How a Savile Row Suit is Really Made: The Rest Is History goes to Anderson & Sheppard / Savile Row bespoke suit sales surged in 2024

Savile Row bespoke suit sales surged in 2024

 

Savile Row tailors sold more bespoke suits this year than any time since the Covid-19 pandemic, as people are returning to the office or attending more formal parties, say retailers on the famous London street.

 

By David Harris

22 October 2024

https://www.drapersonline.com/news/savile-row-bespoke-suit-sales-surged-in-2024

 

Savile Row suffered during Covid and the years that followed, as people worked from home, but Richard Anderson - an independent tailor at 13 Savile Row - said orders for bespoke suits were up by 12% on last year.

 

His theory is that as more people are heading back into the office, they are investing in tailored work attire. As such, his turnover from bespoke suits, which can retail at over £7,000, reached more than £1.5m last year, and 2024 was looking even better.

 

When he spoke to Drapers in September, he had sold 216 bespoke suits, compared to 202 in the same period in 2023. Women’s suits are up from 19 to 28, and made-to-measure from 55 to 63.

 

"What we are seeing is a significant increase in people wanting to get more suits across all three levels – ready-to-wear, made-to-measure and bespoke," said Anderson.

 

"Ready-to-wear dinner suit sales are unbelievable. I think that’s down to not many evening events for a couple of years [due to the national lockdowns] and now people are packing them in. The point is that people were not dressing up as much, but now they are."

 

He said people are continuing to wear business suits in different ways, with cotton and linen suits a popular choice for office workers. While informality is also playing a role, with Savile Row suits increasingly worn with T-shirts or without ties, he said.

 

"[However,] we are still selling traditional fabrics. We specialise in 18oz cloths and we have a certain type of clientele that wants them, especially Americans from the east coast - places like Chicago, where it can get very cold - and the beauty of these heavy suits is that they last for ever," he said.

 

"I think formal is smarter, nicer. But you have to be alive to what is going on."

 

At Huntsman & Sons - at 11 Savile Row - bespoke suits make up 84% of total turnover. Sales were up 35% in revenue terms, compared to 2019. While ready-to-wear increased by 25%.

 

“We have already matched 2023’s figures for bespoke, with three months still to go,” managing director Taj Phull told Drapers.

 

He agrees times are changing but says most of his customers still come to him for formal suits.

 

“Around 60% of our business is bespoke two-piece suits [retailing at £6,700] in navy blue, so that always seems to remain solid. There are some changes – people seem to be wearing a lot of Seersucker (a thin puckered stripe or chequered design) at the moment – but when customers come to Savile Row, they are often looking for a formal suit.”

 

It is not just suits that are in demand, said Phull, with ties also proving popular. By September, Huntsman had seen tie sales of £50,000, compared to £56,000 for the full year in 2019.

 

“[The last] three months are the biggest tie purchasing period – for gifting – so I would expect us to easily pass the £75,000 spent on ties last year," he said.

 

At Anderson & Sheppard - which is just off Savile Row, at 32 Old Burlington Street - owner Anda Rowland said she has noticed a rise in both younger customers and older people who want more traditional products.

 

“You can’t categorise our customers easily. They come from all sorts of backgrounds," she said.

 

"Some buy suits every five years or so, some might order just one as something they have promised themselves for years, some might order 15 a year. All of them are different."

 

The average retail price for a two-piece bespoke suit at Anderson & Sheppard is £6,500, although some can cost more than that.

 

“The price does go up if anybody wants cashmere or vicuna or something like that, but the idea that Savile Row suits go much above – you hear people talking about £10,000 and more - is a bit exaggerated," said Rowland.

 

"Something like 80% of the bespoke suits we sell are around £6,500 – we try not to increase it too much unless we really have to.”

 

However, with the increased demand, one challenge for bespoke garment sellers is having enough skilled craftspeople, said Huntsman's Phull.

 

“Apprentices take years to train so we have to make sure that we have enough to meet future growth. At the moment we have eight on the go, including cutters, coat makers and trouser makers."

Eleri Lynn succeeds Lucy Worsley as chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces

NEWS!

I'm both sad & excited to say that at the end of 2024, I'll be leaving my job as Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces! I've had the best colleagues in history for 21 years, but I want to spend more time with my friends at our #LadyKillers podcast and our growing #LadyKillers community❤️

In case you're new round here: the independent charity Historic Royal Palaces are the wonderful people who love and look after places like Hampton Court and the Tower of London, and welcome in visitors.  I'm going to be continuing to support the great work they do!

You might find this hard to believe, as obviously I don't look a day older, but this is actually a picture of me as a very young curator more than 20 years ago.

You can join and support Historic Royal Palaces here:

https://www.hrp.org.uk/membership/?utm_medium=paid_search...

 

Eleri Lynn succeeds Lucy Worsley as chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces

 

Fashion and textiles historian appointed to oversee curatorial team and presentation of charity's palaces and collections

 

24 February 2025

Curatorial

Geraldine Kendall Adams

https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2025/02/eleri-lynn-succeeds-lucy-worsley-as-chief-curator-at-historic-royal-palaces/#:~:text=Historic%20Royal%20Palaces%20(HRP)%20has,of%202024%20after%2021%20years.

 

Eleri Lynn is a fashion and textiles historian Historic Royal Palaces

Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) has announced the appointment of Eleri Lynn as its new chief curator.

