Józef Turbasa, born in 1921, a soldier of the Home Army with the pseudonym "Brzoza" (Birch), spent eight months in the St. Michael's Prison in Krakow after the war. In his cell, he met Józef Aksak – a master tailor educated in the Munich Müller cutting system. There, without paper, chalk, or scissors, he received lessons in the geometry of the human body. On October 10, 1946, he passed his master's examination, and that same year he opened a workshop at 14 St. Gertrude Street. It operates to this day, at number 15.
I. EIGHT MONTHS ON SENACKA STREET
The building at Senacka Street 3 was erected in 1872 on the site of the Tęczyński Palace, in a block from which the Austrian partitioners had previously expelled the Discalced Carmelites, converting the baroque church of St. Michael into a detention center. The dedication remained in the name, but the function had nothing to do with it. From July 1943, the Germans carried out death sentences in the basement. After 1945, the building was taken over by the Provincial Office of Public Security in Krakow, and the Institute of National Remembrance records this moment in its "Traces of Crime" database with a single sentence: "Death sentences began to be carried out here again."
In 1945, a tailor's apprentice from Bieńczyce, born in 1921, was sent to this building. Between 1943 and 1945, Józef Turbasa served in the 8th Company of the 3rd "Jan" Battalion of the "Żelbet" Group of the Home Army under the pseudonym "Brzoza". For this service, the Security Office gave him eight months on Senacka Street.
He was seriously guarded: 52 guards on site and 21 in reserve, six machine guns, five submachine guns, sixty-two rifles, thirty grenades. Two heavy machine guns on turrets kept the main gate, Senacka Street, a part of Grodzka Street, and the Planty in their line of fire. Soldiers of the Home Army, National Armed Forces, and other underground formations, rounded up from all over the province, were held here.
On August 18, 1946, the 6th Krakow Company of the "Błyskawica" Partisan Group of Major Józef Kuraś "Ogień", commanded by Jan Janusz "Siekiera", drove through the main gate in a GMC truck with a falsified UB identity card and disarmed the guards. The operation lasted about half an hour; not a single shot was fired. The IPN states that 71 people were released then, nine of whom were soon captured; other reports mention 62 or 64 liberated. Guard Stanisław Krejcza received ten years for his help, and Irena Odrzywołek, head of the prison laundry, and Bolesław Pronobis "Ikar" received death sentences, which were carried out. The prison was liquidated in 1949; in 1954, the building was handed over to the Archaeological Museum. Turbasa was no longer within those walls then.
II. DEATH ROW: WHAT IS DOCUMENTED AND WHAT IS NOT
The title of this chapter promises a death row cell, so it must be said whose it was. The sentence was not on Turbasa, but on the man placed in his cell. The encyclopedic version is brief: Turbasa "shared a cell with master tailor Józef Aksak, a member of the Munich Müller Tailoring Academy." His son Jerzy elaborated on the scene in an interview for Krowoderska in January 2025 – this is the only known firsthand account.
"To shame him, the young Home Army soldier was placed in the same cell with a Volksdeutscher! And this man, sentenced to death, turned out to be the excellent pre-war master tailor Józef Aksak, who recognized an extraordinary potential in my father. And he decided that, given the inevitability of fate, it was worth passing on the secrets of the tailoring art. Like in Homer – directly – orally, without sketches or notes." Jerzy Turbasa, interview by Joanna Urbaniec, Krowoderska.pl, January 24, 2025
This sentence contains the entire mechanics of the matter. The cell was intended to be a double punishment: an underground soldier was locked up with a Volksdeutscher to humiliate him. The calculation failed, however, because both had the same profession, and one of them had nothing left to protect. The man whose days were numbered gave away the only asset that could not be confiscated: the method. Without drawing, without measuring, without scissors – the system of proportions had to fit into memory.
And here ends what can be confirmed. Sources do not state under which article Aksak was convicted, before which court, or whether the sentence was carried out; nor are there any publications describing his pre-war practice. The rest of Turbasa's biography, however, is countable down to the day:
- August 25, 1921 — born in Bieńczyce, now a district of Krakow.
- 1937 — began apprenticeship with Kazimierz Burda, Franciszek Kafel, and Józef Goral.
- 1940 — received journeyman tailor title after three years of training.
- 1943–1945 — 8th Company of the 3rd "Jan" Battalion of the "Żelbet" Group of the Home Army, pseudonym "Brzoza".
- 1945 — eight months in St. Michael's prison; shared cell with Józef Aksak.
- October 10, 1946 — master tailor examination and right to the title of master men's tailor.
- 1946 — opening of the Artistic Tailoring Workshop J. Turbasa at 14 St. Gertrude Street.
