Robb Recommends: The Bespoke Tailor That Changed How Our Style Editor Gets Dressed
Welcome to Robb Recommends, a regular series in which our editors and contributors endorse something they’ve tried and loved—and think will change your life for the better.
For as long as I can recall, I’ve been a uniform dresser. Whether my proclivity toward navy blue is a product of my former school uniform or some mode of occupational coping (so many trends!) is debatable, but it wasn’t until last summer that I was finally sold on the suit. With a wardrobe full of menswear-inspired pieces, I’m no stranger to the charms of tailoring but have generally held back from matching sets and am much more likely to pair, say, a Ralph Lauren Purple Label tweed jacket with wide-leg Victoria Beckham denim.
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Shortly after joining Robb Report last June (after more than a decade of covering womenswear), I traveled to Florence for Pitti Uomo alongside members of our team and was gobsmacked by their minuscule suitcases that felt closer in proportion to a child’s lunch box than any remotely useful luggage. Yet each day they emerged, impeccably turned out. Their secret? Suiting, the ultimate multitasker. After a week of all this (and, I must add, after seeing the painfully chic Anda Rowland of Anderson & Sheppard in a cream linen suit), I was on the hunt.
I had great luck at Max Mara, my go-to for outerwear. Thanks to the fashion gods, the brand’s suiting also fits perfectly straight off the rack, but what’s a fashion editor to do if she’s in search of something in a fabric that’s not on offer? Enter Farida Raafat, a Tom Ford alumna (who also apprenticed with a Savile Row–trained tailor) and founder of Dalya NYC, a small but growing custom tailoring shop in New York’s SoHo neighborhood that caters to women. Though the location officially opened in May of 2024, I finally popped in last fall after hearing the buzz.
Although Raafat, who has fabulous taste and a flair for color, did her best get me out of my comfort zone, I only had eyes for an inky-blue corduroy. Raafat advised choosing a smaller wale, for better drape (otherwise it’s giving Donald Sutherland in Animal House). I eschewed the on-trend single button, instead choosing two. Corduroy just generally screams patch pockets and (brace yourself, tailoring wonks), I went with a peak lapel: She who knows the “rules” inside and out can break them however she damn well pleases. Options abound from contrasting buttonhole stitching, countless linings, buttons, you name it.
“Nearly all of our customers are having a garment made for the first time—and I absolutely love that,” says Raafat, who grew up learning to tools of the trade from a young age at her family’s factories in Egypt. “It’s one of the main reasons I created Dalya: to give women the option to create their own pieces, a luxury that has been widely available to men for so long.” After several measurements, my details were sent abroad and only three weeks later, my trousers and fully-canvased jacket arrived—zero adjustments necessary. Given the quick turnaround and the competitive pricing, it’s a no-brainer for anyone who has been on the fence about bespoke suiting. Prices start at $795 for suiting, $695 for overcoats ,and $165 for shirting, varying with fabric choices. (Loro Piana and Zegna are among Dalya’s many offerings.)
Oh, about that name. Raafat named the business after her trailblazing mother, who was one of the first women in Egypt to establish her own investment banking firm and stock brokerage. “I’ve watched her tackle countless challenges without ever saying, ‘I can’t,'” says Raafat. “This brand is a tribute to her and to all the pioneering, ceiling-smashing women out there.”
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