Says Chairman Lee of Hilton Tailor shop & corporation at Hilton Hotel against reports of closure
Who says the famed Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. at the Hilton Hotel has been closed?
No way!
The Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. is wide open at the same site on the 2nd fl. of the Hilton Hotel in Seoul—doing business as briskly as at any time before.
However, Chairman Hilton Lee, owner-operator of the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. at the Hilton Hotel, is not very happy over the news that the Hilton Hotel has closed, which automatically leads the readers to think that the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. at the Hilton Hotel is also closed.
“We have a contract with the Hilton Hotel running through the end of this year, and we will open every day all the year around until the end of this year, and hopefully we feel that could continue to be open beyond the end of this year!”
Presently, the parking lot remains closed to the visiting cars, which offers much inconvenience to the visitors who try to park their cars at the hotel.
In a way, however, the visitors to the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. have an unexpected advantage—parking the cars right in front of the hotel main entrance.
All the facilities appear to have been closed at the Hotel, and the property appears to be ‘deserted place’ to the visitors as ‘very thing is so quiet’ at the entire properly.
However, a close look at the entrance, one can easily see the way to the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. is wide open and it is very east to reach the tailor shop as one turns to the as soon as one enters the Hotel door where the deli used to be. Steps are seen as soon as one turns to the left after entering the door.
The Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. is right on the 2nd fl. at the end of the steps.
So, as far as the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. is concerned, the news that says, “The Hilton Hotel is closed,” is sheer ‘Gatcha News’--meaning ‘fake news’--as long as the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. is concerned as the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. is wide open.
The famed and seasoned Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp., which has been patronized by the world leaders, including the Heads of Government and top starts, particularly those of the United States, had moved his shop from Itaewon to the Hilton Hotel a year ago or so.
During the ‘tough time’ under COVID-19 pandemic, ‘Man’s Suit Maestro’ Hilton Lee is offering very attractive discounts up to 40% on all orders.
World celebrities, including the Heads of States and Governments, world-class stars and personalities and many ambassadors, have been reportedly resumed patronizing the world-famous man’s suit maestro.
“In Itaewon,” says Chairman Lee of Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp., “our customers somewhat had inconvenience due to limited space of parking in the midst of the fast-growing business-entertainment district of Seoul in Yongsan, but here at Millennium Hilton Seoul, there is no such problem.”
Man’s suit maestro, a name given to Hilton Lee, has been presented with a wide variety of awards, citations and certificates in recognition of his services and many good deeds.
“Whenever the world celebrities visit Korea, they make it a rule to use us and have a good number of suits made for them,” says Maestro Lee. “I hope that they will all do the same in spite of the news that the Hilton Hotel has been closed. Lee emphatically says, “We are open and we will be continuously open until the end of this year, and hopefully beyond it!”
Unlike at the old location in Itaewon, Seoul, the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. at the Hilton Hotel is very easy of access and has an incomparable large number of advantages to the guests, especially the VIP guests such as the ambassadors and the world celebrities such as top movie stars and singers of the world.
Among them are former President Juan Carlos Wasmosy Monti of Paraguay, world-famous tenor singer Lucciano Pavarotti, top star Steven Seagal, and other world-famous celebrities including Mischa Maisky (cellist), Magic Johnson, Julius Winfield Erving, Carl Lewis, Celine Dion, Nathan Morris, Shawn Stockman, Wanya Morris, and many more world-famous personalities whose list can go on and on.
Michael Jackson, John Denver, and also other very important persons in the government (including the Heads of Governments), political organizations, business conglomerates, sports stars, movie-TV stars, and singers, were all among his customers.
The list also includes Senators Robert F. Bennett and Jim Bunning of the United States, world-famous Tenor Luciano Pavarotti, Korean top star Choi Bul-am, and world’s leading sports-TV-movie stars such as Magic Johnson, Marcell Henry, Dorwin Payton, and Steven Seagal.
Why is Chairman Lee called in his nick name of ‘Suit Doctor’?
The name derives from a common practice in Korea, where anyone who does best and proves a rarest example excelling everyone else is called a ‘doctor.’
Suiting the nickname, Hilton Lee enjoys the full trust of very important persons in Korea and around the world, which is believed to derive from the top quality which he pursues in making man’s suits, fashions, especially formal suits for exceptionally important occasions.
When the foreign dignitaries visit Korea, they make it a rule to have their suits made at the Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp., which then was located on the busy street in Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.
Chairman Lee has a number of staffers and assistants. However, when it comes to taking measurements of the customers, Lee does it in person.
Chairman Lee personally performs the measurement and supervises the entire process of work until they are completed and delivered.
Often, the ‘Suit Doctor’ visits the visiting VVIP at the hotel and does measurement-taking there in person as the visiting VVIPs have little time they can spend for personal purposes.