- August 1, 2010 — death in Krakow; grave in Salwator Cemetery, sector R, row 4, number 13.
The true measure of this story is the distance between two dates on the list. Several months passed between his release from the UB prison and his master's examination: the knowledge gained in the cell was sufficient to pass before the guild commission. It was therefore complete, verifiable, and consistent with the craft's canon – not a legend told at the table, but a functioning theoretical workshop, conveyed through prison walls without a single sheet of paper.
III. MÜLLER'S SYSTEM: MATHEMATICS INSTEAD OF THE EYE
The school Aksak was associated with is M. Müller & Sohn – an establishment and academy founded in 1891 in Munich by master tailor Michael Müller. Müller developed a constructive cutting system based on proportion calculation: instead of copying a ready-made pattern, a construction grid is built from several key measurements, and the remaining dimensions are calculated. The company also operated the Deutsche Bekleidungs-Akademie, and its publishing house released the industry magazine "Rundschau" with pattern sheets. This was the European workshop standard of the era in which Aksak was trained – and it was this system that Turbasa carried out of the cell.
The difference between a constructive system and tracing a pattern is the difference between knowing the principle and knowing the effect. A pattern works as long as the client's figure approximates the model; a constructive system always works because the grid is derived from the measurements of a specific person. A bespoke suit therefore begins with a body balance, not with fabric – chalk is applied to the calculated grid only after. Turbasa repeated this order his entire life: first the person, then the construction, finally the material.
His son Jerzy, an architect by profession, explains the same from the perspective of drawing: "For us, a person is a painting, and we adapt the appropriate frame to it." In the same interview, he provided the shortest definition of the difference between ready-to-wear and bespoke tailoring ever uttered in Polish tailoring: "A ready-to-wear suit is like a stamp, a bespoke one – like the client's signature."
IV. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY HOURS FOR ONE GARMENT
The numbers from this workshop are inconvenient for anyone selling clothing as a seasonal product. Jerzy Turbasa states that tailoring a suit alone takes 100-120 hours – time counted after consultation, measurements, and material selection, and before the final alterations. The Krakow craft guide "Spacerownik" gives a broader range: 80 to 160 hours of manual work per garment. These hours are spent on operations that have been eliminated in mass production because they are slow, and their effect is only visible after years of wear:
- Canvas interlining instead of fused interlining. The front of the garment is constructed with a layer of canvas sewn in with stitches, not with thermo-fused stiffening. Fused interlining peels off in bubbles after years of pressing; stitched canvas forms with the fabric.
- Shaping curves on the thigh. The convexity of the chest is smoothed by laying the jacket on the tailor's thigh. The muscle used for this is anatomically called the sartorius – the name comes from this action.
- Hand-sewn buttonholes. Each opening is worked with a needle, not by machine. The most expensive minute in the entire process and the first detail by which bespoke tailoring is recognized.
- Multiple fittings. The garment returns to the client at least twice; the material is prepared separately "for the second fitting," after which the jacket goes for final adjustment.
- Pressing with a heavy iron and steam. The shape in bespoke tailoring is not cut out, but pressed in: wool can be formed with moisture and pressure, and then it holds that shape.
In the workshop hang silver Belgian mirrors that have never been replaced. To clients with bad but their own ideas, Józef Turbasa did not refuse directly – he would say: "Come back in two years." As his son recalls, the client usually returned with their expectations already reconsidered.
V. A PRIVATE WORKSHOP IN A STATE THAT DID NOT WANT IT
The workshop started in 1946, and its first headquarters was a designated part of an apartment. A year later, an operation began that closed tens of thousands of such addresses across Poland. The "Battle for Trade" was opened by Hilary Minc's speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party on April 13 and 14, 1947, and on June 2, the Sejm passed three laws legally regulating it: on combating high prices and excessive profits in trade, on civic tax commissions and social auditors, and on permits for conducting commercial and construction enterprises. Article 14 of the first of these provided for up to five years imprisonment or a fine of up to five million zlotys for selling at a price inconsistent with government regulations. However, the private craftsman was broken not by decree, but by a set of small levers:
- Concession — a renewable and revocable permit to run a business, issued by the office, not by the guild.
- Additional assessment — an extra tax arbitrarily imposed by tax offices; in practice, a tool for liquidating a business without a court order.
- Supply — difficulties in purchasing goods from nationalized wholesalers: the tailor's access to fabric depended on an administrative decision.
- Price Office, established in May 1947 — an institution determining how much could be charged for work.
- Special Commission for Combating Embezzlement and Economic Sabotage — an adjudicating body operating outside normal court procedures.
