By Victoria Barber-Emery
Enquirer contributor

MADEIRA - Twenty-six-year-old Trevor Furbay walked into Romualdo in 1999 looking to rent formalwear for his wedding. Four months later, he and his new wife, Wendy, bought the place.

In the five years since then, he has boosted sales at the Italian tailor and formalwear shop by adding designer products and expanding the alterations and custom clothing.

"We've grown about 25 percent each year," he says. "We're over $1 million in sales.

Trevor Furbay is the proprietor of Romualdo in Madeira. (Enquirer photo/MEGGAN BOOKER)

"In my industry everybody is down by 20 percent every year. But for us it's been just the opposite."

Former owner and master tailor Romualdo Pelle said he was looking for just the right person to buy his shop.

"Because I had a pretty decent business, I wanted to sell it to someone who could do well with my clientele and had experience in clothing," he says. "I've been approached by others."

Pelle says he and Furbay "just clicked," and the 70-year-old Pelle continues to work at the shop 40 hours a week.

Career began early

Furbay started his career in clothing while he was still in college - working for Polo-Ralph Lauren in Cincinnati and in New York.

From there he went to work for Haas Tailoring Co., the oldest custom clothier in Baltimore.

"That's where I learned the manufacturing and design part of clothing," he says. "I found that my passion has always been clothing."

He and Wendy, who had met nine years earlier while he was majoring in economics at University of Cincinnati, got married and wanted to move back to Cincinnati to be closer to Wendy's family.

Furbay says the purchase of Romualdo let him return to Cincinnati while capitalizing on his passion for clothing.

He immediately began concentrating on expanding the tailor's business, adding exclusive casual clothing and keeping cloth on hand for custom suits.

"When I bought it, we were just a little tailor with a formalwear business. I sat here and I watched all these customers come in, but there was no product for them to buy.

"Most stores have all this clothing and inventory, but they don't have customers. We were just the opposite. There were just tons of customers," Furbay says.

"I thought, I can put together all the clothing that I love and provide it for these customers."

Furbay also began carrying designer ready-to-wear lines such as Fred Perry and Bills Khakis. He says his average customer now owns more than 10 pairs of khakis.

He also expanded the shop's demographic market by offering Jake Agave jeans geared toward the younger generation.

"My normal target customer is 30 to 60. The new clothing is bringing my 18- to 25-year-olds in here. I'm getting them in here early instead of waiting for them to be 30," Furbay says. "They're buying $175 denim jeans and cool T-shirts. It's hot. It's what's happening."

Blended talents

Customers say it's the unique blend of talents between Furbay and Pelle that keeps the business thriving.

Scott Lothmann, 31, of Terrace Park, first had pants altered at Romualdo when he was 11. Twenty years later, he's one of the shop's best customers.

"Romualdo and Trevor fit together as a team and work with their customer. They really know me as a customer, and they know my style and my preferences," Lothmann says.

"They've brought the old-time clothier back. I can go there on a Saturday afternoon and Trevor will have coffee waiting for me. It's great because I can have coffee in the morning, pick up my alterations and browse."

Pelle says he's grateful to Furbay for using innovation and style to increase business.

"He improved a lot of things," Pelle says. "I'm pretty much a tailor by trade. I can give him a lot of advice as to what clothing is supposed to be. He has experience in the cloth and the style. I think they click together just right."

Pelle knows tailoring technique, sewing, pinning, when to use pleats or darts. Furbay recognizes what fabrics or pattern are in style. So Furbay picks the pattern design and fabric and Pelle follows the pattern using the fabric to make the custom suit.

Furbay says tailoring is a dying art. He recognized Pelle's unique skill, so he began keeping cloth on hand to expand the custom suit business.

"I'm not saying this to be a braggart, but I am proud. Nobody delivers a custom-made suit like we do. We're still doing things the old-fashioned way, making suits by hand," Furbay says.

The tailoring side has grown so much that Furbay is opening up a new room at the shop just for Pelle.

"It's just going to be Romualdo's room to deal with hand-tailoring and making suits. We're going to try to make it a tailor shop that's a little bit nicer," Furbay says.

The new room will have an old-world decor, with Oriental rugs and comfortable chairs.

And now, Kennedy's

Another reason for the nicer room is to better serve a growing female clientele arriving from the new store just upstairs.

A year ago, Trevor and Wendy opened Kennedy's, a boutique carrying lines of clothing influenced by Jackie Kennedy Onassis' style, including Edward An, Tracey Reese, Fred Perry, Helen Wang, Bettye Muller and Pink Tartan.

Wendy Furbay, who manages the shop, says much of her sales are due to the fact that her customers have access to on-site alterations. The new shop has increased women's alterations by 50 percent to about 35 percent of Romualdo's alteration customers.

It's been a whirlwind five years for the Furbays and their mentor, Pelle, and there are no signs of a slowdown.

This fall Furbay plans to unveil his own private-label collection of custom shirts, suits, sport coats and trousers. The line has an English influence with an updated take on classic styles. Materials will be 100 percent wool cloth from super 120s to super 180s, the highest quality rating available.

The new line, says Furbay, will tie together the "Old World" Italian tailor shop with an English style.

The men who make Romualdo a success

Origins: Italian-born tailor Romualdo Pelle opened his shop in 1968.

He came to the United States from Italy in 1960, when he was 26. His wife was already here because her grandfather lived in the States.

Pelle started learning to tailor at age 9. He began as a tailor at H.& S. Pogue Co. and worked his way up to a supervisor in alterations.

He is now 70 and still works full-time.

New owner: The new owner, Trevor Furbay, is from New Philadelphia, Ohio, near Canton. His father lived in New York so he spent weekends there. That is where he got his flair for fashion.

Employees: 15

Location: 7121 Miami Ave., Madeira.

561-9010

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E-mail vemery@fuse.net