Savile Row tailoring

Gieves & Hawkes on No. 1 Savile Row

Savile Row tailoring is traditional men's bespoke tailoring that takes place on Savile Row and neighbouring streets in Mayfair, central London. In 1846, Henry Poole, credited as being the "Founder of Savile Row", opened an entrance to his tailoring premises into No. 32 Savile Row. The term "bespoke" is understood to have originated in Savile Row when cloth for a suit was said to "be spoken for" by individual customers. The short street has been termed the "golden mile of tailoring", where customers include Prince Charles and Jude Law, and have included Winston Churchill, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Lord Nelson, and Napoleon III.

In 1969, Nutters of Savile Row modernised the style and approach of the traditional tailors; a modernisation which continued in the 1990s with the arrival of designers like Richard James, Ozwald Boateng and Timothy Everest. With increasing rents the number of tailoring businesses on Savile Row had declined to 19 by 2006. There were also criticisms from Giorgio Armani of falling behind the times. Beginning 2008, Savile Row has been enjoying a remarkable resurgence, perhaps tipified by the arrival of young and innovative tailors like Cad and the Dandy which sought re-invigoration by means of modern technology - the internet. They were the first to use an online interactive design tool in order to cater to a wider global audience.

History

Tailoring has been associated with Savile Row since the 19th century, when Beau Brummell, who epitomised the well-dressed man, patronised the tailors congregated on the Burlington Estate, notably around Cork Street, and by 1803 some were occupying premises in Savile Row. None of those original tailors survive today. In 1846, Henry Poole, credited as being the "Founder of Savile Row", opened an entrance at the back of his father's tailoring premises into No. 32 Savile Row. The term "bespoke" is understood to have originated in Savile Row when cloth for a suit was said to "be spoken for" by individual customers. The short street is termed the "golden mile of tailoring", where customers include Prince Charles and Jude Law, and have included Winston Churchill, Lord Nelson, and Napoleon III. Though it is sometimes reported that Ian Fleming and his character James Bond bought suits on Savile Row, there is no evidence for this in the books- both Fleming and Bond's film character wore suits designed by non-Savile Row tailors, in particular Anthony Sinclair of Conduit Street, Mayfair.

The Savile Row Bespoke Association was founded in 2004 to protect and to develop bespoke tailoring as practised in Savile Row and the surrounding streets. Mark Henderson, Deputy Chairman of Gieves & Hawkes is the chairman of SRB, which is based at No. 1 Savile Row, the premises of Gieves & Hawkes. The member tailors are required to put at least 50 hours of hand labour into each two-piece suit.In a March 2006 report by the City of Westminster (Department of Planning and City Development), "Bespoke Tailoring in London’s West End", it was recorded that between 6,000 to 7,000 suits were made in and around the Savile Row area annually.

19th century

Henry Poole & Co are the acknowledged "Founders of Savile Row" and creators of the dinner suit. The company has remained a family-run business since their establishment in 1806. They opened first in Brunswick Square, in 1806, originally specialising in military tailoring, with particular merit at the time of the Battle of Waterloo. Their business moved to Savile Row in 1846, following the death of founder James Poole. In 1982, MD Angus Cundey brought the firm back to Savile Row (No. 15), after being in exile on Cork Street since 1961; Poole were forced to move to Cork Street, because the lease at number 32 expired and the unlisted building was demolished.

Gieves & Hawkes is a traditional British gentleman's bespoke tailor located at No. 1 Savile Row. The business dates from the late 19th century, and was formed by the merger of two separate businesses, Gieves (founded 1785) and Hawkes (founded 1771). Starting out with roots from two suppliers who focused on the British Army and the Royal Navy, it was the first Savile Row tailor to provide ready-to-wear clothes. There are various Gieves & Hawkes shops and concessions around the UK and in several other countries. It holds a number of Royal Warrants, presently covering all three British Royal Warrants (Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and HRH The Prince of Wales).

Davies and Son is an independent tailor at No. 38 Savile Row. The firm was established by George Davies in 1803 on Hanover Street, moving onto Savile Row in 1986. Davies and Sons made the original uniforms for Sir Robert Peel's police force. Other customers include: Calvin Klein, Michael Jackson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Clark Gable, and U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

Norton & Sons was established in the city of London in 1821, the firm moving to Savile Row in the middle of the 19th century. In the 1960s Norton's incorporated the other Savile Row firm of J. Hoare & E. Tautz. The firm were tailors to Sir Hardy Amies.

