Final cut
Tailor Gerd Bruckschwaiger retires after 55 years
After 55 years in business, a Sydney man is preparing to hit his tailor-made bucket list.
Gerd Bruckschwaiger, owner of Gerd’s Tailor Shop and Art Gallery on Grand Lake Road in Sydney, has retired and is selling his shop to a longtime employee.
“I have mixed feelings because I enjoyed my work and communicating with the customers but at the same time I want to move on and do everything I have on my bucket list.”
There was no surprise that Bruckschwaiger, originally of Austria, became a tailor. His mother Angela had a seamstress shop and his father Andreas was a tailor.
Bruckschwaiger said in Austria
he finished school at age 15 and went right into a job while attending school once a week to learn a trade.
“After three years, I wrote my test and I was a tailor.”
In 1960, at age 19, Bruckschwaiger came to Canada to work for his uncle Albert Bruckschwaiger, who owned a tailor shop in Glace Bay.
When he first arrived, he was amazed by the different landscape and buildings.
“I remember the first time I drove down Commercial Street — that’s where I lived with my uncle — it reminded me of the western movies, like the square-top buildings. It’s just that they didn’t have posts for the horses, they had parking meters.”
Bruckschwaiger only spoke German so he began to mingle with people more to learn English.
“I didn’t know it at the time but you didn’t learn proper English in the old pool rooms.”
A few months later, he went on a double date with a buddy and two nurses.
Bruckschwaiger said they went to the movies and then for hamburgers where he started using the only words he knew.
“My buddy told me, ‘You can’t use those words.’
“It was funny as I had no idea what I was really saying, I didn’t know the difference.”
After a year and a half, Bruckschwaiger went to work for tailor Bert Gatto in New Waterford. It was 1962 and they were making suits by scratch for $85.
“They would pick out their own material and style.”
Bruckschwaiger said in those days all the men wore suits everywhere they went.
“If they went out in the evening they wore a suit, any kind of meetings they had suits on and they’d never go to church without a suit.”
In 1963, he opened Gerd’s Tailor Shop in Glace Bay.
Eventually he stopped making suits but still sold them.
“It wasn’t worth it to make them, we couldn’t compete with the stores.”
In the 1970s, Bruckschwaiger moved his shop to Charlotte Street in Sydney.
“In Glace Bay, business was more seasonal and in Sydney we were busy all the time. I had three girls working for me there.”
In 1985, he moved across from the Mayflower Mall, and in 2011 went to his current location on Grand Lake Road.
Over the years Bruckschwaiger said the tailoring business changed from
making suits from scratch to mainly alternations.
“Now the men step on the bottom of pants instead of getting them shortened.”
Bruckschwaiger has had lots of memorable requests. Once a prominent woman came in with an expensive cashmere coat wanting the lining changed.
“She said, ‘I’m allergic to the colour green.’”
Bruckschwaiger put a new lining in the coat in the colour the woman wanted but she wasn’t entirely satisfied when she came back the following week.
“She said, ‘You didn’t do the flaps in the pockets.’”
Bruckschwaiger said one man — a fussy dresser — would ask for his pants to be taken in a quarter of an inch or let out a quarter of an inch.
“I asked, ‘How would you notice the difference?’ He said, I can’t help it, I do.’”
Bruckschwaiger said it wasn’t uncommon to find things in pockets of clothing left for alterations, especially money.
“I’d find other things as well like a joint once.”
Changing with the times he added other services to his shop over the years including leatherwork and for a while even fur work. Customers were loyal.
“I had one married couple who had three boys, they were like pipe organs,” he said.
“The boys grew up, got married and now their children are coming to the shop. That shows you what can happen when you’re 55 years in business.”
Bruckschwaiger has six children, including Pernell, Romana and Darren with first wife Susan, who died at age 39. When he married his second wife, Isabell, she also had three children, Heather Wilson, Dawna Horton and Peter Ferguson.
“It was great, we became like the Partridge family.”
Isabell died about seven years ago.
A well-known artist, Bruckschwaiger is looking forward to retirement with his partner Ulla Ahlers and plans to put more time into his artwork, hopes to get into acting, wants to take a philosophy course and travel.
“I visit Europe every year but now it’ll be longer visits.”
Customer Don Beaton, now retired and found visiting the shop Thursday, worked around the Maritimes.
“I’ve dealt with tailors across Atlantic Canada and I’d say Gerd is No. 1,” he said.
“The most important part I found with Gerd was his honesty. If they couldn’t do it right they wouldn’t do it. He would explore options with the customers.”
Bruckschwaiger said he’s grateful to all his customers and knows the shop will be in good hands as it’s being purchased by Margaret Odo, a 25-year employee.
“I know she’s very capable of doing it. I’m still in and out, and if she needs me I will help her.”
Odo, 61, said she has been sewing since she was nine years old. At age 10 she started making dresses for her mother.
“My father bought me my first sewing machine. He told me if I did a good job he’d buy me the table to go with it. And he did.”
Odo said they are holding a huge sale and selling off the suits but other than that nothing will be changing in the business, not even the name.
“I will be keeping his name as everybody knows him.”