Here are two things that refuse to be hurried: a single malt resting quietly in oak, and a bespoke suit cut entirely by hand. Both demand time. Both demand sources of uncommon quality. And on the evening of 21 May 2026, both came together in a single room — at Laxmi Pacific Place atelier in Jakarta — for an intimate gathering we called Casks & Cloth with Holland & Sherry.

We were honoured to welcome H.E. Daniel Blockert, Ambassador of Sweden to Indonesia, alongside a small gathering of sartorial connoisseurs, bespoke enthusiasts, and longstanding clients from across Jakarta’s professional and creative industries. The intention of the evening was simple: to celebrate two traditions of craft, and to revisit, with a measure of care, what truly distinguishes a bespoke suit from anything else hanging in a wardrobe.

— 01 —

Cocktails, Cigars, and the Slow Opening

Guests arrived to a luxurious lounge set just outside our Laxmi Tailors Laxmi Pacific Place boutique — one of eight ateliers we now maintain across Jakarta, Tangerang, and Surabaya. A low marble table held Glencairn glasses of amber single malt, poured with quiet precision by the team from Whiskeywine.id, the Jakarta whisky house led by co-founder Alvin Sutiono. In a corner of the room, a torcedor from Cohiba Atmosphere Jakarta, whose CEO Aldy Kusuma was present that evening, hand-rolled fresh cigars in full view of our guests..

The slow pour of malt, the unhurried conversation about cloth, wristwatches, and motorcars — this was the opening we chose. Deliberately unhurried, as good things tend to be

— 02 —

The Masterclass: 190 Years of Cloth, from Savile Row

At 19:15, the small stage at the centre of the room was lit, and the evening’s opening remarks were given by Dalip Shahri, Laxmi VP Marketing, Brands & Communications. After welcoming guests and acknowledging our distinguished guest of honour, Ambassador Blockert, Dhalip introduced the gentleman who had flown in for the occasion — Joshua Lane, Regional Director for Asia at Holland & Sherry.

For those new to the name, a brief note on Holland & Sherry is in order. Founded in London in 1836 by Stephen George Holland and Frederick Sherry, the house is, to this day, the only cloth merchant from nineteenth-century Golden Square still in operation. Their head office sits on Savile Row; their distribution warehouse, in the small Scottish Borders town of Peebles, holds tens of thousands of rolls of Yorkshire worsted and Scottish tweed, awaiting tailors around the world.

For nearly two centuries, Holland & Sherry has been a quiet pillar of the modern suit. Their cloth has dressed presidents, monarchs, and the Oscar-night tuxedos of more than one Hollywood leading man. They have, with characteristic understatement, simply continued to weave better cloth.

Masterpiece Gold & Phantom Gold

The substance of Joshua’s masterclass was a careful introduction to two of Holland & Sherry’s most prestigious bunches — the Masterpiece Gold and Phantom Gold collections — both of which are now stocked, in full, at our Jakarta and Surabaya ateliers.

Masterpiece Gold is, to use Holland & Sherry’s own characterisation, the finest and most luxurious suiting fabric the house has ever produced. Woven from 100% Super 180’s worsted wool in Yorkshire, finished with the soft pure water of the Pennines, it is available in two constructions: lightweight and ultra-lightweight — the latter a particular gift for clients in tropical climates like ours. The wool itself is accredited to flocks reared by farmers who specialise in animal welfare and pasture quality, and the collection is now Responsible Wool Standard certified.

The result, when felt in the hand, is a cloth that is both impossibly soft and unexpectedly resilient. Drape that flows like water. Recovery that springs back without effort. A handfeel that, even after a long evening of being passed from guest to guest, simply refused to crease.

Phantom Gold is its sibling within the gold tier — a refined collection of fine worsted suitings designed for the client who prefers his luxury to whisper rather than shout. Subtle herringbones, restrained pinstripes, deeply considered solids in shades of midnight, charcoal, and bottle. Cloth that performs in the boardroom, in the ballroom, and at the long lunch in between.

“Bespoke is an enduring dialogue between the artisan and the individual. Defined by perfect fit, anchored in restraint, and crafted to outlast generations—this is the philosophy that has defined our atelier since 1949.”

