a short film woven by master tailors
While helping master tailor Larnell Baldwin at his storefront in Philadelphia's Fabric Row, an aspiring designer overhears stories from a disappearing generation of master tailors. "Taking in the Tailors" is a 16mm film record of the sounds, textures and stories of a skilled generation of designers and tailors who no longer live in a world with apprentices.
"Taking in the Tailors" is a 16mm film capturing the sounds, textures and stories of a skilled generation of designers and tailors who no longer live in a world with apprentices.
“Taking in the Tailors” is a short film project instigated by seasoned master tailor Larnell Baldwin, who is amongst the last of his generation of fine custom tailors still operating in Philadelphia. The film serves as both a personal and cultural record, considering generationally-passed skills and knowledge.
As tailoring craft and spaces in Philadelphia continue to fade, this short aims to document and preserve the stories, wisdom, and techniques of a departing generation of tailors who have helped to shape the city’s fashion landscape. In particular, the film focuses on the unique, hands-on learning process that takes place in and around Baldwin’s shop on Fabric Row—a place where young designers, working mothers and aspiring hobbyists alike can learn old-world techniques on the verge of being forgotten. Through the lens of a young artist apprenticing with Baldwin, the audience is introduced to a slew of retired and aging master tailors, ensuring that their legacies are overheard and remembered.
Collaborators
Larnell Baldwin (he/him) is a master tailor from Philly with more than 40 years of experience, Larnell Baldwin started designing, sewing, and tailoring as a student at Overbrook High School. He graduated from the renowned Tracey Warner School of Fashion, where he later began teaching and pattern making. By 2000, Baldwin was running his tailoring service and fabric shop and started Baldwin's Fashion Institute and School of Tailoring in Queen’s Village’s Farbic Row, where he continues to teach old-world skills to new generations.
Ty Burdenski (they/them) is a trouble/filmmaker based in Philadelphia, where they can often be found blurring the lines between fact and fiction, perception and repetition, memory and devotion. Their work has recently been featured at venues such as the Portland Museum of Art, the Tanya Bonakdar gallery in New York, the 2024 Malta Biennale, and the Midnight Moment in Times Square.
Catching On Thieves (she/her) is a multimedia artist who creates to both understand what is to be & to stay alive. She writes of spies & prophets, Y2K conspiracies & the relationship between abstraction, perception & interoception, using her body as a question mark meant to disturb our assumptions about what we say we know about what we are. Titles of her recent works include, Piano Lessons, "Memory, Vein," A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Terrorist, Mulata She-male Gets it From All Sides, & Not One & Simple, or, What Would James Baldwin Do? She was resident at the Queer Materials Lab, Translab, The Performance Intensive, PAPA, PAAFF, & the upcoming Session 9 of the Raw Materials Academie hosted at the ICA in Spring 2022. She is founding a church devoted to the worship & study of art called The Church of the Quarter-Closed Eyes.
Quinha Mukai Faria (she/her, b. 1988, Campinas, Brazil) is an artist
working across painting, sculpture, and installation. Her years at the
hospital bedside inform an ongoing inquiry into the connections that
emerge among bodily, material, and social systems. Drawing on
backgrounds in human physiology, emergency medical care, and custom
tailoring, Faria works with expired medical supplies, provisional
building materials, and natural fibers to examine processes of care,
maintenance, and adaptation. Faria received an MFA from Bard College in
2025 and holds a BS in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania as
well as a BS in Human Physiology from the University of Oregon. Her work
has been exhibited at Kiang Malingue (New York), Art Basel (Hong Kong),
Asian Arts Initiative, Vox Populi, Mural Arts (Philadelphia), and
Carnation Contemporary (Portland).
Aidan Un (he/him) is a French-Korean filmmaker based in Philadelphia for the past 17 years. When he’s not making films you can catch him at a Capoeira roda or drumming with Korean Percussion Ensemble 우리얼 (URIOL).