 

A fashion history and textiles expert, and award-winning author, Lynn succeeds the historian and TV presenter Lucy Worsley, who stepped down as chief curator at the end of 2024 after 21 years.

 

HRP is an independent charity responsible for six of the UK’s royal palaces: the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace and Hillsborough Castle.

 

Lynn will lead the institution’s curatorial team, overseeing research and presentation of its palaces and collections.

 

In a statement, the charity said: “Lynn has dedicated her career to exploring fashion history, image-making, and the power of dress as a form of communication.

 

“Her special interests include inclusive storytelling and research, the intersection between fashion and politics and the performance of power through dress in the Tudor court.

 

 “Lynn shares HRP’s commitment to ensuring the rich and diverse histories of the charity’s six sites and 60,000-strong collection are explored, sharing the stories of the palaces, and ensuring overlooked histories are brought to light.

 

“As chief curator, she will guide HRP’s curatorial team in researching and presenting these extraordinary historic sites and collections, ensuring their stories continue to inspire audiences worldwide. She will also spearhead innovative exhibitions and curatorial projects that celebrate the rich and complex histories of these palaces.”

 

Originally from South Wales, Lynn is a fluent Welsh speaker and a champion of accessibility in the heritage sector.

 

The appointment marks her return to HRP, where she served as curator of collections from 2013-2021.

 

During her previous tenure, Lynn curated well-known exhibitions including Diana: Her Fashion Story and The Lost Dress of Elizabeth I. She also oversaw the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, one of the world’s most significant holdings of historic fashion, which comprises 10,000 items of historic dress and related materials.

 

More recently, Lynn worked at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, where she led on the institution’s exhibitions and international touring strategy, overseeing programming across seven national sites.

 

She also spent a decade at the Victoria & Albert Museum, contributing to blockbuster exhibitions such as Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen and The Golden Age of Couture.

 

Lynn is currently a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a trustee of the Royal School of Needlework.

 

“Eleri is an exceptional curator with a passion for bringing history to life,” said Adrian Phillips, HRP’s director of palaces and collections. “Her expertise, creative vision, and commitment to inclusive storytelling make her the perfect leader to guide our curatorial team into the future.”

 

Lynn said: “It’s an honour to take on this role at Historic Royal Palaces. These palaces and their remarkable collections hold some of the most fascinating stories in British history, and I look forward to working with the team to share them with new audiences in fresh and exciting ways.”

REMEMBERING 12 years ago: Nicholas Hoare reviews "Bespoke" by James Sherwood & "Harris Tweed" by Lara Platman

REMEMBERING 2011: Harris Tweed: From Land to Street ... by Lara Platman

Review: Harris Tweed: From Land to Street
Written by Kirk, Saturday, July 23rd, 2011 in Fashion, Lookbooks in Wellcultured.com
Harris Tweed is unquestionably one of the most interesting fabrics in the fashion world. Still hand-crafted and hand-woven in the Outer Hebrides, Harris Tweed has been called the “champagne of fabrics,” and for good reason: it’s sturdy, comfortable, natural, and in most cases utterly indestructible. From Yves Saint Laurent to Nike, numerous designers and companies have used Harris Tweed, and it seems like every fabric company in the world has tried (unsuccessfully) to create fabrics that mimic the distinctively perfectly imperfect fabric.
Harris Tweed: From Land to Street is a beautiful book that attempts, through photographic vignettes and small bits of text, to capture the feeling of Harris Tweed. This is no small endeavor: part of the appeal of Harris Tweed is in its texture and feel, something difficult to represent on paper. Nonetheless, Lara Platman’s book does a phenomenal job of capturing a little bit of the essence of Harris Tweed, following it from its wooly beginnings to its finely crafted result.
Harris Tweed begins in the hills of the Outer Hebrides and follows the wool through all of the various production processes it encounters, along the way providing brief biographies of men and women who spend their lives making beautiful fabric. Make no mistake: Harris Tweed: From Land to Street is not about providing endless pictures of tweed blazers or fabric swaths. Rather, it is an adventure through the hills of Scotland, following the relative MacGuffin of tweed as it shows those who work their lives around it. The message, in short, seems to be that Harris Tweed is not just an amazing fabric: it is a lifestyle for many who live in a quaint pocket of the world that most of us will never see.
Of course, the real value in Harris Tweed: From Land to Street is in the photographs. With every photograph, you pick up a little bit of the Scottish tweed culture — the beautiful scenery, the unassuming buildings, the beautiful fabrics, the tough but skilled laborers, and the effects of the sartorial masterminds in Seville Row. One can almost smell the fabric through the pages. The book’s photos are rife with little details that really make the entire book shine — given a magnifying glass and some time, one could undoubtedly find all sorts of interesting details hidden in each photo of the book.
If I had any complaint about Harris Tweed: From Land to Street, it would be that the book fails to have the kind of payoff sartorial geeks like myself enjoy. While we see, in great detail, the crafting of the fabric itself, we rarely see it “in action” quite like we would like. I found myself pondering where some of the fabric followed in the book ended up — I wanted to see the finished product, not independent pieces of the product in making. With that being said, though, that’s simply not the message of this book: Harris Tweed: From Land to Street is about the process, not the product.
Images from the book Harris Tweed: From Land to Street by Lara Platman




