Cad and the Dandy is an independent tailoring company based in London, England with premises on Savile Row and in the City. It sells bespoke suits, manufactured from English and Italian fabrics, and using traditional tailoring methods, at a lower price than the traditional Savile Row houses. The company was founded in 2008 by James Sleater and Ian Meiers; two City of London bankers who, at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, were both made redundant from their jobs. It has attracted local, national and international press coverage, including being listed by The Guardian in the Courvoisier Future 500, and in July 2010 the founders won the Bento Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Macworld Awards.
Cad and the Dandy
was founded in 2008. The founders met through a supplier as both
pursued a similar business idea independently, and they agreed to
work together to start the company, each contributing £20,000 of
initial capital. Both had family connections to the tailoring
industry, giving them knowledge helpful in launching the new company.
After initially
conducting fittings in rented office space, they came to an
arrangement with Chittleborough & Morgan to allow appointments in
their shop on Savile Row. In October 2009, the company opened its
first permanent store in the City of London.
The company achieved
a turnover of £1.3M in 2010, and was listed by The Guardian in the
Courvoisier Future 500. In July 2010 the founders won the Bento
Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Macworld Awards[4] and in July
2013 they opened permanent premises on Savile Row.
Based in London,
where the company employs 10 tailors in three workshops, it also
employs an additional 40 in a workshop in China where most of its
entry-level, machine-sewn suits are made. All suits are made from
British or Italian cloth, and are available either in "machine
grade" or "hand stitched". Suit prices vary based on
the cloth that is used as well as the amount of hand-stitching that
is done on the suit. The fully hand-made suits require around 50
hours of stitching, include a basted fitting, and conform to all the
specifications for a bespoke suit suggested by the Savile Row Bespoke
Association. Prices are kept lower than the average for bespoke
tailors by requiring payment up-front. This allows Cad and the Dandy
to negotiate discounts of 30% to 40% with their suppliers.
Cad & the Dandy
launched a new flagship store 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. Believing that
Britain’s bespoke tailoring industry was facing a shortage of
master tailors, the company established an apprenticeship programme
in London, with young would-be tailors joining Cad & the Dandy’s
22 staff members at its three London locations, Savile Row, Birchin
Lane and Canary Wharf.
Fittings are now
conducted across the UK, Europe and the United States.
Cad
and the Dandy: tailor made for our times
Cad
and the Dandy owners explain how they are reinvigorating bespoke
shoes and clothes.
By James Hurley 04
Aug 2013
Making shoes for the
Fastest Milkman in the West is certainly a talking point, but it
wasn’t quite what James Sleater and Ian Meiers had in mind when
they bought Wildsmith. The boss of the luxury shoe business, John
Wildsmith, had assured them that the 166-year-old brand had some
famous former customers
But the young
entrepreneurs didn’t recognise any of the first 10 names Wildsmith
offered them. “Then he said Benny Hill,” says Sleater.
Luckily, further
investigation revealed some more illustrious candidates. The company
designed and made the world’s first ever slip-on loafer for King
George VI, while its shoes have also been worn by the likes of
Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy and Cary Grant.
That remarkable
pedigree should give the shoemaker’s new owners considerable
marketing clout to exploit.
It also points to an
intriguing meeting of the old and new for Sleater and Meiers, two
former bankers who set up a Savile Row tailoring company in 2008.
Their plan was to eschew the old school stuffiness the Mayfair street
is renowned for.
Their business, Cad
and the Dandy, has reached annual sales of £2.5m by being cheaper
“but also friendlier” than their more established neighbours.
“We have everyone
from members of the Royal family to sports stars coming through the
door but one of our best customers is a baggage handler at Heathrow.
That’s what we love about the business. If we only served bankers,
we’d only be doing navy and charcoal suits,” says Sleater.
While a bespoke
Savile Row suit would normally cost more than £2,000, Cad and the
Dandy sells them for around £1,300. It also offers a machine-made
suit for £700, or a half way option for about £900, although the
bespoke suits are by far the most popular.
“There are a lot
of fantastic tailors but they charge fantastic prices to go with it.
We wanted high-end tailoring at a competitive price.”
But making the
business “approachable” has provided the real difference, Sleater
says.
“People are scared
of going into tailors. It’s stuffy, you’re looked up and down.
We’re not about airs and graces and keeping a certain element out.”
Now the pair, along
with Wildsmith director, Chay Cooper, are hoping to repeat the trick
with the shoe business they’ve acquired for an undisclosed sum.
“Tailoring is back
on the up with the likes of Downton Abbey. Shoemakers are 20 years
behind where the tailors are now,” says Sleater. “We want to
revolutionise a classic product with an incredible heritage and bring
it to a wider audience.”
That means being
careful about how they exploit the brand’s past. “We want to play
on the heritage and say we made shoes for JFK, Churchill and David
Niven and all these guys, but that’s just one asset. You have to
look at the past, but you can’t be stuck in it.”
