{"id":1332,"date":"2013-04-14T15:08:33","date_gmt":"2013-04-14T12:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.keikari.com\/english\/?p=1332"},"modified":"2013-06-03T12:01:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T09:01:46","slug":"interview-with-ignatious-joseph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keikari.com\/english\/interview-with-ignatious-joseph\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Ignatious Joseph"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘<\/span>I have been a merchant all my life. I began my career assuring the comfort and satisfaction of an international clientele in the hotel and hospitality sector. Fourteen years ago, I decided to focus on gentlemen\u2019s attire. Since then I have been producing my own shirt designs under the name Ign-Joseph.\u00a0<\/span>I attended school in Sri Lanka and then went on to Switzerland and Germany, where I took a degree in business administration.\u00a0<\/span>I have always considered my family a private matter. Of course I can say that I have been inspired by experiences from my childhood, and with the people to whom I am close.\u00a0<\/span>My mother was always very strict and insisted that I was properly dressed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Interview_with_Ignatious_Joseph_at_Keikari_dot_com\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I grew up in the waning days of British Ceylon. Gentlemen didn\u2019t pick tea; they just drank it \u2014 in comfort, of course. They played cricket and met during afternoons in their clubs. My father was a local official in the colonial government. We were surrounded by those who cultivated the British sartorial style, not that of Northern Europe, but the version developed in the more tropical regions of the empire. When I was growing up there was no such thing as \u201emen\u2019s fashion\u201c.\u00a0<\/span>You know, much of European sartorial tradition originated in Central and Southern Asia. Britain only attained command of the world textile industry in the 19th century after subduing the craft-based industry of South Asia, mainly in her Indian empire. That was fine for an economy based upon machine production to satisfy a mass market without regard for quality.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do not design or produce clothing for a mass market. My first priorities are quality fabrics and tailoring \u2014 that means 100% craftsmanship from the mill to the twill, so to speak. The classic cannot be created overnight. Rather, it is by nature the product of historical development in the craft itself. True classics embody history. Mere fashion doesn\u2019t need any.\u00a0<\/span>I have always been a curious conversationalist. When I see something that interests me I want to know all about it. I read and travel a lot. Then there was my tenure in the international hospitality business. Probably I learned the most when I decided to produce in Italy. I went from company to company \u2014 almost all family-owned and operated\u2014 searching for the artisans and merchants capable of delivering what I imagined at the beginning as my ideal shirts. Even today I learn most from talking to customers and the artisans themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t