Making Paul Giamatti look like a million bucks on the new TV show “Billions” is no small deal. His character, Chuck Rhoades — an attack-dog of a US attorney whose law-and-order style brings to mind Wall Street nemesis Preet Bharara — requires a physical presence that equals his courtroom bite.
Unfortunately, Giamatti’s stocky physique better pairs with his earlier roles — say, tubby Jerry Heller in “Straight Outta Compton” — but “Billions” costume designer Eric Daman sent him to the right place for the image equivalent of a corporate refinancing.
Three stories above a rapidly gentrifying side street in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Martin Greenfield Clothiers has spent the last 39 years hand-crafting fine suits for presidents, movie and TV stars, gangsters and, yes, billionaires.
At Giamatti’s first full-suit fitting, “Paul saw himself in the mirror, suddenly became a bit more like Chuck Rhoades and said, ‘I want to punch somebody in the face,’ ” recalls Daman. “Normally, that’s not the way Paul Giamatti talks — obviously, the suit worked.”
The Greenfield company’s handiwork also has helped men in several other recent TV productions, including the recently debuted HBO series “Vinyl” (when Bobby Cannavale’s music industry bigwig Richie Finestra appears on-screen in a lavender suit, costume designer John Dunn says, “the garment nails who he is and where he’s at”), as well as “The Knick,” “Boardwalk Empire” and the feature films “Bridge of Spies” and “Black Mass.”
An 87-year-old concentration camp survivor, Martin Greenfield came to America in 1947 and got hired that year as a floorboy at GGG Clothes in Bushwick. There, he learned the rudiments of sewing, became a world-class tailor and, through the 1950s, made suits for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In 1977, Greenfield took over GGG’s sartorial operation and promptly renamed it for himself. By the ’80s, Martin Greenfield Clothiers thrived as a well-kept secret of New York’s sharply dressed, then-Mayor Ed Koch and Patrick Ewing among them. The high-end shop was also a discreet weapon for top fashion designers, quietly producing menswear for Donna Karan, Perry Ellis, Alexander Julian and others.
Around 2007, Scott Sternberg, founder of the hip (but now defunct) label Band of Outsiders, began publicly crediting Martin Greenfield Clothiers as the maker of his hand-tailored suits.
“Suddenly we were known as more than a behind-the-scenes company,” recalls Greenfield. “In 2008, ‘Boardwalk Empire’ came to us in need of suits, and we developed a reputation for quickly producing high-quality custom clothing that fits all eras.”
“I dressed the real [performer] Eddie Cantor and the Eddie Cantor character on ‘Boardwalk,’ ” adds Greenfield. “The actor looked and sounded just like the real thing, but I was more excited to dress the original.”
The clothier has since become a go-to source for big- and small-screen costume designers who require elegant cuts and period authenticity — so much so that Greenfield-clad actors on “The Knick” grudgingly got used to the circulation-stopping tightness that hallmarked early-20th-century suits.
Off-camera, Greenfield is responsible for the dress-wear of Michael Bloomberg and Ray Kelly as well as track-suit-loving Bill Clinton and the more buttoned-up Barack Obama. “With Clinton, I met his whole family — with Obama, just him and the dog,” the master tailor says with a whiff of dismissiveness.
Martin has dressed not only the famous but also the notoriously infamous. His custom-crafted garb used to be shipped to Meyer Lansky’s residence at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. “He was a 40-short and wore almost all navy-colored, single-breasted suits,” recalls Greenfield. “I met him once at the hotel. He was a very nice guy to me, and I knew he was in charge. That’s all I’m saying!”
Greenfield Clothiers also has costumed two iterations of Bernie Madoff — Richard Dreyfuss in the ABC docu-drama “Madoff” and Robert De Niro in HBO’s upcoming “The Wizard of Lies” — though the company never did bespoke tailoring for the real Ponzi schemer. However, “we’ve done suits for people who have been hurt by him,” says Jay Greenfield, Martin’s son and business partner.
A few feet away, standing on a platform and being measured for a suit, bearded and big-boned Howard Katz, whose uncle Saul Katz co-owns the Mets, can’t help but jump in.
“I’m one of them,” he says. “But I survived. I’m still getting suits made at Martin Greenfield.
“As for Madoff? I think he looks best in stripes.”