28 October 2011
Article written by Phil Coomes Picture editor
in BBC News in Pictures

The harsh beauty of the Outer Hebrides is a landscape that has lured many photographers, yet the latest of those to explore the islands was not there to photograph the views, but to document a manufacturing industry that is known around the world.
Lara Platman spent seven months on the islands following the production of Harris Tweed, from the backs of the Blackface and Cheviot sheep to the suits on sale in Savile Row.
Harris Tweed has a rich history that stretches back to 1864 when Lady Dunmore, the widow of the Earl of Dunmore, had the Murray tartan copied by Harris weavers in tweed. The resulting cloth proved so successful that sales spread from the local area to a number of the major towns in the UK.
Improvements to the process and the development of new looms saw mills being opened in the early part of the 20th Century, and by 1911 the Harris Tweed Orb stamp, a mark of certification, could be seen on genuine products.
Though there were a number of challenges to the definition, by 1993 an act of parliament declared that the Harris Tweed Authority was the owner of the Orb: "The Harris Tweed is cloth that has been hand-woven by the islanders of Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra in their homes, using pure virgin wool that has been dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides."
Today there are some aspect that are mechanised yet it remains true to its roots, with weavers working at home, sometimes in sheds attached to their crofts in the hills and villages.
Harris Tweed has known tough times, but the past couple of years has seen new weavers coming online and very healthy growth figures, due in part to its expansion into new areas. Though the tweed is still primarily associated with high-end clothing and is a regular on the fashion catwalk, it is also now used in many other products, such as upholstery, bags, lampshades and, if the mood takes, corsets.
Lara's project coincided with the 100-year anniversary of the Orb mark being registered and is a fitting tribute to both the past and the present workers of tweed. She was drawn to the project by the sustainable nature of the process, one that gives each member of the chain a living.
"While making my previous book, Art Workers Guild 125 Years: Craftspeople at Work Today, I met a few weavers and thought that these people have amazing patience," Lara told me. "With sculpture you can see it form in front of you, photography is instant and in architecture there are plans, but weaving is just one line at a time. It's an art form rather than an industrial process."
"Yet I was aware that there was a danger of producing a tourist view rather than the real picture. So that is why I spent as much time as possible up there and experienced all the seasons, though I managed to hit the worst winter for many years, some of it while I was camping out."
As the seasons changed it became clear to Lara that there was a relationship between the landscape and the fabric. Similar patterns and tones can be seen in Lara's close ups of heather and gorse as well as those of the finished rolls of tweed.
Today there are some aspect that are mechanised yet it remains true to its roots, with weavers working at home, sometimes in sheds attached to their crofts in the hills and villages.
Harris Tweed has known tough times, but the past couple of years has seen new weavers coming online and very healthy growth figures, due in part to its expansion into new areas. Though the tweed is still primarily associated with high-end clothing and is a regular on the fashion catwalk, it is also now used in many other products, such as upholstery, bags, lampshades and, if the mood takes, corsets.
Lara's project coincided with the 100-year anniversary of the Orb mark being registered and is a fitting tribute to both the past and the present workers of tweed. She was drawn to the project by the sustainable nature of the process, one that gives each member of the chain a living.
"While making my previous book, Art Workers Guild 125 Years: Craftspeople at Work Today, I met a few weavers and thought that these people have amazing patience," Lara told me. "With sculpture you can see it form in front of you, photography is instant and in architecture there are plans, but weaving is just one line at a time. It's an art form rather than an industrial process."
"Yet I was aware that there was a danger of producing a tourist view rather than the real picture. So that is why I spent as much time as possible up there and experienced all the seasons, though I managed to hit the worst winter for many years, some of it while I was camping out."
As the seasons changed it became clear to Lara that there was a relationship between the landscape and the fabric. Similar patterns and tones can be seen in Lara's close ups of heather and gorse as well as those of the finished rolls of tweed.
The colours of the tweed can be found in the landscape
Lara said: "The whole idea of the wool is to mash it up like a candy floss machine, then it is pulled and teased in the carding machine, so for example you might get an orange thread that has stayed there all the way through the cloth. Every piece of cloth is individual despite the fact that they follow recipes. It is a commercial business and this means they can match up historic patterns."
The project has been published by Frances Lincoln and result is part history and part snapshot of the industry and those who continue the tradition.
"I deliberately did not want a book solely of portraits, so it's a mixture. It's also important to see where they live and how the landscape is reflected in the product."





Harris Tweed fabric, mid-20th centuryHarris Tweed is a cloth that has been handwoven by the islanders on the Isles of Harris, Lewis, Uist and Barra in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, using local wool.
Traditional Harris Tweed was characterized by subtle flecks of colour achieved through the use of vegetable dyes, including the lichen dyes called "crottle" (Parmelia saxatilis and Parmelia omphalodes which give deep red- or purple-brown and rusty orange respectively). These lichens are the origin of the distinctive scent of older Harris Tweed.
The original name of the cloth was tweel, Scots for twill, it being woven in a twilled rather than a plain pattern. A traditional story has the name coming about almost by chance. About 1830, a London merchant received a letter from a Hawick firm about some tweels. The London merchant misinterpreted the handwriting, understanding it to be a trade-name taken from the river Tweed that flows through the Scottish Borders textile area. Subsequently the goods were advertised as Tweed, and the name has remained ever since.

During the economic difficulties of the Highland potato famine of 1846-7, Catherine Murray, Countess of Dunmore was instrumental in the promotion and development of Harris Tweed as a sustainable and local industry. Recognising its sales potential, she had the Murray family tartan copied in tweed by the local weavers and suits were made for the Dunmore estate gamekeepers and gillies. Proving a success, Lady Dunmore sought to widen the market by removing the irregularities caused by dyeing, spinning and weaving (all done by hand) in order to bring it in line with machine-made cloth. She achieved this by organising and financing training in Alloa for the Harris weavers and by the late 1840s a London market was established which led to an increase in sales of tweed.

