayres says, showing me a lary lady-covered example.
“There is very little understanding of bespoke in Portugal, and a lot of made to measure - something exacerbated by the number of fused-tailoring factories around here,” he says.
Indeed, there has never been much of a tailoring heritage in the country, with Ayres’s grandfather immigrating from Italy, having trained in Rome. There are a few old tailors left in Porto and Lisbon (such as Saldana), but no young ones.
All the more welcome, then, that Ayres is fighting the good fight - explaining patiently to people why branded MTM is not the same as bespoke. And then, the next day, explaining it all over again.
Suits start at 2000 euros. Contact details on the Ayres website
I wish Mr. Goncalo succeeds in explaining the beauty of bespoke to a younger audience and the natural cost of a slow process compared to a rationalized, industrial approach as MTM or RTW .
Like your recent article about Swedish tailor A. Bauer this is not an in-depth review however, and in a way I’m left more hungry now than before reading your friendly words 🙂
You do not have any pictures of Mr.Goncales’ suits?
Simon wrote: “Ayres is fighting the good fight”
I wonder if this lonely fight means Bauer and Goncales have to make choices stylistically/technically in order to survive or get a business that’s running? E.g. you already mention the use of lighter materials?
I don’t have any pictures of the suits I’m afraid, no. It’s always hard to know how much to take and write about someone I’m not going to try, but as I said, he deserves highlighting
Ayres has made my first bespoke suit more than 10 years ago and still look incredible!
@Burt, he runs a very good client list. im shure if you contact him he’ll be glad to send you some pictures and information about the art that he love
I’m very glad you’ve highlighted Ayres. He’s been doing a wonderful work here in Portugal and the value for money he offers is quite high.
I have been trying to find examples of Ayres for some time now, since i am protuguese and travel abroad for my bespoke garments. Maybe I will check his atelier and try to check some garments.
Great article. Indeed there are only a few bespoke tailors in Portugal. In Lisbon, from the very few master tailors that are still working on a daily basis, I reckon one of the best is Domingos Fernandes who work for the menswear brand Wesley. Their store and tailoring atelier in Saldanha is gorgeous!
Ayres worked for me for about a year in 2010 (if memory serves me). I can vouch that he was a skilled coat maker with a great eye for the fashionable side of tailoring. I had him test for a day with Len Logsdail to verify his ability. Lenny commented his cutting needed more experience, but his making skills were solid. His assessment was consistent with mine. That was seven years ago and I am sure Ayres has become even more skilled in that time (as I hope all of us who cherish our craft have). I wish him all the best and would encourage anyone in Portugal to use him.
Simon, when you are next in Lisbon and wish to meet a Portuguese master working in a beautiful old studio do let me know. You will need your wife to translate.
That would be lovely, thanks
I wonder why you did not want to try this tailor. Simply because it is (too) far away? Or would you generally advise choosing an Italian or English tailor? I am toying with the idea of ordering from Ayres and would appreciate your opinion. I am sure that would also help other readers in their general decision to choose one of the tailors you discussed in more detail in London or Italy, versus others, be it in Porto/Lisbon, Madrid, Vienna or Budapest. Thank you.
The major reason I wouldn’t is the distance, yes. I rarely go to Porto and he didn’t travel.
The style also wasn’t something I wasn’t particularly drawn to, it was sometimes a little flash – though that might be down to the customers largely.
And finally I wouldn’t say the quality looked the absolute best from what I could see. Very hard to judge without seeing the fit, but the make wasn’t on a par with the other names I normally cover.
This is usually the case when you see bespoke tailors in smaller cities. They don’t have the local makers at the same level, and they’re pushed on price to be cheaper and cheaper, so the work can’t be at the top level. That was the case with the three I tried in Madrid too, with only Calvo de Mora being at a high level.