Made For You

By Jack Bettridge

In a world of fast food and one-size-fits-all sensibilities, how often does something feel made especially for you? The "Made for You" section celebrates those items that are created with such high quality of hand workmanship and degree of customization that they become individual to you. In each issue, our editors will endeavor to bring you special things from anywhere on the globe, choosing them solely on the basis of outstanding quality. Our goal is to give you guidance on the best of everything.

ROAD ENVY—FOOSE DESIGN
Your first car: classic, cool, clunker. Enter Chip Foose, owner of Foose Design and star of TV's "Overhaulin.'" Foose will update that chunky classic with a hot new body and a cool interior. Redesign your 1930s roadster to have the curves of a vintage Jaguar or give the 1970s GTO a nose job. Leather seats, wood paneling and custom paint are de rigueur. Request a humidor in the center console, and Foose will make the entire interior resemble a lounge. If only your first car was this much fun.
www.chipfoose.com

TAILOR MADE FOR A LADY—DARA LAMB
Looking to wrap your loved one in bespoke? While Savile Row is the Mecca of men's custom tailoring, it's not known for outfitting women. Enter Manhattan bespoke tailor Dara Lamb, who fashions custom-made suits, shirts and evening gowns for ladies only. It takes about six weeks for Lamb and her team of specialists to create a tailor-made garment by hand. Customers have a wide choice of jacket and pant styles. Fabric selections come from family-owned mills in Europe and include Super 100s, 150s and 180s.
www.daralamb.com

ACCESSORIES IN THE WILD—ASHTRAYS BY PATRICK MAVROS
A fourth-generation Zimbabwean, Patrick Mavros has an incurable spiritual connection to Africa. He's also a renowned silversmith and sculptor, and an avid cigar smoker. It makes sense, then, that Mavros sculpts silver cigar ashtrays with an African wildlife theme. Elephants, crocodiles, tortoises, giraffes and monkeys are common subjects for Mavros, and his precision detailing of the animals makes for a stunning and realistic work of art that's also a unique cigar accessory.
www.patrickmavros.com

BACK DRAFT—CORDAROUNDS SMOKING JACKETS
Imagine you're strolling in crisp weather wearing a warming corduroy jacket when suddenly you spy a cigar-friendly establishment. These aren't common enough that you can ignore the opportunity, so you pop into a phone booth, reverse your jacket to display the embroidered silk finish within, and suddenly you're Smoking Man, ready to enjoy a cigar like a gentleman. Cordarounds, the San Francisco—based firm known for its horizontal corduroy garments, offers reversible smoking jackets, which it bills as "perhaps the most practical and impractical jacket all at once."
www.cordarounds.com

THE FOOD OF LIFE—MENUS AND MUSIC
The chiming of ice in a cocktail glass, the percussion of a knife on a cutting board: despite what you may think, this is not mood music. Instead, mix it up with Sharon O'Connor's Menus and Music. The recipes, created by chefs from well-known restaurants and inns such as Le Cirque in New York City and Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford, California, are paired with music to complement the cuisine. The cookbook-and-CD sets range from "The Cocktail Hour" set to jazz piano to "Dining and the Opera."

THE ART OF ROCKING — SCOTT MORRISON
You might call Scott Morrison a rocking chair portraitist, as every piece from his shop is an original, designed for its subject. In the mountains of Montana, Morrison chisels, sands and finishes each one of his chairs by hand, tailoring the lines around the unique knots and grain in a piece of wood to cradle the dimensions of each customer. The rockers—there's a waiting list of two months to a year—are numbered and signed and come with a lifetime guarantee.
www.finewoodworker.com

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