With the industrial revolution the Scottish mainland turned to mechanisation, but the Outer Hebrides retained their traditional processes of manufacturing cloth. Until the middle of the 19th century the cloth was only produced for personal use within the local market. It was not until between 1903 and 1906 that the tweed-making industry in Lewis significantly expanded. Production increased until the peak figure of 7.6 million yards was reached in 1966. However the Harris Tweed industry declined along with textile industries in the rest of Europe. Harris Tweed has survived because of its distinctive quality and the fact that it is protected by an act of Parliament limiting the use of the Sovereign's Orb trademark to tweeds made in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

One high profile promotional success of Harris Tweed in recent years has been their use on several Nike running shoe designs including the Terminator, Blazer, and Air Force 1. Around 95 per cent of Harris Tweed production is from the mills of Harris Tweed Hebrides in Shawbost, Isle of Lewis, a company founded in 2007 and who have had success in extending the appeal of this "champagne of fabrics." They export to more than 40 countries and supply designers like Alexander McQueen, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Steven Alan. While Harris Tweed has been mainly a fashion fabric in recent years, Harris Tweed Hebrides has broken new ground by supplying most of the interiors fabrics for Glasgow's first five-star hotel, Blythswood Square, said to be the biggest interiors project since Harris Tweed was used in the fitting out of the ocean liner QE2 in the 1960s. The company has picked up two major honours: Textile Brand of the Year for 2009 at the Scottish Fashion Awards, and premier award for Outstanding Style Achievement at the Scottish Style Awards, reflecting a renaissance of interest in the fabric and its use by cutting-edge designers.

Every length of cloth is stamped with the official Orb symbol, trademarked by the Harris Tweed Association in 1909, when Harris Tweed was defined as "hand-spun, hand-woven and dyed by the crofters and cottars in the Outer Hebrides."

Machine-spinning and vat-dyeing have since replaced hand methods, and only weaving is now done in the home under the governance of the Harris Tweed Authority established by an act of Parliament in 1993. Harris Tweed is now defined as "hand woven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished in the islands of Harris, Lewis, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Barra and their several purtenances (The Outer Hebrides) and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides."

Contemporary expansion
A Nike shoe in Harris TweedIn 2004 the American company Nike used the fabric to produce limited edition runs of retro trainers originally released in the 1980s. They ordered 10,000 metres of cloth from mills on the Isle of Harris, using a design by Donald John Mackay, who lives and works in Luskentyre on the island. They have since used the fabric in other designs of shoe. Another company using Harris Tweed in their products is "The Healthy Back Bag Company" who launched a range of bags in August 2007

In December 2006 a Yorkshire businessman, Brian Haggas, bought Kenneth Mackenzie Ltd (KM Group) in Stornoway which by then accounted for about 95 per cent of Harris Tweed production. Textiles entrepreneur Brian Haggas, 75, who owns textile firm the John Haggas Group, also bought Parkend, a small tweed mill on the outskirts of Stornoway and closed it down. Haggas then reduced all the 8000 Harris Tweed designs down to four, refused to sell to any one else and started producing exclusively for his own garment production. In May 2008, Haggas announced the redundancy of 36 millworkers in Stornoway.

In December 2007, Harris Tweed Hebrides acquired the closed mill at Shawbost on the Isle of Lewis. Harris Tweed Hebrides is chaired by former UK government minister Brian Wilson and the main investor is his friend Ian Taylor, president of oil trader Vitol.

The fictional character Robert Langdon, from the novels Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol, wears Harris Tweed, as does the fictional detective Miss Marple,[9] the second and eleventh portrayals of the fictional Doctor from the television series Doctor Who, and Glasgow University Rugby Football Club. Jasper Fforde also uses a fictional character named Harris Tweed in his Thursday Next series, most notably in Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots.

British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood is a fan of Harris Tweed - her brand logo is very similar to Harris Tweed's logo. The Harris Tweed Authority pursued a long-running legal case to stop her using the Orb trade mark but Westwood won by being able to point to three minor differences between her logo and Harris Tweed's. While she has used Harris Tweed, the logo is often attached to products that are not made with Harris Tweed.

In 2009, British fashion designer Sara Berman designed a capsule collection of limited edition Harris Tweed coats sold exclusively through her online boutique

In 2010, fashion label Thomas Pink contracted with Harris Tweed to produce a line of sport jackets for their AW10 season.

The Hospitality industry is now also enjoying a Harris Tweed experience. The largest order of Harris Tweed since the commissioning of the QE2 has been delivered for the fit out of the new five-star Hotel Glasgow, called Blythswood Square. The hotel was the former Royal Scottish Automobile Club and has been renovated and rebuilt, in parts, to accommodate the new hotel.

REMEMBERING: James Sherwood and Savile Row ... more than a Love Affair.

For over two decades, Sherwood was a fashion and style critic for The Independent on Sunday, the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. He is now editor-at-large for The Rake magazine and contributes to The World of Interiors, the International Herald Tribune and the Spectator.