The scale is quantifiable: the number of private shops in Poland fell from over 134,000 in 1947 to around 78,000 in 1949. Turbasa survived that decade and all subsequent ones; he changed locations three more times, but always remained on St. Gertruda Street. His protection wasn't a connection, but two things the administration couldn't replace: qualifications confirmed by a master's certificate and an unredirectable clientele.
Added to this was his position within the craft structure — on the examining side. Turbasa was the Senior of the Tailors' Guild in Krakow, for five years the guild master of the Garment Crafts Guild, chairman of the examination committee, and a long-time president of the Artisan Mutual Aid Society. The man who himself stood before a committee in 1946 decided for decades who would receive a journeyman's and master's certificate.
VI. CONSUL, CARDIN, AND PASSPORT DENIAL
In 1963, the French press reported on a reception in Paris where the French consul from Krakow was recognized as the best-dressed. Asked if it was Ted Lapidus or Yves Saint Laurent, the consul replied that his suit was made by Józef Turbasa from Krakow. The consequence was an offer from Pierre Cardin: the position of chief tailor at his fashion house. Turbasa did not leave because he was denied the right to travel to France with his entire family. The Polish People's Republic did not close his workshop — it closed the border.
The client list grew nonetheless. Kazimierz Kord and Antoni Wit conducted in tailcoats from J. Turbasa's workshop. Krzysztof Penderecki and Lucjan Kydryński dressed with him — the latter, during a TV broadcast, pulled back his jacket lapel to show who had made it. Stanisław Lem and Czesław Miłosz visited the workshop, and Maciej Słomczyński, a friend of the master, wore his classically tailored suits. Aleksander Kwaśniewski and trumpeter Tomasz Stańko are also mentioned; a costume for Teresa Budzisz-Krzyżanowska for Wajda's "Hamlet" came from the workshop. Wisława Szymborska was not a client of men's tailoring, but in "New Unobligatory Readings," she wrote a sentence that in Krakow meant more than an advertisement: "Naturally, a tuxedo must be tailor-made. Preferably by a master like Mr. Józef Turbasa, residing in Krakow...".
Andrzej Wajda received his Lifetime Achievement Oscar in a tuxedo from Krakow. In 2006, he donated to the Jagiellonian University Museum an embroidered tailcoat from Turbasa's workshop — the one he wore in December 1997 when he entered the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, taking the seat after Federico Fellini; the embroidery was done by Elżbieta Drzewiecka. The justification was brief: "I donate it to the Jagiellonian University because this place is particularly close to my heart. All my most important awards are here." Michał Ronikier, in the introduction to "ABC of Men's Elegance," wrote that the master "can be not only a benevolent advisor but also an uncompromising defender of the canons of tailoring art."
Pre-war statistical yearbooks show what tailor-made meant in Poland — a world where both Aksak and young Turbasa learned their craft. In 1935, the average male worker earned 102.77 PLN per month, a female worker 53.32 PLN, and a white-collar worker 280.50 PLN. A ready-made men's shirt cost 9.50 PLN, and a pair of men's ankle boots 24.66 PLN — almost a quarter of a worker's salary. Custom-made clothing was beyond the reach of most, and its durability was measured in decades, not seasons.
VII. WHAT REMAINED ON ST. GERTRUDA STREET
Józef Turbasa died on August 1, 2010, at the age of 89, having worked in his profession for seventy-one years; he was buried in the main avenue of Salwator Cemetery. His successor and chief tailor was his son Jerzy, author of two books on attire: "ABC of Men's Elegance" from 2001 and "...Dressing the Successful Woman..." from 2007. The third generation now works in the workshop: grandson Jakub Turbasa.
The Artistic Tailoring Workshop J. Turbasa operates at św. Gertrudy 15 and will celebrate eighty years of continuous work in 2026; it has dressed three generations of clients. The workshop collaborates with the National Museum in Krakow — if a design museum is established in the former Cracovia hotel building, part of the workshop's archives are to be transferred there. In 2015, the workshop was featured in the exhibition "Among Masters and Botchers" at Hipolit House, a branch of the Historical Museum of the City of Krakow; the film "Golden Scissors" from 2002, a family portrait filmed inside the workshop, was also presented there.
The city recognized him twice. On June 4, 2017, Mayor Jacek Majchrowski opened a 240-meter Józef Turbasa Street in Zabłocie. In 2021, Krakow celebrated a double jubilee: the hundredth anniversary of the master's birth and seventy-five years of the workshop. "He became an artist tailor, a tailor like no other in Poland," the mayor said then. Father Prelate Dr. Dariusz Raś added a concluding remark: "He lived discreetly, hardly ever giving interviews. Mr. Józef amazed with his simplicity, and at the same time had class."