Sleater points to
the first slip-on shoe to illustrate his point. “The first loafer
was copied by everyone from Edward Green to Gucci. We don’t want to
be in the melting pot of copying what other people are doing – it’s
about producing something new and fresh [for others to follow].”
The shoes, which
retail for around £400, will be sold at Cad and the Dandy’s three
London outlets as well as in overseas stockists in the US, Japan and
Korea.
Sleater and Meiers,
aged 32 and 34 respectively, started their tailoring company after
being made redundant from their City roles at the start of the
financial crisis. They decided to join forces when they were
introduced by a fabric supplier and discovered they had both been
working on the same idea independently.
Wildsmith is their
first acquisition, and they admit it’s a “difficult jump” for
what remains a small business, but they insist it’s a “natural
step”.
“It’s not the
huge leap we made from banking to tailoring,” says Meiers.
“We’ve learnt so
many lessons from Cad and the Dandy, we can apply them to Wildsmith
and it’s given us a good basis to grow.”
They are determined
to take things slowly with their new business, the sale of which
entailed John Wildsmith relinquishing family control for the first
time.
Manufacturing will
take place in Northampton, with Cooper hand-finishing every pair of
shoes. Sales should reach about £400,000 in its first year under the
new management.
“We don’t want
to grow too fast,” says Meiers. “You end up rushing the
manufacturers and the quality of service drops.”
“We’re taking
the less risky approach of doing all the nuts and bolts [of the
acquisition] ourselves,” says Sleater. “We’re not shy of
working long hours – we’re doing twice the hours we were as
bankers.”
While Cad and the
Dandy has kept costs down by doing some of its manufacturing in
China, Sleater and Meiers are keen to complement Wildsmith’s “Made
in Britain” credentials by eventually making all of its suits here,
too. “Customers want quality, they want 'Made in England’, which
is why we’re switching,” says Meiers.
“As soon as we can
say we’re doing more in the UK, people will relish it,” says
Sleater, “but it’s not the cheap option.”
The decline of
British manufacturing means “there isn’t the talent” in the
industry to meet the demand, so Cad and the Dandy is resorting to
training apprentices.
“The risk is that
next door comes in and nicks them, but you’ve got to do it – for
the industry as a whole as much as ourselves,” says Meiers. “The
whole industry needs to get behind it.”
They might have some
hard work ahead, but neither has any regrets about leaving the City
behind.
“Running a
business is pretty full on,” says Meiers. “But most of London is
sending one electronic number from one place to another. We’re
making something tangible and we can control where our business goes.
It’s exciting.”
Cad
and the Dandy well suited to cutting it in the tailoring business
Keeping
cash flow under control is what has underpinned former bankers James
Sleater and Ian Meiers' fledgling tailoring business Cad and the
Dandy.
The pair teamed up
after being introduced by a fabric supplier. Both, having been made
redundant, were independently researching their market with a view to
starting their own companies tailoring suits. It wasn't such a major
deviation.
"Ian's mother
used to be a tailoress, making suits for the Queen, and I have been
fortunate enough to, from the age of 16, have had most of my clothes
made for me," says Mr Sleater.
Two years later
their business, Cad and the Dandy - with one shop opposite the Bank
of England and another in Savile Row (that it shares with
Chittleborough & Morgan, which counts Rolling Stones drummer
Charlie Watts among its customers) - has just seen its best day yet.
"We took 15
orders for top of the range bespoke suits," says Mr Sleater, 29.
"That's not counting the orders for machine-stitched suits."
This year the pair
are looking at clearing £1.3m in turnover, more than double last
year's and helped in part by the return of the City bonus culture,
admits Mr Sleater.
"We are growing
quickly but in the last six months it has sort of exploded. We do
fittings all over the world."
Cad and the Dandy -
the name was chosen to make it appear unforgettable, says Mr Sleater
- operates with a team of just three, plus a network of seven
self-employed tailors in the UK and a further 32 in China turning out
suits, both machine and hand-stitched, that range in price from £300
to more than £1,000. They take about six weeks to make.
"We have
customers from every walk of life," says Mr Sleater, "from
policemen and plumbers to bankers and barristers. We also make suits
for a number of celebrities, including Chris Eubank."
The lower prices are
down to its cheaper Chinese labour, the lack of an established brand
heritage that lends itself to premium prices (and higher margins),
and tight cost control.
They negotiated 20
per cent discounts on fabrics in return for upfront payments, and Cad
and the Dandy asks customers to pay in full on order for suits of
less than £1,000.
"We are high
volume rather than high margin," says Mr Sleater.
Apart from the lower
prices - a traditional Savile Row suit can cost many thousands of
pounds - the point of difference between Cad and the Dandy and
established tailors such a Geives and Hawkes - is in the way the
business conducts itself, says Mr Sleater.
"We target
those aged 25 to 45. So often when you go into one of the older
tailors it's just a bit stuffy and intimidating. It can be a
nerve-wracking experience.
"I don't
particularly like walking in to them. They are also all creating
similar products and at a similar price - they have no competitive
edge."
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