Here is the definitive story of Savile Row, the internationally renowned epicentre of gentlemen's style. Introduced by Tom Ford, it is a rich visual history of the street synonymous with elegance, sophistication and timeless attitudes. Including rare archival material and previously unpublished images, alongside specially commissioned photography and fashion shoots, this lavish celebration brings together the Row's tailors, the personalities, the dramas and private tales, the suits and their accoutrements, the fabrics and the cuts, as never before. An exclusive bonus section offers a complete resource for anyone wishing to have a suit made.


THE LONDON CUT
Author, broadcaster and curator James Sherwood's new book Savile Row: The Master Tailors of British Bespoke is published by Thames & Hudson and was celebrated by book launches at the Savoy in London, Old England in Paris and The Room at The Bay in Toronto. His previous books include The London Cut; published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The exhibit subsequently travelled to the British Ambassadors' Residences in Paris and Tokyo. 2010 was the seventh year he co-presented the BBCs fashion coverage of Royal Ascot and eighth year he has written and subsequently edited the Louis Vuitton Guide to London.
Sherwood curated the Archive Room at No 1 Savile Row for Gieves & Hawkes and in 2010 curated the Savoy Museum as well as acquiring artworks, libraries and objects for the Savoy's nine Signature Suites named after its greatest guests including Marlene Dietrich, Winston Churchill and Noel Coward. He is currently working on a five year cataloguing and restoration project of Henry Poole & Co's historic ledgers dating back to 1846. He is also working on a new Thames & Hudson edition to be published in 2011 on the 300th anniversary of Ascot titled Fashion at Royal Ascot. For over two decades, Sherwood was a fashion and style critic for The Independent on Sunday, the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. He is now editor-at-large for The Rake magazine and contributes to The World of Interiors, the International Herald Tribune and the Spectator.



Gieves & Hawkes
The archive room at No. 1 Savile Row, the collected history of Gieves & Hawkes, tailors.
New York Times
By JAMES SHERWOOD
Published: November 9, 2010
“There is an odd atmosphere these days in Savile Row,” wrote Esquire’s Nick Sullivan in 1992. “Nothing tangible, you understand. But from time to time, people stop to peer with uncertainty, with incomprehension, even with vague horror through the plate glass window of No. 37a. There’s a new boy in the Row and he’s causing quite a stir. What’s more, he’s not a tailor. Richard James is too busy to worry about the neighbors.”
To reread reports of the advent of Richard James on Savile Row in the early 1990s, you would think he was selling jeans and jocks like Abercrombie & Fitch, so vehement was the response. James was the first to admit that he came from a fashion background: he worked for the formidable Joan Burstein as menswear buyer for South Molton Street boutique Browns, then crossed the floor to show an own-label collection in Paris alongside fellow bright British exports Paul Smith and Katharine Hamnett. What he was proposing from his tiny Savile Row shop was a ready-to-wear collection supplemented by special bespoke orders made for him by neighboring traditional Row tailor Anthony J. Hewitt.
Photographed leaping down the Row grinning like a Cheshire Cat, James told Vogue: “A jacket’s got to have that bit of lilac showing through the back flap. An Englishman must learn to be flamboyant again.”
Fellow tailor Timothy Everest understood the cultural barriers Savile Row faced in the 1990s. As he told me in 2007, “Traditionally, a gentleman would introduce his son to his tailor as a rite of passage. In the ’80s it was the sons who introduced their fathers to fashion labels such as Giorgo Armani, Ralph Lauren, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons,” he says. “The tailors that you christened the New Establishment had to turn men back on to bespoke tailoring.” In 1991, Everest opened his atelier in a 1760 Huguenot house in London’s East End, far from the Row.
Everest’s house was well placed to serve the young City boys working in the Square Mile. Opening on Savile Row would, he says, “be like moving back in with my parents.” His early customers “were a bit apprehensive at first, but when they discover they can get something that fits them perfectly, will last for ages and still cost less than a designer suit, they are sold on bespoke.”
Working from a studio in Notting Hill until his move near the Row in 1995, Ozwald Boateng was cutting eye-popping, super-sharp 1960s-inspired suits with raised waistlines and slimmed-down trousers that elongated and refined the line. Soho tailor Mark Powell proposed the Neo-Edwardian cut with a gangster swagger, while Timothy Everest revived his mentor Tommy Nutter’s golden era with an early 1970s look. All the new school tailors undercut old Savile Row’s average price of £3,000 for a bespoke suit considerably, which contributed to a “them” and “us” mood on the Row.
The noise generated by the New Establishment and the attention of men’s style titles such as GQ, Esquire and Arena Homme + understandably irked the older houses. Andrew Ramroop OBE, owner of Maurice Sedwell at No. 19 Savile Row, had pioneered some of the most flamboyant bespoke tailoring seen on the Row in a lifelong career that saw him buy out Mr. Sedwell in 1988. “I remember walking to work in a fine pair of trousers that showed of my 26-inch waist and two-tone leather and canvas shoes. Tommy [Nutter] would compliment me if he saw me walking down the Row,” says Ramroop. “One of my earliest passions was to make sure the back of the jacket was as interesting as the front. I’d put shooting pleats into the back of my jackets and was fond of contrast-color piped seams.”
As head cutter at Maurice Sedwell in the early 1980s, Ramroop had a strong following among then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet. Led by Lady Thatcher’s private secretary Mark Lennox-Boyd, six cabinet ministers (including Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Baker) and twenty MPs were Maurice Sedwell men. “One of the cabinet ministers told me that Mrs. Thatcher enjoyed her ministers discussing their tailor,” recalls Ramroop. In sharp contrast to the New Establishment, Andrew Ramroop did not advertise the more exotic bespoke commissions outside the circle of his customers.
But the D’Artagnan of New Establishment tailors, GQ style editor John Morgan, put all of his weight behind the new boys. In January 1995, Morgan coordinated a Sunday Telegraph story, “Speaking up for Bespoke,” that went against every instinct of Savile Row’s famed discretion. Four handsome young chaps proud to name their tailors were interviewed and photographed as poster boys for contemporary bespoke. Twenty-eight-year-old banker Guy Mettrick declares: “I would never go back to ready-to-wear. ... Tim [Everest] is brilliant at interpreting your ideas. You just have to mention an outfit sported by a star in an old film and within minutes Tim has rustled up a drawing that exactly matches your thoughts. He has taken the stuffiness out of going to the tailor which is very important for someone of my age.”
Twenty-seven-year-old foreign exchange dealer Riccardo Borsi, looking sharp in Mark Powell’s Neo-Edwardian cut, says: “People are looking for more than the Armani and Boss suits. Mark has proved that you don’t have to be flash if you work in the foreign exchange.”
Solicitor John Armstrong adds: “I was attracted to Ozwald’s work because I like simple, gimmick-free clothes where the emphasis is on cut and fabric rather than details.”
Richard James is endorsed by Princess Margaret’s son David Linley, who says: “Richard gives me all the quality and craftsmanship associated wih Savile Row but he does it with his tongue firmly in his cheek. The result is clothes that are always amusing but never too noticeable.” As perhaps the most piquant tableau of new versus old Row, Linley tells John Morgan that Richard James measured him up astride his motorbike.
Morgan could not have written a more ringing endorsement for the New Establishment. He and fellow foppish scribes U.S. Vogue European editor-at-large Hamish Bowles, GQ bespoke editor Nick Foulkes and fashion journalist/curator Robin Dux were influential supporters and promoters of Savile Row bespoke tailoring, both old and new school. Morgan, who famously spent his last years living a Regency dandy life in an Albany set (an apartment in London’s historic private bachelor quarters) filled with over sixty bespoke suits, three hundred handmade shirts and ninety pairs of bespoke Cleverley shoes, died in 2000, thus robbing Savile Row of one of its greatest ambassadors. He wrote his own epitaph to introduce the Sunday Telegraph’s Savile Row story: “Despite very modest circumstances, I have always managed to maintain a good address and a better wardrobe.”
From “Savile Row, The Master Tailors of British Bespoke,” Thames and Hudson, 2010.

