Gothic Garments - How to Order

Dear friends of Gothic Garments & Monastery Garments,

Please telephone us instead of email at: cell: (415) 412-6685,

7 AM - 11 PM, Pacific Time.

We have "Grade A Plus" rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) of Northern California; And are receiving full certification from BBB by mid March, 2012.

10) TRY TO KEEP PHONE CALLS TO 15 MIN, MAX PER GARMENT ORDER.

Please try to limit each phone call to 15 min.max.;And read our policy on email & phone calls in our home page.

11) WE PREFER PHONE CALLS- READ OUR E-MAIL & PHONE CALL POLICY

We can answer all your questions and particulars/details about monastic habits, clergy apparel and capes best by telephone instead of email when possible. If you can communicate only by email, (some of our customers are hearing impaired) that is OK ; You may use the e-mail link at the top of our home page.

Telephone calls are the surest and fastest way to explain to you the complexities and many different styles, fabric types and details of our custom tailored garments and habits which would be far too time consuming and complex to discuss by e-mail.

Please read our new upgraded email and telephone policy in the scroll down portion of our home page.

We much prefer to discuss all habit and garment subjects & prices by telephone instead of email; Please read our policy on telephone calls & email in the scroll down part of our home page and near the top of our order form at www.gothicgarments.com/order

MONASTERY GARMENTS IN THE LATIN RITE, ANGLICAN & BYZANTINE STYLES

We specialize in custom tailored monks & nuns habits; traditional / "pre-Vatican II" monastic habits & "Post Vatican II" styles and clergy aapparel and habits of the Latin, Anglican & Byzantine/Orthodox traditions. Call us instead of email for our updated prices.

12) WE CUSTOM TAILOR ACCORDING TO OUR PHOTOS ONLY

When you call us, please have the photo numbers from our web site that you would like to discuss; We tailor according to the photos you see on our web site, not on other people's sites; And as a helpful tool, you are welcome to send 2-3 photos or scans from other sites & print outs; Please avoid small photos & scans; But ultimately, we have to go according to our own web site's garment designs, not that of some one else.

13) IF YOU HAVE A MODEL GARMENT FOR US TO FOLLOW, IT WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL FOR US IN EXPEDITING THE WHOLE TAILORING PROCESS FOR YOU

If you want to order a monastic/ religious habit, clergy apparel or liturgical vestments from us, it would be VERY helpful, if you have a model available, (If you don't, then we will use our patterns here) clean from your wardrobe, although not required, to help us make our tailoring a lot easier, to send with your order; a full scale model garment such as a full length tunic that we can duplicate to your exact dimensions and style; Please state all your measurements & info on our order form; And we will return your model garment with your new garment(s) at the completion of your garment; If you can't send a full scale back-up model garment, we will use our patterns here.

14) EXTRA TALL, SHORTER OR WIDER CUSTOMERS

If you are ordering a garment or habit such as a monk or nuns tunic for yourself or. for a person who is a lot smaller, taller or wider than the average size of your age group, we URGE you, if at all possible, in order to help us tailor an accurately fitted garment or habit for you, to temporarily provide us with a full scale clean cloth garment model from your wardrobe that accurately fits you or the person for whom it is intended; And bare in mind that traditional, "pre-Vatican II" and Byzantine styles and monastic habits are usually loose fitting (allowing for your street clothes under) vs. the more form fitting modern styles and Roman cassocks.

15) WE CUSTOM TAILOR TO THE PUBLIC via MAIL ORDER

We sew & sell to the general public, religious orders, religious and monastic individuals, monasteries, convents, special events and for monastic clothing/profession ceremonies etc.

We do not require that our customers follow any religious rules, rubrics or ecclesiastical customs;That is not our job; Our job is to tailor for you high quality, authentic, traditional & glorious monastery garments and clergy apparel. We don't make the rules; We just make the habits! .

16) 2 DAY DISCOUNTS, 7 DAY DISCOUNTS & VOLUME DISCOUNTS

Call us about our generous "2 DAY DISCOUNTS" , "7 DAY DISCOUNTS" & VOLUME DISCOUNTS; They are the same rate for all lay, religious, clergy and monastic orders and individuals; Since most of our customers are in some form of religious, clerical or monastic life of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Byzantine Rite and Orthodox traditions.

TWO DAY DISCOUNT: Call & ask about this discount; We can give you this discount if we receive your payment WITHIN two days from the day we quote you this discount by phone not by email; This discount ends 2 days latter, at 6 PM, Pacific Time, the close of the business day in our time zone.