Henry Huntsman was established in 1849 and received a royal warrant in 1865 from the Prince of Wales. Since the 1950s, they have been known for a silhouette based on a riding coat and featuring firm shoulders and a nipped, sculpted waist. Huntsman have a reputation for having the most expensive starting price for a two-piece suit on Savile Row: the price stated on their website as of October 2014 is £2,750. In Tom Wolfe's novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, the narrator refers to flamboyantly rich Sherman McCoy's jacket, when he observes "Huntsman, Savile Row, London. Cost a god-damned fortune."

Dege & Skinner (pronounced /ˈdiːdʒ/ or /ˈdiːʒ/), established in 1865 and known for its expertise in military as well as civilian clothing, it remains a family-run business. Located at No. 10 Savile Row, the firm was founded as J. Dege & Sons, and became a joint venture between the two families when William Skinner Jr. joined the firm in 1916. After the Skinner family took full ownership, the business was renamed Dege & Skinner, reopened by customer Colin Montgomerie. The company is by royal appointment to Queen Elizabeth II, His Majesty the Sultan of Oman and His Majesty the King of Bahrain. TRH Prince William and Prince Harry can be seen wearing Blues & Royals uniforms made by the company in the National Portrait Gallery.

Founded in 1882 as T & F French in Piccadilly, in 1923 French merged with existing Savile Row tailor A.H. Kilgour to form Kilgour & French. In 1925, Fred and Louis Stanbury joined the firm, and in 1937 the business changed its name to Kilgour, French and Stanbury. Reverting to the name Kilgour in 2003, it was bought by JMH Lifestyle in 2008.

20th century

Chester Barrie was established in 1935 by expatriate English tailor Simon Ackerman, who wanted a British brand and tailoring for his New York based clothing business. Locating its factory in Crewe from 1939, close to the Port of Liverpool and its cloth supplier in Huddersfield, it introduced semi-bespoke and ready-to-wear tailoring to the row. Sold to Austin Reed in 1980, it went into receivership in 2002, which split the factory from the retail operation. Now owned by Prominent Europe, clients have included Cary Grant and Winston Churchill, while both Steve McQueen and Sean Connery wore Chester Barrie in their films.

Hardy Amies was founded by English dressmaker Sir Edwin Hardy Amies (17 July 1909 – 5 March 2003) in 1946. Having been managing designer for Lachasse in 1934, and having designed clothes for the British Board of Trade under the government Utility Scheme, Amies bought the bombed out shell of No. 14 in 1946.

Amies was one of the first European designers to venture into the ready-to-wear market when he teamed up with Hepworths in 1959 to design a range of menswear. In 1961, Amies staged the first men's ready-to-wear catwalk shows, at the Ritz Hotel in London. The Hardy Amies name is still licensed globally, particularly in Japan. Amies also undertook design for in-house work wear, which developed from designing special clothes for groups such as the Oxford University Boat Club and London Stock Exchange. Amies also designed costumes for films, including 2001: A Space Odyssey. Amies is best known to the British public for his work for Queen Elizabeth II. The association began in 1950, when Amies made several outfits for the then Princess Elizabeth's royal tour to Canada. Although the couture side of the Hardy Amies business was traditionally less financially successful, the award of a Royal Warrant as official dressmaker in 1955 gave his house a degree of respectability and resultant publicity. One of his best known creations is the gown he designed in 1977 for Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee portrait which, he said, was "immortalised on a thousand biscuit tins." Knighted in 1989, Amies held the warrant until 1990, when he gave it up so that younger designers could create for the Queen. In May 1973, Amies sold the business to Debenhams, who had themselves purchased Hepworths which distributed the Hardy Amies line. Amies purchased the business back in 1981. In May 2001, Amies sold his business to the Luxury Brands Group. He retired at the end of the year, when Moroccan-born designer Jacques Azagury became head of couture. In November 2008, after going bankrupt, the Hardy Amies brand was acquired by Fung Capital, the private investment arm of Victor and William Fung, who together control the Li & Fung group. The current collection is overseen by design director Mehmet Ali.

Nutters of Savile Row was opened on Valentine's Day 1969 by Tommy Nutter and Edward Sexton, who had worked together at Donaldson, Williamson & Ward. Financially backed by Cilla Black and the MD of the Beatles Apple Corps Peter Brown. Nutters was the first shop on Savile Row to pioneer 'open windows' and had bold displays created by the then unknown Simon Doonan; as such, the shop modernised the perception of Savile Row. Nutters of Savile Row dressed the entire social spectrum from the Duke of Bedford and Lord Montagu, to San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, to Mick and Bianca Jagger, and the Beatles. Nutter's designs included Bianca Jagger's wedding suit, the costumes for the 1989 Batman film including those worn by Jack Nicholson, and three of the suits worn by the Beatles on the front cover of Abbey Road. Nutter left the business in 1976 and went to work at Kilgour, leaving Edward Sexton to continue running the business. Nutter died from complications arising from AIDS on 17 August 1992, while Sexton works in Knightsbridge under his own name.