REMEMBERING 2014 BBC 4 / / 4/4 Dan Cruickshank and the Family that built Gothic Britain

Dan Cruickshank & the Family That Built Gothic Britain

2014

Documentary

Documents the works of three generations of Gothic architects Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), George Gilbert Scott Jr (1839-1897) and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960). Between them they designed the Chapel of Exeter College, Oxford; the Albert Memorial; the Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Midland Grand Hotel, St Pancras Station; the churches of All Hallows, Southwark, St Agnes, Kennington, and St Mary Magdalene, East Moors, North Yorkshire; the Avenues district of Hull; St John the Baptist (Catholic) Cathedral, Norwich; Liverpool (Anglican) Cathedral; Battersea Power Station; Waterloo Bridge; Bankside Power Station which is now the Tate Modern Gallery; and the iconic K2 and K6 red telephone boxes.

REMEBERING : Dan Cruickshank's House ... Spitalfields ... More than Architectural History ... a Philosophy of Life

Being myself an architectural historian and very much concerned with restoration issues ... I recognize entirely the "obsessions" of Dan Cruickshank.
It is much more than a "specialisation" ... it is a Way of Life ... it is also the quest for your "secret garden" and the decision to reside or to live "there" ... all your life ... it is real and unreal at the same time ... placed 'somewhere' in the twighlight ...
The name of this Neverland is in my case ... "Tweedland"
Yours ... Jeeves



ALISTAIR DUNCAN
STYLING SIAN WILLIAMS
PHOTOGRAPHS MARK SCOTT
Featured in the January 2011 issue of Period Living


