Clothes Made the Man--and His Career : Occupations: James MacPherson Hole was a typesetter until technology overtook him. Now he’s following his true passion.

Bill Eichhorn, marketing director of the Doubletree Hotel in Pasadena, had pictured himself in a navy blue suit.

But his personal clothing designer had other ideas.

“You’re lucky because you can wear double-breasted suits, but with your coloring, you should wear the lighter shades of blue,” the designer remarked, flicking out his measuring tape and scribbling figures on a scrap of paper.

This vignette from the world of fashion is a study in contrast for the designer, 36-year-old James MacPherson Hole. Only a few years ago, he would have had to laugh at the sight of himself with straight pins and measuring tape in hand, talking to one of Pasadena’s leading businessmen about his coloring.

Before he entered the fashion business, Hole was a typesetter. For 12 years, he owned a shop that, at its peak, employed 13. He also dabbled in publishing, putting out Pasadena magazine for four years and more briefly the Pasadena Business Journal, both of which have since disappeared.

Hole’s seemingly off-the-wall career change was prompted by the personal computer revolution, which made desktop publishing available to almost anyone. Hole concluded that his business would soon be obsolete.

“I told my wife, ‘The printing business has been around since Gutenberg, but as soon as I get into it, the whole industry goes under,’ ” Hole joked.

As he began to look for another way to make a living, Hole, who lives in Pasadena with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, decided to bypass the conventional option of retraining for another field of computer technology. Instead, he pursued a longtime fancy.

“I’ve always been interested in how people judge others based on appearances. I play a kind of detective game, trying to find out what a person is like based on what I see,” Hole said.

Hole had already developed an irrepressible taste for custom-designed clothing. Because he is short (“I like to think I’m 5-foot-5,” he said with a grin), he has always had trouble finding clothes that fit him.

“Sometimes I felt like a clown, wearing someone’s hand-me-downs with the sleeves and pants legs too long,” he recalled. “In department stores I was humiliated--sent to the boys’ department to look for my size.”

Then, in 1986, he was measured for his first custom-made suit. “It was an epiphany, a conversion experience,” he said, adding that he has not bought a suit off the rack since then.

When he sold his typesetting business, Hole went straight to a library and started reading every book he could find on men’s clothing and design.

“I found a mentor who taught me the fundamentals and I asked question after question,” he said.

He got his first experience designing clothes for family and friends and, without any formal training, opened an office in Pasadena three years ago.

He advertises a little and sends brochures to lawyers, but most of his clients come from referrals, Hole said.

To start his new career, Hole had to dip into his savings and take a 50% loss in income. But in a year he built his income back to what he was making as a typesetter, though he declined to say how much that was. trade. His regular customers now number more than 100. They call him for consultations and new clothing about three times annually, he said. They tend to be in the upper-income brackets, although he also designs some lower-priced sport coats, work shirts and blue jeans.

Hole doesn’t do any sewing. He creates the look of the garment by selecting color and texture and specifying 70 dimensions, such as the width of the shoulder and the size of the lapel. He then produces the pattern for a tailor, who cuts and sews the material.

Because he doesn’t actually do the sewing, Hole refers to himself as a clothier.

When he meets with a client--usually in the man’s office or home--he first analyzes his lifestyle and physique.

“I take coloring, complexion and height into account and I also talk to a client about what his needs are--whether this is a suit for a particular season, what kind of work he does and what is going to be appropriate for him,” Hole said.

Some men, he explained, are colorblind or do not distinguish shades of color well. Others have been dressed by their mothers and their wives for years and don’t know how to choose clothing for themselves.

“Men really are as interested in clothing as women are, but they don’t know how to go about looking for clothes. It’s seen as not macho, somehow, to care about how you look,” he said. “Yet clothing has a big impact on how you feel about yourself and how you are perceived on the job.”