Chittleborough & Morgan was formed in 1981 when Joseph Morgan and Roy Chittlebrough left Nutters Of Savile Row, where they had worked with Edward Sexton, and opened their own shop. They produce only bespoke clothing with no ready to wear or made to measure.

New generation

Modernisation, which had begun in 1969 with Nutters of Savile Row, had slowed by the early 1990s, so Savile Row tailors were "struggling to find relevance with an audience that had grown increasingly disassociated". Three 'New Generation' designers are credited with keeping Savile Row ahead of the times: they were Ozwald Boateng, Timothy Everest (a former apprentice of Nutter's) and Richard James. Having each broken away independently from the Savile Row mould, public relations professional Alison Hargreaves coined the term "New Bespoke Movement" to describe collectively the work of this "new generation" of tailors. Interest reached a peak in 1997 when the three were featured together in Vanity Fair.The issue, entitled "Cool Britania", portrayed the tailors as the forefront of nineties style and design. The newcomers altered their shop fronts and utilised marketing and publicity to their advantage. For example, when Richard James opened his Savile Row store in 1992, he introduced Saturday opening, something of a revolution to Savile Row at that time. Eight years later in 2000, James opened a new shop with large plate glass windows that allowed customers to see inside.

The new generation challenged the traditional Savile Row styling, bringing twists and "a fine sense of colour to bespoke suits." They were seen to "push the envelope of modern suit making and bespoke active wear, creating more contemporary silhouettes with bolder fabrics." Unlike the older establishments, this new generation of tailors set out to garner celebrity clients, disseminate their products via supermarket chains and attract wider national and international custom, raising the profile of their new tailoring style. In 2001 Richard James was awarded the title Menswear designer of the Year, while Boateng received the French Trophee de la Mode for Best Male Designer in 1996.

Ozwald Boateng, a pioneer of the new generation, saw himself as both tailor and a designer, coining the term "bespoke couturier". Born in Ghana in the late 1960s and brought up in north London, Boateng started tailoring at age 16, selling his mother's designs on Portobello Road; by twenty three he had set himself up full-time in business. He began making bespoke suits in 1990, and is credited with introducing Savile Row tailoring to a new generation. The first tailor to stage a catwalk show in Paris, Boateng's many clients include Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Dhani Jones, Russell Crowe, Keanu Reeves, and Mick Jagger. LVMH President Bernard Arnault appointed Boateng Creative Director of Menswear at French Fashion house Givenchy in 2004.His first collection was shown in July 2004 in Paris, at Hotel de Ville. Boateng parted with Givenchy after the Spring 2007 collection.

Steed Bespoke Tailors was established in January 1995 by Edwin DeBoise, whose father and brother are both tailors, and Thomas Mahon. DeBoise trained at the London College of Fashion, and then apprenticed under Edward Sexton, followed by seven years at Anderson & Sheppard, before founding Steed. January 2002 was Steed's eighth year in business, which saw an amicable split with Mahon, now of English Cut. In September 2008, Edwin's eldest son Matthew DeBoise joined the company and is currently learning the trade under his father.

Richard Anderson was founded in 2001 by Richard Anderson and Brian Lishak who acquired Strickland & Sons (est 1780) in 2004. Richard Anderson is author of Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed, his autobiographic account of being an apprentice tailor.

Stowers Bespoke, established in 2006 by Ray Stowers, former head of bespoke at Gieves & Hawkes for 25 years, Stowers Bespoke was created to reverse the trend in the modern market to mass-produce garments in the far east, with all ready to wear suits, accessories and made to measure suits in England. Originally working from 13 Old Burlington Street, in the spring of 2007 Stowers Bespoke was the lead brand when Liberty launched their formal wear room making Liberty & Co. the only department store to offer in-house bespoke tailoring. In September 2008 Stowers Bespoke purchased an established tailors James Levett, and is in the process of making their shop at 13 Savile Row the Stowers Bespoke flagship store.

