Tony’s Tailor & Clothier on the corners of Emory and Fulton streets in the Chambersburg section of Trenton.
Tony Falvo and his wife, Anna, have been preparing clothes that make the men for more than a half century.
By Dan Aubrey
‘I’m open until three, but call first. I may go out and play bridge,” says Tony in his smooth Italian accent over the telephone.
Tony is the proprietor of Tony’s Tailor & Clothier on the corners of Emory and Fulton streets in the Chambersburg section of Trenton. It’s been a sartorial sentry since the 1960s.
Time seems to stand still in Tony’s. After making the necessary call to assure his presence, you step into the shop and step back to the Trenton and Chambersburg that a good number of people look back on fondly — forgetting that it is they who moved on.
It’s a Saturday and Antonio (“Tony”) Falvo stands behind the counter altering a jacket. The room has seen its days but it is bright and airy. Classical music from the radio provides a soundtrack as the tailor studies his work. He then turns, smiles, gives a cheery hello, and says, “You’ve been in here before? I’m trying to remember your occupation.”
His eyes slightly enlarged by the lenses of his glasses are searching for the answer. After a few wrong stabs, a shrug, a smile, he returns to his work and provides shop talk to questions. “We don’t work like we use to. We deal with some Italian companies. Measure and call, and it’s here,” he says as he gestures to the walls where suits and jackets hang.
Tony, 77 and with snowy hair, shows some starch when he says that he still provides good suits, by designers such as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and a few in Italy.
With the eye of an expert, he measures me up — larger than the last visit years ago — and is accurate.
What suit would work best? “It all depends on what you want to spend,” he says, noting prices in the high two hundreds and then into the fives. He picks up a suit and talks about the weave and the makers. “Very nice,” he says as if touching it for the first time.
When the mission is revealed — to get a basic suit — he lines the counter with catalogs and begins showing swaths of fabric. To help he calls for Anna, his wife of five decades.
As she emerges from a room in the attached house that they shared for decades, a seemingly ongoing conversation and smile continues. Her voice is soothing and confident. They pore over the books, talk about wools and blends, and herringbones and plaids. Skin complexion, highlights, and occasions are bantered about, too.
There’s an easy comfort to the two and a quiet pleasure — a kind of dance. Tony says later that he really likes what he does and that it gives him something to get up for in the morning, besides playing bridge and bocce with his friends.
The two preparing to suit a client has been part of the rhythm of the city for decades.
And rhythm — as in music — is important here. A clarinetist in an Italian marching band in Italy, Tony says that music is part of his life. He is quick to mention opera and a performance of “Tosca” performed outdoors in Tuscany. Then there’s Verdi. “He’s — how do I say it? — Italy! Someone told me I needed to go hear Verdi’s Requiem. So I heard it at Richardson Auditorium (in Princeton). And I said to myself, ‘Why I have missed this before? Why I have missed this music in my life?’”
He then talks about the War Memorial building and how he loves to support it, attends the New Year’s Eve performances, and is sad that it is not being used as much and that organizations aren’t performing there as much.
“I am originally from Calabria,” Tony says, as he and Anna busy themselves sewing and measuring. “My wife is from Tuscany. My father was a barber, and he was a shoemaker and did anything that came along. My brother had a tailor shop in the village. That’s where I got my apprenticeship.”
Anna (nee Vispetti), now at a humming sewing machine, looks up and says, “I went to learn the seamstress work in Italy. My mother sent me to learn the trade. My grandmother was a seamstress. My mom learned from her mother. I picked it up too. I had to learn something. It came in handy when I got here.”
She says her move to Trenton was by chance. “My family was displaced by the war and came to Trenton through the Catholic Relief Fund. A family relation was a prisoner of war in Fort Dix, and Italian families from Trenton would visit. He met a girl and got married. The Catholic Relief offered to send us to the United States and asked where we wanted to go. The only place we knew of was Trenton.” She adds later that her father traded a job at an Italian radio station to work at Integro, a local company that specialized in terrazzo work.