If you want to take advantage of the "Two Day Discount" please telephone us (not by email) at (415) 412-6685, 8AM till 11 PM Pacific Time; And we'll be happy to give you this discount & tell you by phone how much the discount will be which will reduce your total cost; After this 2 day period, if we have not received your payment, nor your initiating a direct deposit or wire transfer or overnight express delivery, the garment(s) or habits(s) go back up to regular prices The Two Day Discount" is larger than the 7 day discount.

7 DAY DISCOUNTS: Call & ask about this discount; We can give you this discount if we receive your payment WITHIN 7 days from the day we quote you this discount by phone not by email; This discount ends 7 days latter, (Iincluding Saturday & Sunday at 6 PM, Pacific Time, the close of the business day in our time zone. After this 7 day period, if we have not received your payment, nor your initiating a direct deposit or wire transfer or overnight express delivery, the garment(s) or habits(s) go back up to regular prices

17) WE PREFER USING OUR FABRIC WE HAVE HERE FOR YOUR ORDER

We have a lot of fabric here in stock or you are welcome to send your own fabric; Call us FIRST for details; And we will just bill you for the cost of our craftsmanship, shipping and any possible rush order charge if you want a rush order; We don't do rush orders for overseas; See our rush order rates on the order form at www.gothicgarments.com/order

18) BE CAREFUL NOT TO CONFUSE US W/ CONFLICTING, INCONSISTENT INFO

If you are ordering garments for more than one person, please make sure that, among your group, you MUST ALL AGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER BEFORE you send the completed order form(s) to us; Otherwise we will get conflicting and confusing instructions; And please have only ONE representative not two or three conflicting reps.speak for your group; This will help avoid confusing us with miss-stepped, inconsistent communication(s) and conflicting & backtracking info given to us before, during and after the entire tailoring and shipping process. Have your group's representative available by phone during the entire above process in case we need to call you for any clarifications or incomplete info on the order form.

19) YOU MUST READ & FOLLOW ALL ORDER FORM IINSTRUCTIONS

To order a habit or anything from us, simply follow all the ordering instructions and foot notes in our order form at www.gothicgarments.com/order and in this page.

20) USE A TYPEWRITER ON OUR ORDER FORM WHENEVER POSSIBLE

If at all possible use a typewriter; Second best-use a ball point pen; Fill out the order form in a clear, legible, non-confusing manner; Please do not write your measurements in centimeters on the order form; Do not use a led pencil or felt tip pen or dry marker of any color; Your typing (preferred) or ball point pen (2 nd best) can overflow into the right margins & bottom margins of our order form; Send us ONLY one completed order form per order, per person to be outfitted; Do not send duplicates of completed order form(s).

21) BE SPECIFIC ABOUT WHAT GARMENT STYLE & DETAILS YOU WANT

Call us so we can quote you our updated prices; Prices are based on your choice of cotton/poly, poly/wool, 100% wool, 100% poly, 100% cotton; Prices are also based on if you want: Pockets? Hip slits? Stiff hood? Soft hood? Benedictine habit?, Cistercian habit? O,F.M.,Francscan habit? Carmelite habit? Standard monastic pointed hood or Swiss-American style hood(stiff- rolled hood)? O.F.M. hood? Post-Vatican II modern nuns habit style? Full length traditional male or female "Pre-Vatican II" monk, friar, priest or nuns style? Rush order? Non-Rush order? Overseas? Average adult size? Child size? A lot larger, smaller, shorter, wider or taller than your age group's average size? etc

.All the above complex details cannot be discussed adiquetly and in a timely manner by email; Only by telephone; Please read our email & telephone policy in our home page.

22) CROSS-GENDER HABITS- TRY NOT TO CONFUSE US OR BACKTRACK

These types of habits are becoming increasing popular in the Roman Rite and Anglican monastic traditions since the early 1970's; And reflects an expanding spiritual, yes, deep mystical re-awakening.

Believe it or not, we get a lot of such requests from active and cloistered, mostly nuns and their lay /Third Order and Oblate associates of the Roman Catholic & Anglican Churchs; And amazingly, even some Protestants,Lutherns, Methodists and Evangelical church clergy, choirs, schools and orchestras have ordered from us,

23) AVOID AMBIGUITY & MAKE A FIRM DECISION & STICK WITH IT

If you are ordering a cross gender or androgynous habit, vestment etc, you cannot back track or change your original order to a different type of cross gender habit or other garment(s) once we have started to cut out the fasbric for your garment order; No exchange or refunds (rare exceptions given) on cross-gender monastic habits; This is to avoid spining us into an endless cycle of flip-flopping back and forth and down a slippery sloap of indecission on your part or that of your group and delays for weeks or months.