Cad and the Dandy (C&D) is the latest addition to Savile Row tailoring. Founded in 2008, by former bankers James Sleater and Ian Meiers, who were both made redundant during the 2008 financial crisis. C&D initially came to an arrangement with Chittleborough & Morgan to allow appointments in their shop. The company achieved a turnover of £1.3m in 2010, and was listed by The Guardian in the Couvoisier Future 500 in 2009. In July 2010 the founders won the Bento Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Macworld Awards.

C&D launched a new flagship at 13 Savile Row in June 2013. The store is the first on the iconic tailoring street to hand weave a cloth before making it up into a fully finished suit. With Britain’s bespoke tailoring industry facing an alarming shortage of master tailors, the company established an apprenticeship programme in London with young “would-be tailors” joining C&D's 22 staff members across its three London locations: Savile Row, Birchin Lane and Canary Wharf.

In 2009, Kathryn Sargent became the first female head cutter in Savile Row, at Gieves and Hawkes. In 2014 she opened her own showroom in Brook Street.

Four-time winner of the British Designer of the Year award Alexander McQueen CBE served an apprenticeship with Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard, before joining Gieves & Hawkes. He later joined the theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans, who are on Garrick Road NW9. McQueen went on to found the fashion house Alexander McQueen, from which the creative director Sarah Burton designed the dress worn by Catherine Middleton during her wedding to Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in April 2011.

Other tailors on Savile Row

Some of the tailors on Savile Row allow other tailors to see clients in their premises, so that they can see clients in the West End. These include John Lancaster at number 9 and Henry Herbert Tailors at 9-10.

Tailoring was softened in the early 20th century by Frederick Scholte when he developed the English drape for the Duke of Windsor. Scholte's "dress soft" style was developed into the "London cut", the house style of Anderson & Sheppard, by Per Anderson, a protégé of Sholte. Anderson & Sheppard was founded in 1906 by Peter Gustav a.k.a. Per Anderson, a protege of Frederick Sholte at No. 30 Savile Row. The "London cut" is a high small armhole with a generous upper sleeve that permits the jacket to remain close to the neck while freeing the arm to move with comfort. Customers have included Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Cecil Beaton, Laurence Olivier, Noël Coward, Ralph Fiennes, Manolo Blahnik and Prince Charles. In 2004, Tom Ford became a customer of the firm, commissioning suits that would later appear in a 10 page ‘W’ magazine photo shoot. Anderson & Sheppard moved off Savile Row to 32 Old Burlington Street in March 2005.

Whitcomb & Shaftesbury is based around the corner of Savile Row on St George Street. It offers a classical Savile Row garment. Head Cutter John McCabe is a Savile Row stalwart having spent over 40 years cutting for the major names on the row, most recently at Kilgour where he was employed for over 17 years and Dege for 12 years.

Established in 2002, Jasper Littman is based at 9 Savile Row, providing a visiting tailor service in South East England.

John Lancaster is the founder of the British custom & concept clothing label Designed by JLSA. From Savile Row by appointment, men and women are invited to collaborate on custom made tailored suits for business and artistic purposes.

Henry Herbert Tailors are based at fitting rooms at 9-10 Savile Row. They offer a visiting service with their Savile Row by scooter service as well as meeting customers on Savile Row.

Other tailors include, Alexandre: owned by British Menswear Brands (No. 39); Gary Anderson (No. 34/35); Richard Anderson (No. 13); Ede and Ravenscroft; Spencer Hart (No. 36); Welsh and Jefferies (No. 20); Paul Jheeta (No. 12); and Maurice Sedwell (No. 19).

Conduit Street tailors

Established by Austrian tailor Jonathan Meyer at 36 Conduit Street in the late 18th century, Meyer & Mortimer supplied both the Prince Regent and his fashion mentor, Beau Brummell, as early as 1800. When the Prince became King George IV he awarded the company a royal warrant which, through Queen Victoria and monarchs since, it still holds today from Queen Elizabeth II. After Meyer pioneered modern trouser design in the 19th century, he formed a new company with Mortimer in Edinburgh, called the Royal Clan Tartan Warehouse. After being bombed out of its premises during World War 2, the company relocated to its current location at 6 Sackville Street.

In the late 1950s, from his premises at No.43 Conduit Street, Anthony Sinclair created a classic, pared down shape, which became known as the Conduit Cut. Sean Connery famously adopted the look in 1962 for the first James Bond film, Dr. No, and continued to wear Sinclair suits for all of his appearances as Bond. The business now operates from No. 6 Sackville Street.

External Links

• Inside Savile Row: life as a master tailor A 2'52" video from The Guardian with Edward Sexton, master tailor, and Claire Malcolm, creative director at Hardy Amies, discussing their working life at the British home of tailoring, Savile Row in London.