Sip house plans craftsman9/1/2023 ![]() ![]() I can do anything - especially things that no one else can.”įrancois sells fine suits “to pay the bills,” a fact of life that many Islanders can relate to, but what really lights him up is working with people, getting to know their stories, and helping them to repair or replenish the artifacts that tell those stories of lives lived and lost. If you have family heirlooms from the time of the Mayflower, I can make them look like any generation. If you’ve put on a few pounds in the winter, I can fix the waist. “What I want people who don’t know me to know is that this is the place that you can bring anything. The grinning master looks up from behind thick spectacles. “Everyone knows Francois the tailor,” a customer in the shop explains to me, as if I had failed to understand the function of a fax machine. It’s about developing a craft that can take a lifetime, and using those skills to help people in need.” “These days,” he confesses, ”people don’t have time to pick up a trade. On the wall sits a calligraphic diploma in French that Francois received when he engaged in a five-year apprenticeship as a boy in Haiti, and eventually graduated with a coveted degree in design and alteration. A call to his business landline is met with the Haitian native’s patented patois, “How can we help you?” even before, or in place of, the traditional “Hello.” This is the home away from home of Francois Delphin - a.k.a. There are no computers here, no cell phones, no bleeping Sonos stereo systems, no cable news blaring from a flat-screen TV. Adjacent to a parking lot that sits behind the Dairy Queen (one of the Island’s few mainstream franchises), a man in his 60s toils and smiles behind an old Singer sewing machine. Set amid this vanishing world, a throwback even on vintage-loving Martha’s Vineyard, stands a small white edifice with a humble blue sign on Upper Main Street in Edgartown. ![]()
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