If you are part of a group who are ordering 2 or more habits and one of your group includes such a cross gender habit / garment (above); we will assume that you all know and agree with one another about your group's habits BEFORE you send us your habit order; Don't give us your groups confirmed garment info when it is too late in the process, when we have started cutting out the fabric. Complete the order form(s) in a non conflicting, non-contradictory, non-confusing,unambiguous, non-backtracking, clear, legible manner via only one representative whenever possible.

24) KEEP SUPRISES OUT WHEN ORDERING CUSTOM TAILORED GARMENTS

If you are thinking of ordering any habit or garment from us as a "suprise gift" or as a "suprise gift for their profession into the religious life, monastic life or ordination or for the birthday of someone you know, a friend or an associate; Step # One: Please remove all suprise, high drama, guess work and suspense when ordering any custom tailored garment(s); The last thing you would want to do is to give your friend a custom tailored habit or garment that does not fit them properly because they were EXCLUDED from all the custom tailoring process and required measuring of them with a tape measure. The high drama of suprise psychology is incompatible with all custom tailored garments..

We do not charge tax

We do not accept credit cards or Pay-Pall

We do not rent or sell garment patterns

We do not rent garments

We do not sew on or sell buttons, button holes, zippers. (Snaps are an exception)

We make a maximum of aproximatly 20 pleats in Byzantine mandyas capes

We do no 5 day or 7 day rush orders for single or multiple tunics with pleats

We are not spiritual counselors or vocation directors

We do not require that you follow any rubrics or religious customs

We do not make anything in "one size fits all"; We do only custom tailoring to order.

We do not tailor according to other peoples web site(s), mesureing system or numbered measurement charts; Please do not send your own self styled order form or measuring chart; Use ours only.

We do not take garment orders over the phone; State everything on our order form.

We talk with customers 7 days a week by phone; Please observe 15 min. max on the phone per garment order; We do no sewing or tailoring on weekends or major holidays.

25) OUR ENLIGHTENED NON-DISCRIMNATION POLICY

We do not discriminate against anyone based on race, creed (religion), gender, age, sexual orientation, economic, labor, imigrant, marital or employment status, political or religious affiliation(s) or canonical church status, mobility,vision or hearing impared etc.

We envision, work and prey for the day when all the rest of Christendom (Many already have)-indeed the whole WORLD FAMLY will finally adopt such an enlightened, unversal view, spirituality and policy of compassion and human acceptance-wether it's ordering habits or in every day life and work; Our world will be all the better and uplifted for it and toward equality for all people from all walks of life.

Call and ask about our 2 day discount, 7 day discount and vollum discount rates

We have "Grade A Plus " rating with the Better Business Bureau of Northern California; And will be fully certified by mid March, 2012

We do not tailor rush orders for overseas; Only non-rush order abroad.

26) PLEATS ON TUNICS NEED NOT BE COVERED UP UNLESS NEED TO

As of March 1, 2012, the price for the 8 box pleats on all adult size nuns full length, tunics,(8 vertical pleats down the front) goes up to $200 per pleating job, per tunic in addition to the price of the single, adult size tunic itself (male or female).

Custom tailored pleating on tunics & Byzantine capes is the MOST difficult & time consuming work we do here at our Monastery Garments work shop.

If you are ordering any above pleated tunic(s) and the pleated part is to be all hidden & covered up by a scapular (OSB, Discelsed Carmalite), capuche/sholder capelett (Dominican, Trinitarian, Cistercians of the Common Observance etc) or long, waist length, capuche, (Conventual Franciscan or O'Carm) wimple or guimpe (White guimpe over chest/Daughters of Charity of St.Vincent de Paul / Pre-Vatican II) , please ask yourself three questions: "Do I really want to cover up the beautiful pleated craftsmanship, long, careful hours in the making, $200 per pleated front tunic in addition to the price of the tunic itself? Is this counterproductive? Or do I want to order a much less costly unpleated tunic that will look EXACTLY the same as the above pleated tunics?

; Except the above pleated tunics may need a rubricly required (per custom/rule of religious orders) scapular or long capuch or guimpe covering up all the beautiful pleated workmanship?"

