One family. Two houses.
Since 1999: ABR Custom Tailors, the by-appointment atelier for made-to-measure and bespoke — and ABR Tailors & Suits, the Friendly Center store for ready-to-wear, online and in person. One standard behind both: if it carries our name, it fits.
Built on a needle, a thread, and a promise
This trade has been in our family for more than 69 years. It started with silk — weaving and working fine cloth for royal houses — long before the first suit ever left our bench. Three generations later, the same family runs two Greensboro houses: the Atelier for bespoke and made-to-measure, and the Store at Friendly Center for ready-to-wear.
The whole history is below. The short version: one grandfather, two sons trained in two different schools of cut, hundreds of hand-drafted patterns, and a promise that never changed — if it carries our name, it fits.
How we got here
It starts with silk
Our story doesn't begin with a suit. It begins with silk. Our grandfather Rahim made his name working fine silks — cloth so good it dressed royal houses. He could read a bolt of fabric with his fingertips the way other men read a newspaper: where it would drape, where it would fight you, what it wanted to become. Before our family ever cut a jacket, we understood cloth. Everything since has grown from that.
From cloth to clothing
Sooner or later, a man who loves cloth that much can't bear to hand it over to someone else's scissors. So the family began to cut. The silks became scarves, then skirts, then jackets, then suits — each one a little braver than the last. The workshop filled with chalk dust and thread, and a family of fabric merchants quietly became a family of tailors.
London and the bench at home
Then Rahim did something that shaped everything after: he split his two sons between the world's two great schools of tailoring. Alan was sent to Savile Row in London to learn the British cut — structured shoulders, close waists, a suit built like armor you can sit down in. Jonathan stayed at his father's bench and fell for the Italian line — softer, lighter, cloth that moves when you move. Two brothers, two philosophies, one dinner table. Most tailoring houses pick a school and defend it forever. Ours argued about it over every meal — and the customers won the argument, because we learned to cut both.
Two cuts under one roof
Together the brothers built a true bespoke house. Hundreds of patterns drafted by hand — and every single one kept, because a pattern is a person, and you don't throw people away. Through those doors came CEOs and schoolteachers, pastors and grooms, men dressing for boardrooms and men dressing for the best day of their lives. Every one of them measured by the same hands, offered the same choice — British structure or Italian ease — and given the same guarantee. The cut was the customer's decision. The fit never was.
Greensboro becomes home
When the next generation started earning places at North Carolina's universities — Duke, UNC — the family did what this family does: stayed together. Everything came to Greensboro — the shears, the patterns, the fabric, the stubborn opinions about shoulders — and ABR opened its doors here in 1999. Twenty-seven years later we're still where we planted ourselves: the Atelier on Muirs Chapel Road for bespoke, the Store at Friendly Center for everyone who walks in.
The third generation
Then came the third generation. Alex grew up in this — under the cutting tables, surrounded by chalk and cloth — and when he joined the business, he opened the doors wider than they'd ever been: design your suit online from anywhere, the traditional cut delivered the modern way. Ready-to-wear joined bespoke on the racks. Then wedding parties. Big & tall. Women's suits. Kids in little suits matching their fathers. Sharp casual for days without a tie. The reach is brand new. The bench, the patterns, and the promise are exactly the same.
customers come back. In any business, in any town, that's the only review that matters.
The hand that measures you is the hand that cuts
In most places, one person takes your measurements, writes them on a card, and hands the card to someone you'll never meet. Something always gets lost on that card. Not here. At ABR, the tailor who measures you is the tailor who cuts your cloth and builds your suit. No handoff. No translation. No second-guessing what a number on a card was supposed to mean.
Because here's the secret of real bespoke: it was never just about the measurements. A tape measure tells us your size. Everything else tells us your suit — how you stand, which shoulder sits lower, how you carry yourself when you talk, how you sit at a desk all day or move on your feet all week. Two men with identical measurements need two different suits. The tailor who watched you stand in the mirror is the only one who knows which one is yours.
That's the whole reason it fits like ours do.
The house rules
Fit is non-negotiable
Every custom order includes two months of free alterations. We adjust until it's right — period.
Honest pricing
Custom from $495, quoted clearly before we cut. No surprise charges, ever.
Craft over speed
3–4 weeks buys you a garment made properly. Rush when you need it; never rushed by default.
Find us in Greensboro
The Store — ABR Tailors & Suits
Friendly Center · Walk-ins welcomeGreensboro, NC 27410
The Atelier — ABR Custom Tailors
Muirs Chapel Rd · By appointmentGreensboro, NC 27410
Come meet the family
Stop by Friendly Center, or book a private appointment at the atelier. Either way, the coffee's on us.