Savile Row Threatened by Invasion of the Hoodie Snatchers
Abercrombie & Fitch has lodged plans with Westminster Council to open a children’s store on Savile Row. With its flagship store currently situated at Burlington Gardens, the American retailer – which manufactures casual wear (including hoodies) for youths – is determined to plant its off-shoot brand Abercrombie Kids around the corner “in plain, spoilt-brat view” of London’s historically elegant British row. Surely this American superstore selling homogenous outsourced casual clothing would have a far more suitable home in, say, a dungeon hundreds of feet below Westminster?
According to reports, neighbouring tailors are formally objecting to Westminster Council on the grounds of this retail development being hideously out of character with the Row. One anonymous tailor said, “I don’t think anyone objects to moving forward, but a chain store selling crappy clothes to ghastly people isn’t really the direction in which we should be travelling.”
David Coleridge of H. Huntsman & Sons wrote, “The arrival of Abercrombie & Fitch at the end of Savile Row would dramatically change not just the tone but the safety of the street.” Considering the pushy hordes of European and American tourists already camped in front of A&F’s flagship doors, not to mention the stink of cologne wafting out of the building at all times, Mr. Coleridge has a point.
We chaps are counting on Westminster Council to come to their senses and revoke A&F’s application. Please sign our petition to keep Abercrombie & Fitch off the Row: Save Savile Row From Abercrombie & Fitch
In response to the appalling news about Abercrombie & Fitch proposing to open a children’s store on Savile Row, The Chap has decided to take a stand.
We have created a Petition, targeted at Wesminster Council, which we will present to them when enough signatures have been collected. We urge you to sign – it takes about three seconds and by doing so, you will be contributing in no small part to preserving 200 years of bespoke tailoring tradition on Savile Row.
A letter has also been written to London Mayor Boris Johnson, in the hope that he will understand how foolhardy this move could be, not only for the future of bespoke tailoring but also for the London tourist industry. Visitors to the capital do not come all the way here, put up with overpriced hotels and an appalling transport system, only to roam aimlessly around the same dull chainstores they can find in any other city in the world. Many of them come to London to see where Beau Brummell had his waistcoats made – which we are pretty certain was not Abercrombie & Fitch.
Sign the petition here: www.petition.co.uk/save-savile-row-from-abercrombie-fitch
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