Benito Carone mans his cramped strip-mall tailor shop all by himself. No receptionist. No clerk. You walk in, the bell dings, and within a few seconds out he comes. Or you can just stroll into the back room where he’s generally hunched over a sewing machine. His hair is gray, his clothes a bit dowdy; the cramped shop is unkempt and void of any fashionable trappings. But man, can Ben cut and contour a piece of clothing. He learned his craft in Italy, where they take tailoring very seriously. (He also lived for decades in Chicago, where he occasionally made custom suits for mobsters, so he knows from tough customers.) You can hand Benito a prized garment and be confident in the knowledge that it will come back just as you envisioned.
This article appears in Sep 19-25, 2007.