Designer Says Computer System Is a Cut Above : Michael Renzi has integrated custom tailoring and high technology to produce clothing for the executive.

Ask most men what they hate most and shopping often tops the list. Michael Renzi used that knowledge when starting his custom clothing company, Michael Renzi Custom Gallery, which caters to the executive who wants a good look and fit to his clothes, but doesn’t care to spend much time shopping for them.

Renzi is one of several custom tailors, such as Newport Beach’s Custom Threads and David Rickey and Co. in Costa Mesa, to call Orange County home. What makes Renzi’s Newport Beach company distinct is that it sends salespeople, whom it calls tailors, to its customers and it uses computers in designing and manufacturing its clothing.

“I feel that the next evolution in the tailoring business is a company like mine,” Renzi said. “I’m a designer. I don’t know how to sew; I don’t even cut the clothes anymore.”

Renzi’s salespeople visit the office of a customer, interview him to determine the style of suit, jacket or slacks he wants, take his measurements, his preferred fabric type, weight and color. The survey also includes questions about a client’s personal and professional lifestyle to determine the most appropriate look. The information is placed in the company’s central computer in Newport Beach, which helps select the final pattern.

From there, the pattern is sent to one of four Renzi manufacturing shops in the New York and Chicago areas. Computers there transform the design to a paper pattern, which is used to cut the chosen fabric by hand. The pieces are placed on a production line where each part is sewn. For example, all sleeves are sewn by one person, collars by another and so on until a suit, shirt or pair of slacks is assembled. “We’re taking the old-country tailoring world and blending it with the technology of mass-produced clothing,” Renzi said.

“One hundred years ago, everyone had his clothes tailor-made, then came the Industrial Revolution,” which Renzi said resulted in mediocre tailors receiving more money by making clothes on assembly lines. A smaller number of master tailors stayed in business by measuring clients and cutting patterns themselves, and using small staffs to do the actual sewing.

Renzi, 37, studied design under several master tailors including Los Angeles’ Giacomo Trabalza and New York’s William Firovanti after being certified at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Design. He is now vice president of the Custom Tailors and Designers Assn. of North America in New York.

After leaving the fashion institute, Renzi worked as a tailor for Tom James Inc., a men’s custom clothing company based in Texas, and became one of their West Coast sales managers in Beverly Hills. He left Tom James in 1986 to begin his own clothing company.

Renzi’s suits sell for $800 to $3,000 each--whether totally hand-made or with some machine stitching--and take about four weeks to complete. Renzi says the convenience of personalized service and custom clothing justifies the higher prices. If something is wrong with a Renzi suit or if a customer gains weight, a Renzi employee will pick up the suit and take it in for alteration.

Ed Goebel, vice president of CGH Consulting, a business consulting firm in Newport Beach, likes Renzi’s service quality.

“I first met Michael Renzi after a friend recommended him. My friend said that Renzi’s suits were not that much more expensive than those found in some men’s stores,” Goebel said. “I experimented at first with pants and a sports coat, and then I bought some suits. That was in 1986, and I’ve been buying from him ever since.”

Michael Renzi Custom Gallery, which sold 1,500 suits last season, has branch offices in eight cities, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Minneapolis. It operates two retail stores, in Memphis and Little Rock, next to its tailoring outlets there. Renzi has six tailors in Orange County and five in Los Angeles. He said he hopes his 7-year-old company, which generated more than $3 million in 1992 sales, will be in 20 cities by year’s end.

Renzi continues to invest in computerization. “We’re going toward the time when a customer can dial our office from his computer and see his image in 3-D complete with his personal swatch book of suggested colors and fabrics to provide him with his personalized wardrobe,” he said.

Renzi said that he can fit any size body, but that the most difficult thing to custom fit is a man’s mind. Too many men with the body of Danny DeVito want to look like Sean Connery, he says.