If you are ordering 2-3 adult size pleated tunics as a rush order, we will need at least 2 weeks to tailor them and an additional 2 weeks per any additional 2-3 such pleated tunics for rush orders. See diagrams of above pleated garments at:* (INSERT LINK HERE)

27) YOUR PAYMENT METHOD; CHOOSE ONLY ONE

Call us for details & clarifications:

1) Check or money order payable only to Paul Bernardino

Do not write a two party check; If at all possible, we prefer a money order

2) Direct deposit (My bank requires cash only & will not accept credit cards or debit cards for direct deposit) Direct deposit from an affilated bank in your area to my account here (No fee is charged to either party.) My bank checking account # is: (Call for details)

May we recommend either direct deposit as the MOST efficient, free (No bank fee charged to either party) & speedy way to send your payment; And your completed order form can trail behind via US Priority mail, Fed-Ex express, Post Office express or UPS express; Send to our taloring studio;Call for details.

1) US MAIL: Send via US mail, check or money order; Please do NOT send a two party check or two party money order; Only a one party check or M/O payable only to Paul Bernardino; See order form.

2) DIRECT DEPOSIT: Send via direct deposit ; Call us for any needed clarification of details; Please have your cell phone & this info with you if you do this inside a bank in case you or a bank rep. needs to call us.

DIRECT DEPOSIT:
Recipient'name: Paul L. Bernardino
Recipient’s Bank name: (Call for details)

Recipient’s Bank address:(Call for details)

Recipient’s Bank checking account # (Call for details)

3) WIRE TRANSFER: Call us for any needed clarification of details: Please have your cell phone & this info with you if you do this inside a bank or on line in case you or a bank rep. needs to call us.
WIRE TRANSFER INFO/ TO SEND A WIRE TRANSFER TO US:
Recipient: Paul L. Bernardino

Reciepient's Bank name: (Call for details)
Recipient’s bank address: (Call for details)
Recipient’s Bank checking account # (Call for details)
International Swift Code / International Routing #: Domestic (Within USA) Wire Transfer Routing # Please call us as soon as you complete your wire transfer or direct deposit; Call us at: (415) 412-6685

Send completed order form(s) (typed font preferred) to our home address at:

(Call for details)

28) REMINDER: CUFFS ON TUNIC(S) CUSTOMER MUST DO FINAL FITTING

Our policy as stated on our order form at www.gothicgarments.con/order which all our customers sign onto when ordering monks & nuns tunics, nuns undergarments and cassocs is: We leave all cuffs uncuffed; So that our customers can do the "final fitting" for the cuffs to their exact sleeve length in your home town; As the cuffs are the most difficult to sew perfectly accurate inward or outward on sleeves in the customer's absence; Since all our customers are hundreds or thousands of miles away and are unavailable for the "final fittinf" in our workshop; See instruction #1 on our order form.

Three ways our customers can sew or fasten cuffs inward (standard style) or outward, Dominican or Carthusian style; Do it yourself or hire someone or a volunteer to help you in your home town:

A) Do it yourself: Fold cuffs inward or outward, pin up & sew with sewing machine or by hand with needle and matching color thread; This is very easy to do; Stiching like this dotted line:------------------

B) Hire someone in your town to sew cuffs inward or outward; Do not pay anyone more than $2 to $3 per cuff or $5 to $6 to finish a pair of standard cuffs on a tunic or cassock. See our standard cuffs in ML-11 in the monks page; If anyone wants to charge you more than $6 to finish a pair of standard (ML-11) unlined cuffs, WE ADVISE YOU-PLEASE DO NOT PAY THEM; They are price gauging you and taking advantage of you; GO TO SOMEONE ELSE; Such as a street corner dry cleaner or alterations shop in your neighborhood.

C) Use safty pin: Use a medium size safty pin/bobby pin, pinned from inside of sleeves to hold cuffs in or outward; Remove pins before each wash or dry cleaning.

WARNING: DO NOT PAY ANYONE MORE THAN $6 TO FINISH A PAIR OF CUFFS!

As of 1/1/12, we no longer send out any printed catalogs except, by special request, if you do not have any access to the internet; You can see samples of our garments and habits in our web site & on line galleries.

As of 1/1/12, we no longer send out any printed catalogs; You can see samples of our garments & habits in our web site & on line galleries.

"The whole world is my monastery & everyone in it are my brothers & sisters; And the Redwood forests are my high Gothic cloister of Peace & contemplation”

Thank you for visiting us at Monastery Garments & Gothic Garments

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