Historian Dan Cruickshank has employed a very sensitive approach to the renovation of his old home that respects and preserves its heritage.
Authenticity has been a constant watchword for Dan Cruickshank as he sets about restoring his Georgian townhouse. While Dan is well known as a TV presenter, the face of cerebral BBC documentaries such as Around the World in 80 Treasures and Adventures in Architecture, first and foremost he’s an academic: an architectural historian who is deeply passionate about the preservation of old houses that showcase the building styles of bygone eras. ‘Old Georgian houses like mine have a very strong, benign presence,’ says Dan. ‘Far too many have been changed too much – modern things have been inserted: heating, lighting, or a ghastly power shower. The atmosphere that is present in these buildings has been destroyed.’
Humble origins
Two local builders, Mr Bunce and Mr Brown, built Dan’s four-storey home in Spitalfields in 1727 for a wealthy silk merchant. Dan bought it more than 30 years ago, and has been painstaking in keeping it faithful to the original spirit of the house ever since. Swathed in 18th-century decorative detail and crammed with interesting – if occasionally rickety – antique furniture, the house is a gem of a time capsule.
‘I bought my house because I was intrigued by Georgian buildings,’ Dan explains. ‘The houses on this terrace weren’t built by great patrons of the arts as conscious works of art, just by humble builders trying to make some money; by chance, they have created buildings of great beauty.
‘However, the house had been empty for many decades when I found it in the late 1970s,’ he continues. ‘It had been completely abandoned, and was full of rotting furniture left by the previous owners.’
Sensitive restoration
In spite of the fact that the house had moved a fair bit on its foundations over the years, and the whole structure was visibly warped, a surveyor confirmed that the skeleton of the building was in good order. The only structural work Dan needed to organise was the rebuilding of the parapet and the relaying of some roof tiles. Inside, however, the ceilings had collapsed throughout – water had poured through the entire house for many years. After it had been allowed to dry out (the old pine floorboards, thankfully, turned out to be ‘just like hardwood – tough and durable; no rot to be found’), Dan took it upon himself to do as much of the work as he could himself, although his approach was always cautious. He went from room to room, renovating each one in as authentic a manner as possible. ‘I set about repairing it as gently as I could,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want to yank up all the floorboards just for the sake of checking; I trusted the house.’
Original pine panelling adorns most of the rooms in the house, along with dados, cornicing, doors and architraves. ‘I looked for the old, Georgian paints and kept them wherever possible – the paint was pretty good on the top floor,’ he says. ‘I just cleaned it with white spirit and linseed oil. But when I needed to repaint elsewhere, I’d look for remnants of original colours – behind shutters or in cupboards – then try to copy them.’ He discovered that the ground floor had been green, so bought some pigments and mixed his own eggshell paint – back then, finding an existing shade that matched was tricky, he says. ‘This was the 1980s; it’s a lot easier to buy heritage paints these days.’
Eventually, after agonising over the thought of modernising too much, he decided to have electricity installed. ‘I wanted the wiring to be non-destructive and reversible, rather than chased aggressively into the panelling,’ Dan explains. ‘The electrician I found managed to lodge it discreetly beneath the woodwork.’
Intriguing discoveries
As he opened up the boarded windows he found, to his great delight, original 18th-century Crown glass – an early type of hand-blown window glass with a distinctive blue-green hue and rippled effect. ‘I find it incredible to think that during the Christmas of 1940, when the family that were living here were huddled in the basement and the east end of London was engulfed in a sea of flames, even the glass survived,’ Dan says.
Averse as he was to tampering with the building, he decided upon one major change to the ground floor sitting room – and this was only to return to the original layout. ‘I realised that the room had been altered in the 19th century,’ he explains. ‘A partition had been moved. I put it back to where it was in the 1720s. Curiously, I found a roll of newspaper, crumpled up and put into the corner of the room to stop a draught. It was from 1848 – that dated the alteration.’
There were other discoveries along the way. Dan came upon old visiting cards, children’s playing cards from the first half of the 20th century, old bottles and then, while repairing one fireplace, he uncovered late 18th-century Delft tiles amid the rubble. ‘The English made their own imitations of Dutch Delft,’ says Dan. ‘These were made in either Bristol or Liverpool.’
A passion for history
In addition to the period detail of the house, which Dan has restored as accurately as he can, he has chosen to furnish his home almost exclusively with antiques. Indeed, it is an Aladdin’s Cave of eye-catching, often rather eccentric historical artefacts. Adorning the walls are prints of architectural wonders, porcelain vases and oil paintings; and every room boasts quirky pieces that Dan has acquired on his globetrotting travels. His furniture has been sourced from junk shops and second-hand markets. Oak writing desks and coffee tables bestride Persian rugs, and high-backed 17th-century chairs are dotted around many rooms.
Dan’s determination to maintain the beauty of the past applies to every aspect of his home, be it the building or its contents. ‘This house is full of mystery,’ he says. ‘It’s a living being, with its own identity and past enshrined within its own fabric. I don’t want it to change; I want it to be lived in gently, so it survives.’

A Gentleman’s London, Episode Twenty-two: Mark's Club

Hermès’s Birkin Bag and Gucci’s Horse-Bit Loafer.

15. Hermès’s Birkin Bag, 1984

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/t-magazine/most-influential-shoes-bags-fashion-accessories.html

 

The actress Jane Birkin with her namesake Hermès bag in London, 1996.Credit...Mike Daines/Shutterstock

Introduced by Hermès in 1984, the Birkin might be the world’s most in-demand handbag, with an origin story that’s fashion legend. Earlier that year Jean-Louis Dumas, the French luxury house’s executive chairman, was seated next to the actress and singer Jane Birkin on a flight from Paris to London and witnessed her straw basket bag tumble to the floor, its contents scattering everywhere. Birkin complained about how hard it was to find a good, practical weekend bag; the two began exchanging ideas, and her namesake was born. Its briefcase-like design looks simple enough, but it can take Hermès artisans from 15 to 20 hours to hand-stitch each one. And although it was originally priced at $2,000, current styles — which vary in size (from about 8 to just under 16 inches), color (from classic saddle brown to bright orange) and material (from ostrich to alligator) — can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, famously, there have been waiting lists just for the opportunity to buy one. Last year, a similar bag showed up on the Walmart website for less than $100. Dubbed the “Wirkin,” it sold out in no time. — E.P.

 

Doonan: The Birkin was an exclusive item that not many people knew about until the ’90s, when it became the signifier of glamour. Suddenly, this bag, which was relatively obscure, started showing up on every celebrity and fashion maven who entered every room purse-first.

 

Bradley: Yeah, it used to be, like, an undercover bag — the type a model would get after having a good season. And then it was everywhere.