The Three Pillars of a Handmade Jacket

Beside the stage, a vertical display set out the three pillars on which our atelier’s philosophy rests:

Craftsmanship. One hundred per cent hand-stitched detail at the crucial points — the lapel, the buttonholes, the pick-stitch along the edges, the AMF stitch around the pockets. Every handmade Laxmi Bespoke jacket requires more than forty hours of work by a single master tailor.

Quality. The handmade jacket & full suit unveiled this evening was built on a full canvas construction — the interlining loosely sewn inside the chest and lapel without adhesive, allowing the cloth to settle naturally on the body and to improve, rather than fatigue, with each year of wear. Laxmi atelier offers our clients a choice of construction — full canvas, half canvas, or fused — each appropriate to a different brief, a different wardrobe, a different budget. The cloth itself, for this evening and for the clients who come to us seeking the very finest, comes from the looms of Holland & Sherry.

Personalisation. A pattern drafted from nothing, for the body in front of us. Choice of linings, of buttons, of buttonhole-stitch colour. A monogram inside the lining, if you wish. Each jacket: one of one.

— 03 —

The Unveiling: A Full Suit with 100% Handmade Process

What set the evening apart from a typical trunk show was the manner of our unveiling. Rather than wheel out a finished, pressed, polished jacket, we chose to show a baste-stage jacket and trousers — garments at the second fitting, still held together with white basting thread, the construction itself laid bare for inspection. For guests familiar with the bespoke world, this is the most honest portrait a tailor can offer.

A baste fitting is the proof that a jacket is truly bespoke rather than made-to-measure. At baste stage, the entire suit — jacket and trousers — can still be taken apart entirely. A shoulder can be raised two millimetres. The balance of the back can be rebuilt. The width of the lapel can still be negotiated. The hang of the trouser, its rise and pitch, can still be refined. This is the work our master tailors have done, every working day, since 1949 — and this is the work we were proud to put on display.

Alongside the basted jacket, a pair of gurkha trousers with a self-belt and double forward pleats — the military silhouette enjoying its quiet renaissance among Jakarta’s sartorial set. Details like these are not found on a rack. They appear only when a client sits across from a style advisor and speaks at length about cut, function, and the particular shape of his life.

— 04 —

Bespoke, Custom, and Why the Distinction Matters

One of the questions most often asked over the course of the evening was the simplest: “what is the difference between bespoke and custom?” A question that the broader market in Jakarta and Surabaya has, over the years, allowed to become rather muddled.

A bespoke suit is cut from an individual pattern — drafted from nothing, based on more than thirty measurements taken from the client’s body, with a full-floating canvas, and a minimum of two fittings (baste and forward) before the final. This is the work of the Savile Row houses. And this is the work of our Laxmi Bespoke atelier.

A custom suit, or more precisely a made-to-measure garment, is built from an existing block pattern adjusted to the client’s measurements. It is faster. It is more accessible. It still offers premium cloth and considered construction. For a client beginning his sartorial journey — or for the second suit ordered for the working week — made-to-measure is an entirely sound choice.

What matters is this: both are a meaningful step beyond off-the-rack. And both are available at every one of our ateliers, in Jakarta as well as in our Surabaya atelier at Ciputra World.

— 05 —

A Toast: To Cloth, Cask, and Long Friendships

We were equally honoured by the presence of Suraj Nanwani, Director of NJ Bhagwan & Co Pte Ltd (NJB 1951), whose Singapore-based house has long been part of our extended sartorial family.

As the masterclass drew to a close, the Holland & Sherry bunches were laid out on the consultation tables — Masterpiece Gold, Phantom Gold, and the broader catalogue from Savile Row. Guests moved between them slowly, weighing cloth in their hands, examining weave at the window, comparing weight against weight.

Some commissioned a wedding suit. Others added a second jacket to a working rotation. A handful — particularly those new to bespoke — spent longer with our style advisors, speaking not about a single suit but about the longer architecture of a wardrobe: which investments to make first, which weights make sense for the Indonesian climate, how a capsule wardrobe is assembled over five and ten years rather than five and ten weeks.

— 06 —

The Laxmi Ateliers: Jakarta, Tangerang, & Surabaya

For those who could not join us, and for readers of this journal who would like to begin their own consultation, Laxmi Tailors keeps eight ateliers across three cities:

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