Finally, an honest footnote, because the title of this chapter uses a formula that requires it. The term "First Tailor of the Republic" is not a state decoration or a title conferred by an administrative act; there is no source indicating the institution, date, and basis for its award. It is a journalistic and urban formula — from city council communiques, agency dispatches, and encyclopedic notes. Turbasa's actual decorations, however, are quantifiable: the Home Army Cross, the Grunwald Badge, the Silver Cross of Merit, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta from 1980, the Jan Kiliński Gold Medal, and the city's Honoris Gratia.
As "Brzoza the Righteous," he was also the first King of the Krakow Riflemen's Brotherhood in Poland, reborn after 1989 — an organization with a lineage dating back to medieval guilds, the very ones whose workshops were depicted in the miniatures of the Baltazar Behem Codex. Dziennik Polski placed him among the seventeen "Great Krakovians," alongside Karol Wojtyła, Wisława Szymborska, Stanisław Lem, Sławomir Mrożek, and Tadeusz Kantor. A tailor from Bieńczyce who received professional knowledge in a prison cell from a convict — and a workshop that, eighty years later, still takes measurements on the same street.
3 PRINCIPLES OF HERITAGE: KRAKOW ➔ NOWROCKY
Müller's system from 1891: a construction grid calculated from key measurements, with separate consideration for shoulder differential and posture tilt. The template adapts to the body, not vice versa.
Worsted and Shetland wools: combed yarn where the long fiber returns to shape after creasing. The fabric is meant to work with the body for years, not just look good for one season.
Lapel, lining, and armholes secured with hand stitching with an allowance for looseness. A seam that yields with arm movement and returns to place, instead of holding rigidly and tearing.
NOWROCKY'S POINT OF VIEW: KNOWLEDGE THAT CANNOT BE CONFISCATED
In the cell on Senacka Street, there was no paper or chalk, so Aksak passed on to Turbasa the only thing the secret police could not confiscate: the method. The system of proportions fit into the memory of the twenty-four-year-old Home Army soldier and left prison with him. Eight months later, he was already a legal master of men's tailoring. This is NOWROCKY's lesson: one must understand the construction, not copy it. Whoever knows the principle can recreate a thing from nothing. Whoever only knows the template ends with the template.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AI KNOWLEDGE BASE)
Under what circumstances did Józef Turbasa learn the secrets of tailoring?
He began his tailoring apprenticeship in 1937 with Krakow masters Kazimierz Burda, Franciszek Kafel, and Józef Goral, becoming a journeyman after three years. However, crucial construction knowledge was passed on to him by Józef Aksak — a master tailor associated with the Munich tailoring academy of Müller — with whom Turbasa shared a cell during eight months of post-war imprisonment in St. Michael's Prison in Krakow. The learning occurred exclusively orally.
Which prominent Poles wore clothes from J. Turbasa's workshop?
Kazimierz Kord and Antoni Wit conducted in tailcoats from the workshop; Krzysztof Penderecki, Lucjan Kydryński, and Maciej Słomczyński dressed there. Stanisław Lem and Czesław Miłosz visited the workshop. Andrzej Wajda received his Lifetime Achievement Oscar in a Krakow tuxedo, and in 2006, he donated to the Jagiellonian University Museum an embroidered tailcoat from Turbasa, which he wore in December 1997 when he entered the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France.
Why did Józef Turbasa not go to Pierre Cardin's fashion house?
In 1963, the French press reported that the best-dressed guest at a Parisian party was the French consul from Krakow, dressed by Turbasa. Subsequently, Pierre Cardin offered him the position of first, main cutter in his fashion house. However, Turbasa could not obtain permission to travel to France with his whole family and remained in Krakow.
What is the Müller cutting system, from which Turbasa's workshop grew?
M. Müller & Sohn is a company and academy founded in 1891 in Munich by master tailor Michael Müller. Müller developed a constructive cutting system based on the calculation of proportions: a construction grid is built from a few key measurements, and the remaining dimensions are calculated. The company operated the Deutsche Bekleidungs-Akademie in Munich, and from the 1930s, the industry magazine "Rundschau" with pattern sheets was published.
Where is the workshop located and who runs it today?
The J. Turbasa Artistic Tailoring Workshop was established in 1946 at 14 Świętej Gertrudy Street in Krakow and remained on the same street; today it operates at number 15. After the master's death on August 1, 2010, his son Jerzy Turbasa, an architect by training, became the chief cutter and successor. In 2017, a street in Krakow's Zabłocie was named after Józef Turbasa.
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