There is a moment in every fitting that requires courage.

Not when you first walk into the atelier, though that takes its own kind of bravery. Not when you choose the fabric or discuss the details. The moment I mean comes earlier, quieter. It's when you must stand still and allow yourself to be measured.

The tape comes around your shoulders. Crosses your chest. Traces the length of your arm. And for those few minutes, you cannot be anywhere else. You cannot check your phone or think about the next appointment. You must simply be present, be seen, be known in the most literal sense.

This is harder than it sounds. We are not accustomed to stillness. We are even less accustomed to being truly measured.

What the Tape Knows

A good tailor measures more than inches. He reads posture—the way years of carrying weight have shaped your shoulders. He notices which side you favor, how you naturally stand when you're not performing. He sees the small asymmetries that make you exactly who you are, not who you're trying to be.

There is profound honesty in this act. You cannot hide from a measuring tape. It knows your actual dimensions, not the ones you claim or wish for. It requires you to be exactly as you are, in this moment, in this body.

This is why custom tailoring demands trust. You are allowing someone to see you completely—to know your measure—and to craft something that will fit not some idealized version of you, but you as you actually exist.

It takes fortitude to be this honest. To stand still. To be measured without pretense.

How Christmas Measures Us

I've been thinking about this as Christmas approaches, because the season measures us too, though we rarely speak of it this way.

Not by the gifts we buy or the parties we attend. Not by the decorations we hang or the meals we prepare, though these matter in their own way. Christmas measures us by a different standard entirely.

It measures our presence. Our capacity to sit at a table and truly listen. Our ability to put down what we're carrying—the phone, the worry, the endless list—and simply be with the people in front of us.

The season asks: Can you stand still long enough to be seen? To be known? To let the people who matter take your true measure?

This, too, requires fortitude. Perhaps more than we realize.

The Things We Cannot Rush

There is a reason a proper suit takes time. Multiple fittings. Adjustments. Small refinements that cannot be hurried. You cannot buy depth. You cannot purchase the kind of fit that knows your body, that moves with you, that improves with every wearing.

A suit from a rack might clothe you for an evening. A made suit becomes part of how you inhabit the world. It remembers your shape. It ages with you. It lasts not because it's expensive, but because it was made—truly made—for you specifically.

This is not about luxury. It's about the choice to invest in what endures over what is simply available.

Christmas works the same way. The moments that stay with us—the ones we carry for years—are never the ones we rushed through. They're the extra hour at the table after the meal is finished. The conversation that meandered into unexpected territory. The quiet morning before everyone woke, coffee in hand, watching snow fall.

These cannot be bought. They can only be made, through presence and attention and the fortitude to choose depth when everything around us demands speed.

What Endures

My father wore the same wool overcoat for thirty years. Charcoal gray, double-breasted, made in a small shop that no longer exists. By the end, the fabric had molded entirely to his frame—the way his right shoulder sat slightly lower, the forward lean he'd developed from decades of his work.

When he passed, I had it altered to fit me. Not perfectly—it still carries some of his shape, and I like this. When I wear it, I inherit not just the coat but something of his posture, his bearing, the way he moved through cold winters with quiet dignity.

This is what lasts. Not the thing itself, but what the thing carries. The attention paid. The time invested. The way quality compounds across years until it becomes something more than fabric and thread.

A well-made suit can outlive you. So can a well-made moment.

Both require the same fortitude: the courage to slow down, to be measured honestly, to invest in what cannot be rushed. To choose permanence in a world that profits from disposability.

The Season's True Measure

So this Christmas, as the world accelerates into its familiar frenzy, I find myself thinking about that moment in the fitting room. About what it means to stand still and be measured. About the fortitude required to be fully present, fully seen, fully honest about who we are and what we carry.

Both will know if you showed up or simply appeared. If you were present or just accounted for. If you allowed yourself to be measured—truly measured—by what matters.

We live in an era of instant everything. Fast fashion, fast food, fast relationships. But some things cannot be rushed. A suit that fits perfectly. A tradition that grounds a family. A presence that says, without words, I am here, fully, for you.

These things are made, not bought. They require time we're told we don't have. They demand presence we're not trained to give. They ask us to stand still in a world that only values motion.

This is fortitude. Not in the loud or dramatic sense, but in the daily choice to invest in what lasts over what's merely convenient.

The season will measure us. The question is whether we'll have the courage to stand still long enough to be measured well.

Stand still. Be present. Be measured honestly.

The rest—the real rest—is made from this.

Fortitude is an ongoing series exploring the quiet strength required to live deliberately in a world that demands speed.