The Best Dressmakers in New York City

Penny Babel Couturier, 220 Manhattan Avenue (109th–110th), 212 879-5844 pennybabelcouturier.com

“I like to help my clients become the best designers that they can be,” states Penny Babel, meaning that she steers clients to their best looks and their most flattering silhouettes, incorporating their fantasies into a garment that can realistically be created (within a budget) and that is appropriate for a body type. She is highly collaborative and loves a challenge. “Some of my clients are CEOs who just want a vacation from their regular workaday wardrobes” and others are women, who want their wardrobes “to say something about themselves.” (Babel can do the mundane, of course, but she prefers the artistic, and the more challenging the repair, the happier she is to attack it.) In business 25 years—she learned to sew from her grandmother—she works with one or two employees. Pricing: I saw a raincoat she made that was stunning, with all kinds of interesting details, including notched pockets ($800); I saw a tailored skirt that had so much detail that it should have been in a museum ($500); gowns are about $3,000 and up. All my repairs are things she would do for her regulars, but she is not the person to go to for just alterations.

Pinpoint Bridal, 229 East 84th Street, 212 535-7185 [web site coming soon]

Peering into Remziye Perkin’s storefront shop, you will see the walls of the boutique lined with cocktail dresses and what appear to be wedding gowns, judging by the poufs of white organza and snowy satin clouds billowing from the racks. Employed for many years by Vera Wang and Arnold Scaasi (and by the mother ship of all things bridal, Kleinfeld), this Turkish-born seamstress “loves making wedding dresses,” but she “will work on anything, except fur and leather.” She showed me a spectacular bustier with beading and pearls that she was making. Remziye, who has been in business for 17 years and has a staff of four, notes, “We can take anything apart and remake a dress. Regardless of the job, we don’t want to send anyone away.” She does a lot of what she calls “build-ups,” ingeniously covering décolletage and arms on evening attire for religious clients. “Show us a $20,000 wedding dress and I will bet we can make it for $3,000 or $4,000.” Pricing: Hemming trousers starts at $18; relining a winter coat, $85 and up; but putting a zipper in my down coat is something she wouldn’t want to do. My Dana Buchman jacket would be about $600 to re-create.

Sam Leung Professional Tailoring, LLC, 851 Lexington Avenue (64th-65th), 2nd Floor, 212 327-2789

Tailor Sam Leung is literally a Hong Kong tailor, and a Savile Row tailor as well, and now he can be your Lexington Avenue tailor. In business here for 25 years, Leung employs half a dozen skilled artisans. The majority of his clients are men who order custom suits (his shop walls are lined with bolts of men’s suiting and hundreds of swatch books of suit material), but he also does alterations and will make new garments for women. It’s best to bring an item or photo of something that you want copied and to shop for the fabric yourself; he does not shop for fabrics, and is not the collaborator that some of these dressmakers are. I saw countless copies of the same boxy evening jackets that he regularly makes for one female client, in various textiles ($450), and spied a few other women’s garments, beautifully finished, hanging on racks. One male client, who was leaving while I was there, threw a gratuitous “He’s the best, by the way, the absolute best,” to me as he exited. Pricing: Hemming trousers starts at $20; relining the winter coat starts at $80, and putting in new zippers starts at $35. Copying my Dana Buchman double-face-wool cropped jacket would cost $500, but Leung would make it with a lining, in order to avoid all the tedious finishing that double-face-wool requires.

Jenny Couture, 580 Eighth Avenue (38th–39th), 10th Floor, 212 997-4102

Jenny McFarlane, who studied patternmaking at FI and fashion design in London, cut her career eyeteeth in the lingerie business, working for big names like Lily of France. Today her business is about 60 percent dressy attire and the balance “regular” clothes. Her cluttered workshop attests to the fact that she can deliver the goods: I saw one blouse she copied for a client, a classic Brooks Brothers shirt (remember, all those flat-felled seams are a pain), that she remade in a cotton print for $175 (additional copies would be considerably less, as the cost of creating the initial pattern is borne by the first copy). She will work on men’s things, also, and she is not daunted by leather; she showed me some suede clothing she has worked up for a local designer, all nicely made. I also saw a wedding gown she sent to India to be beaded—and it was gorgeous. Pricing: Hemming my trousers would be about $20 to $25; relining a coat about $100, and installing the new zipper in the down coat would start at $75. Copying my Dana Buchman would be $500.

Oswaldo Muniz, 212 279-5169

I had seen dancer-costumer Oswaldo Muniz’s work—both his en pointe ballet on stage and his dance costumes on display—years ago when I attended a performance of Les Ballets Grandiva, a drag ballet troupe that is renowned for its skilled “ballerinas” and humorous take on Balanchine. I was blown away by the sophisticated and exquisitely made costumes—and a large part of that was Oswaldo’s work. (He has created costumes for the Joffrey Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and for Gelsey Kirkland.) He fashions evening attire only (think cocktail suits, after-five dresses, gowns), with a $550 minimum. He’s your man if you’re looking for a razzle-dazzle “entrance” gown (in the words of a friend, “He never met a sequin or a rhinestone he didn’t like”), not a Calvin Klein–like, bias-cut, slinky beige slip-dress (think Pippa Middleton). He does not do alterations and doesn’t copy sportswear, but bring him a picture of what you want and, pattern-making wizard that he is, he’ll whip it up in no time flat. House calls only.

Ruth J. Katz is currently the Style Editor of Promenade magazine and has covered service, shopping, and design for more than 20 years as an editor at Redbook, Colonial Homes, Classic Home, The Modern Estate, and New York Home magazines; she wrote for many years for The New York Times and New York magazine and appeared weekly on Fox TV as the Home Services Editor. She is the author of five books.