Tony says his situation was different. He received sponsorship from grandparents, who had already moved to the United States, including Trenton. “(They) sponsored me after the war. There was a quota, and the U.S. was hard to get into.”
“I don’t recall the war,” Anna says matter-of-factly. “I do,” replies the preoccupied Tony. His tone says he would rather not.
What was not different was that they were 15 years old when they met in the once close-knit Italian section of Trenton. She says that she first noticed her future husband at the soccer club and then met at a wedding. “I was the bridesmaid and he was the usher,” Anna says smiling.
“When we got married (at Saint Joachim Church) we moved right here,” Tony says gesturing to the back room and upper floors.
Tony, who once upon a time had been working in stores in downtown Trenton, says that the decision to start his own business was part of the American experience. “This is the country of opportunity, and you have to take a chance. Working for retail stores you get stagnant. I saw the potential, but it’s a lot of work, a lot of hard work.
“We took over for a tailor who had been here 30 years before us, and at the beginning it was just dry cleaning. I saw the potential to buy quality clothes and that I can fix right here. We managed somehow with perseverance and hard work. That’s the formula.”
Whatever the formula, the couple has been married for 51 years and has two daughters (both teachers) and four grandchildren.
Looking back on a changing industry and community, Tony says, “For 35 years we worked six days a week. Open seven in the morning and close at six at night. Anna would make dinner and come back out during the busy times, spring and Easter. People used to dress better. Even the quality was much better. But as times go by things change, the mentality changes. Today no matter how cold it is, there’s no demand for heavy clothing.”
He says what helped him was the Made in Italy brand and its reputation for quality. But things changed in the clothing industry, too. To make his point, Tony picks up a suit dropped off for cleaning and says, “Here’s one that has an Italian name and the coliseum on it, but it was made in China.”
Other changes were related to habits, economics, and the city. “We lost a lot of costumers because they worked for the state, but then they started dressing down. First it was casual Friday and then everything went very casual. Years ago we were selling clothes from Italy, but people didn’t want to pay. Then the exchange rates were bad and the prices were outrageous. And the location means a lot.”
The corner where Tony and Anna’s tailor shop sits is witness to a change in demographics and era. Just as the Germans had made way for the Italian immigrants in the early 20th century, the former Italian district is becoming Spanish, and Tony greets costumers in a smattering of Spanish.
And although Tony and Anna moved several years ago to Locust Hill, a retirement community in Hamilton, they see their lives connected to Trenton. “A lot of people say we should move (our business) out. It’s our perseverance to insist to be here. You don’t want to give up. The newspapers make it really look bad. It would be the dream of my life if the city came back to life.”
Then there is the work and the costumers of all races who like service, personal attention, and sense of old world style. “They come from all over. Lawyers, doctors, regular people, they remember us when they need a suit for an occasion. Yardley, Lawrenceville, Ewing. People come from a great range.” After mentioning several names of costumers active in the city — Passage Theater producing director June Ballinger, realtors Anne LaBate and Anthony Conte — Tony says proudly, “We still hold our own.”
Tony then looks out the window to the small park that he cleans on a regular basis. With a faraway look, he says, “We have always loved the city. It’s life. You see people. You see movement. While I’m here, I try. But when I close the door for the last time?” His voice trails off in a type of verbal shrug.
When asked about retiring, Tony answers for the two of them, “We take one day at the time. Working for us is medicine. It’s staying alive. Providing we don’t have the pressure that we had before. We won’t be able to do the work that we did.”
The two are silent for a moment standing in the middle of the room that has measured their lives. Then Tony remembers the music, looks at Anna, and says, “The other day I heard ‘The Merry Widow Waltz’ on the radio and said to you, ‘Remember when we had the strength to do the waltz?’ Now we fall and laugh.”
They smile— with good reason.
Tony’s Tailor & Clothier, 101 Emory Avenue, Trenton. 609-393-6330. Call first.
,
