The Reader: Pause in rents will be smart for Savile Row

 

The Reader: Pause in rents will be smart for Savile Row

Savile Row plea: Richard Anderson

05 May 2020

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/letters/the-reader-pause-in-rents-will-be-smart-for-savile-row-a4432516.html

 

Covid-19 is an unprecedented challenge for our industry. We shut our shop in March and had our tailors convert living rooms, and spare bedrooms into workshops where they could continue to produce garments.

 

The efforts of my team mean we are still able to fulfil orders from loyal customers. The furlough scheme has been crucial to us not having to make redundancies. We are lobbying our landlords hard for a rent-free period which will be paramount to us being able to resume trading. When we can reopen it will be a period of challenging change: how do we practise social distancing in a hands-on environment or manage numbers of customers in the shop? We will meet these issues head-on and come out stronger on the Row.

Richard Anderson, Savile Row tailor

 

Editor's reply

Dear Richard

 It is hard to think of a sector that better embodies the values of quality personal service than Savile Row, a world renowned address for centuries. But traditional methods — lengthy measuring sessions and cutters in crowded basement workshops — are going to have to change. Some of the charm and intimacy of a Savile Row fitting will inevitably be lost. For now at least. But The Row — with the support of landlords and other stakeholders — must and will come through.

Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor

 

During furlough, as a not-forprofit charitable social enterprise operating leisure and library services in 20 London boroughs, we have no money coming in. GLL can’t afford to pay the top-up from 80 per cent to 100 per cent of pay for our 12,000 staff. We are asking all our local authority partners to do as our partners in Greenwich have done, and make good all pay packets up to 100 per cent. This will ensure the sustainability of our staff-owned trust and our contribution to public health when we can fully open again.

Mark Sesnan, CEO, GLL ​