“Each suit is a part of myself and I pay the closest possible attention to my work so that my patrons will be proud of wearing my suit,” said Lee.
For Hilton Lee, tailoring is his life itself. He has devoted his entire life to making men look best in their suit. This is why he has so many patrons around the world as well as in Korea.
Because of such keen attention he pays, his patrons, especially the international celebrities, are known to order a large number of suits after they return to their country after a visit to Korea.
“Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. is not a very large company employing tens of employees but one that is composed of dedicated people who have been in the trade for scores of years specializing in their chosen fields,” said Lee.
Lee stated, “The people working with me are those who try to make our esteemed customers happy so that they will come back to us and order more, sometimes by the dozen.”
Among the strong points of Chairman Lee, of which he is often reminded by his customers, is the fact that the suits made at Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. seldom change or lose shape even when they are worn for a long time--but remain the same.
There are rumors to the effect that about 100 tailor shops and some of them use ‘decoys’ paying them 50% of the profit to lure customers. Naturally, the extra cost is reflected in the lower quality of the products.
Hilton Lee himself wears suits, very specially made and attracting the attention of many people along with decorative personal accessories such as buttons, rings and even waist belt buckles. Most of them are decorated with extremely expensive real diamonds.
The Korea Times account of man’s suits in Korea:
According a story written by Andrei Lankov and published by The Korea Times on July 10, 2008, Korea, like most countries in East Asia, embraced the Western suit with great enthusiasm. Every Korean urban street during rush hour testifies to the tremendous popularity enjoyed by suits and neckties which over the last few decades have become the uniform of the Korean middle class--that is, of a majority of Korean males.
Lankov wrote, “But only 130 years ago, the arrival of a Japanese envoy dressed in a Western suit was seen by Korean officials as an absolutely scandalous act. By dressing themselves in the manner of the ''barbarians,'' the Japanese dignitary denigrated himself and could not be seen as a civilized human being anymore!”
Excerpts from Author Lankov follow:
Back in the 1880s-90s, donning a Western suit was more a political statement than a fashion statement. By choosing the dress of the "overseas barbarians'' over traditional attire, a Korean made it clear to everybody that he was on the side of modernity and Westernization, that he was against tradition and conservatism.
The young officials and students who were dispatched by the Korean government to Japan in the early 1880s were also the first to dress according to the then current Western gentlemanly fashion.
Some people insist that the most prominent leader of the reformist party, Kim Ok-kyun, was actually the first Korean to don such attire in public. There are other candidates, too, but all of them were members of the same faction of reform-minded young officials, which was known as the Enlightenment Party.
Incidentally, the sewing machine appeared in Korea before the Western suit. In 1877 a sewing machine was bought from some Westerners by a prominent Korean diplomat Kim Yong-won who was visiting Japan.
The sewing machine enjoyed great popularity, and until the 1960s remained a prestigious symbol, a sign of family affluence. Its prominence was important: with the exception of Western suits, most of the dress worn by Koreans until after the 1950-53 Korean War was home-made.
For Korean women a sewing machine was a great laborsaving device, and it is not surprising that they took it so seriously.
Until the mid-1890s a Korean man in a suit remained an unusual sight on Seoul's streets (and there were virtually no women in Western dress until 1900). The situation changed in 1895 when the surviving members of the Enlightenment Party came to Seoul again.
This time, they were backed with the power of the Japanese army and formed a puppet government.
A leading Korean-language daily, Dong-A Ilbo calls Hilton Lee Myeongjang.
Some years on the occasion of the New Year’s Day, Korea’s leading daily, Dong-A Ilbo, carried a story and pictures on Hilton Tailor shop & Hilton Corp. in the ‘International Town,’ of Itaewon in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. There the writer called Chairman Lee Duk-no of Hilton Tailor Myeongjang which, in English, is tantamount to ‘a maestro’ or ‘a master.’ Literally, it means ‘a noted maestro.’
Dong-A Ilbo, competing with top-circulations Korean dailies such as Chosun Ilbo and Joong-ang Ilbo, rarely publishes a sponsored article.
So, Chairman Lee may be said to enjoy a literally uncontested popularity among the tailors in Seoul or any other part of the Republic of Korea.
Chairman Lee, however, is much better known as ‘Suit Doctor’ in the international community, as was briefly mentioned afore, and on many occasions ‘Suit Doctor Lee’ made suits for the Head of Government of many countries of the world and also for noted personalities in the United States, Europe, Asia and many other regions of the world—as well as in Korea. Among them especially stand out fashion-sensitive top movie stars and public figures.
So, Chairman Lee may be said to enjoy a literally uncontested popularity among the tailors in Seoul or any other part of the Republic of Korea.
