Diesen Beitrag gibt es auch auf Deutsch. Auf Deutsch lesen →
Yasin Tarabia now has well over 100,000 followers on Instagram. On his channel he mostly posts reels of his bespoke suits and explains their stylistic details at length. I met the young Viennese four years ago at an event in Germany. He was already known on TikTok for his style videos, something I only found out when one of my nephews saw a photograph of Yasin Tarabia and me. Since that first meeting we have seen each other several times in Vienna and have talked about tailoring again and again. I recorded this interview on my last visit to Vienna. The outfit photographs come from Yasin Tarabia’s own archive; the pictures of our meeting were taken by Rainer Schoditsch in the new workshop of the Viennese tailor David Kuderer.
BR: We have known each other for a few years now and have met in Vienna a number of times. How would you introduce yourself, briefly?
YT: I am Yasin, 28 years old, and a passionate lover of classic menswear. I do not know what else there is to add.
BR: On Instagram people can see you with your wardrobe. One gets the impression that you own quite a lot of suits by now.
YT: I always try to give people new ideas and inspiration that they can take into everyday life, rather than the typical notion of a classic suit. In my case it is mostly tweed and flannel suits.
Inspiration from the past
BR: You inspire other people. But what inspires you? Your suits are very much your own, in the best sense. You can see there is an individual behind them.
YT: Almost all my ideas come from the past. From archives, from newspapers of the 1970s, from stars who were famous in the 1940s and still are today. I think the most beautiful things were to be seen in the past.
BR: You are 28. Bespoke is a trend on Instagram. But I hardly know anyone who takes such an intense interest in tailoring and actually keeps ordering from tailors. Most young people pick something up in a second-hand shop. You go to a tailor and order as a regular customer. How did that come about?
YT: I am simply obsessed with creating suits, because that way I can realise my own idea a hundred per cent. That only works if I bring everything to the tailor myself, starting with the cloth. If I buy something ready-made, I am buying somebody else’s idea.
BR: You could not buy your suits off the peg at all. In nearly every one of yours that I know, there is always something particular going on.
YT: Yes, I am obsessed with creating something, and I pursue that passionately.
The first suit from a tailor
BR: What was your first suit from a tailor?
YT: My first was actually a pink tweed suit. I started with the most demanding thing straight away, because I thought: if I do the thing I do not dare to do first, everything after that will be much easier. Sadly I no longer have it. It is lying somewhere in Egypt and I cannot find it again.
BR: Why in Egypt? Did you take it with you? A tweed suit in Egypt sounds a little mad, if only because of the temperatures.
YT: My cousin had seen the picture and said he had never seen a suit in a cloth like that. He absolutely wanted to try it on. So I took it with me, he tried it on, and then I left it somewhere. To this day I have not found it.
BR: And what came after that extreme?
YT: I started fairly loud. I did not begin with the basics but with everything I would not have dared to buy off the peg. After that came a burgundy double-breasted jacket. I began with a lot of odd jackets, because they are the greater challenge: you have to combine them with different trousers. With a suit you simply wear it with your shirts and that is that.
BR: Is what you show only for the picture, or is it your everyday wardrobe as well?
YT: It is my everyday wardrobe too. The first tweed suit is probably not really suited to everyday life, but I always try to create things that lead away a little from the typical idea of a suit. Everyone looks good in a navy or grey suit.
BR: Do people comment on it?
YT: Fairly often. Usually the assumptions come with it, that I must be a banker or come from an aristocratic family. I wish. No, I really do this purely out of passion. Many people think there must be some particular background behind it. It is genuinely pure passion.
BR: Your Instagram reels always include style tips. Who is the audience?
YT: For the most part they are younger people. I think these are the people who need a bit of direction today and have nobody to orient themselves by, nobody who lets them say: right, that is how I wear my suit. I am still young myself, so they can see me as inspiration more easily than a man of 70.
BR: Where do you get all this knowledge? Do you read books, do you look online? You give very detailed advice.
YT: I do not have one single source. It comes from pictures, from archives, from interviews with other people. And then of course I research it so that I know whether it is actually correct. Anybody can say anything. I have had this knowledge for a good while now, for about eight years. I could probably make a video every day for the next twenty years and pass some of it on.
At the tailor: trust and misunderstandings
BR: Describe what it is like for you at the tailor. Many men are afraid of it because they do not know exactly what they want and have to decide so much themselves. Were you unsure at the beginning?
YT: I was not afraid. But I did perhaps have the feeling that he would not understand what exactly I wanted, because my ideas are somewhat different. I do not think I am an everyday customer. I struggled with that a little at first, and of course small things did not fit at the beginning. My advice is still to stay with the same tailor. Once he has understood your general idea, at some point you no longer have to say what you want at all. The tailor knows automatically, because he knows you so well. A good tailor knows the customer better than the customer knows himself.
BR: You do not talk about your tailors. Why not, actually? Do you want to keep them to yourself because they are so good?
YT: People always want information, information and more information. But what use is all of it if you do not turn it into knowledge? Someone who really has knowledge in many different areas is not constantly dependent on new information. He can understand how things connect, think for himself, and work a great deal out from what he already knows.
An afternoon in David Kuderer’s workshop
At our last meeting in Vienna, the cutting table in David Kuderer’s new workshop was where we talked. A half-finished jacket lay on the table, and it showed exactly what Yasin Tarabia describes: that at a tailor a garment comes into being step by step.
How to find the right tailor
BR: That sets you apart from most of the people in this world, and makes you credible, because you do all of it under your own steam. What would you advise somebody who wants to try a tailor for the first time? How does one find a good tailor at all?
YT: The good tailor is a different one for every person. I would recommend gathering knowledge first and knowing what you want yourself, and then looking for the tailor who is best suited to that cut or to your own idea. You have to do the research, on Instagram, on Google, on YouTube. Then you look at pictures, and if there are none, you go to the tailoring houses and look at the work. If you find yourself thinking: right, I can see myself in that, then it is probably a good start.
Building the wardrobe step by step
BR: You have already said you recommend staying with the same tailor. Do you have further advice for somebody who has had two or three things made? What would you suggest for building a wardrobe?
YT: I would always go step by step and not do everything at once, because ideas change and perhaps the body does too. Depending on the field you work in, you need a different suit. A banker probably wants a navy herringbone suit, an artist more likely a dark green corduroy one. It depends from person to person. If you are unsure, I would rather begin with the basics. And if you are sure, then simply take what you want.
BR: A very good closing word. Thank you for the conversation.