 

Doonan: It’s interesting to note that prior to this bag’s existence, Jane Birkin carried everything in a rudimentary, rustic basket, which is what girls used to do. Before the handbag revolution, which happened in the ’90s and into the aughts, hip girls used to carry their stuff in a paper bag or shopping bag. A designer bag was [seen as too] conventional.

 

Kim: Its evolution is interesting, too. Jane wore it with all those charms and ribbons on it; that’s how that trend came about. The “purse-first” thing is so funny because women at the time were always carrying such big bags. They preceded you. Now it’s all about how small it can get.

 

7. Gucci’s Horse-Bit Loafer, 1953

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/t-magazine/most-influential-shoes-bags-fashion-accessories.html

 

In 1953, weeks after the death of Gucci’s founder, Guccio Gucci, who’d started the company in 1921, three of his sons — Aldo, Vasco and Rodolfo — traveled to Manhattan for the opening of the brand’s first store outside of Italy. While abroad, Aldo noticed the popularity of the penny loafer among American men and decided that Gucci should make its own version. Rather than having a coin slot, Gucci’s leather slip-ons — which were cut, sewn and hammered by hand — featured a horse bit, a motif introduced a few years earlier by Guccio, who had an interest in equestrian style. Francis Ford Coppola wore them while directing the first two “Godfather” movies in the 1970s, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art added them to its permanent collection in the ’80s, and by the ’90s they were so ubiquitous on Wall Street that they were known as “deal sleds.” When Tom Ford took artistic control of the brand in 1994, the loafer underwent a series of makeovers, emerging with a square toe one season and a logo print the next. Future creative directors followed his lead, with Alessandro Michele reinterpreting the shoe for fall 2015 as a shearling-lined slide and Sabato De Sarno, who stepped down earlier this month, adding platform heels to his spring 2024 version. — M.O.

 

 The director Francis Ford Coppola at his American Zoetrope studio in San Francisco, 1970.Credit...Bettmann/Getty Images

Bradley: I’d say that Alessandro’s greatest achievement at Gucci was doing the horse-bit loafer slide. He brought a classic into the modern age by making it a fur-lined slide.

 

Doonan: When Alessandro was working his magic at Gucci, I was in heaven. It was so orgasmic and fabulous. Anything felt possible.

 

Brazilian: But since the shoe was first designed in 1953, I think we should do the original.

 

Doonan: I agree.

REMEMBERING : The Yorkshire Vet S14E01

Review of 'James Herriot's Yorkshire'

James Herriot's Yorkshire by James Herriot

 https://stevedrice.net/reviews/books/non-fiction/477

james_herriots_yorkshire.jpgI have always enjoyed James Herriot's (James Alfred Wight) Yorkshire vet series of books and the original 1978-1980 television series. It was his compassion for the animals and love of Yorkshire that really came through in the writing along with a healthy dose of humour and good nature. Seeing the countryside in the television series really added to the appreciation of his stories. In this coffee-table book Herriot guides us through the various areas of Yorkshire that featured so prominently in his live accompanied by photographs by Derry Brabbs bringing together the stories and images of the landscape that surrounded them. Sure, now a bit obviously dated with the photographs but the sentiments are very real and the book does give us an idea of the region.

 

Though much of book is filled with fond memories there are also bittersweet ones too as the images of Yorkshire spark Herriot's memories. It is as if we are listening the great author informally chatting to us as we look over the wonderful pictures. There are references to slightly less known areas such as the Buttertubs, Coverdale and his home in Thirsk (now featuring a museum to the famous man) as well as the more familiar such as York and Harrogate. For all he has something to say, providing insights to not only the countryside but also the writing of his books and his real life as a vet.

 

Great for fans of the famous Yorkshire vet as well as those who love Yorkshire. Easy to read with some beautiful, if not spectacular, photos.

Our last meeting and interview with the great man, Robert Hardy CBE FSA // Cahillane remembers ‘All Creatures Great and Small’

Cahillane remembers ‘All Creatures Great and Small’

 

By JIM CAHILLANE

Published: 9/26/2017 7:28:48 PM

https://www.gazettenet.com/Columnist-JIm-Cahillane-reflects-on-All-Creatures-Great-and-Small-12746303

 

Recently, we’ve been watching “The Yorkshire Vet” on Acorn TV. Skeldale Veterinary Centre is a fine successor to that run by Alf Wight (known by the pen James Herriot).

 

The new show’s vets are Julian Norton and his partner Peter Wright, who trained under Wight. In a respectful choice of casting, the new show’s narrator is actor Christopher Timothy who played Herriot in the series, “All Creatures Great and Small.” This new practice is more of a documentary than Herriot’s, which can cause a few winces in the watching.

 

Herriot’s dog stories and other books about life in the Yorkshire Dales have sold in the millions. Starting in 1978, through 1990, 90 episodes of “All Creatures Great and Small” became a Sunday night television staple in our house.

 

In 2007 we exercised our love for the show to the max and booked a holiday week in Askrigg, a Yorkshire village in the heart of Herriot country. Our two-bed apartment was at the rear of The King’s Arms public house. It was called The Drovers in the “All Creatures” scripts and we found a welcome there. Its wall featured photos of Christopher Timothy, Robert Hardy and Peter Davison enjoying a pint of Yorkshire bitter, which isn’t how it tastes.

 

Across High Street was Skeldale House, the TV home for veterinarians Siegfried Farnon (Hardy), his trainee brother, Tristan (Davison), and our hero Herriot (Timothy).

 

In the opening scenes, Herriot arrives in Yorkshire fresh from college in Glasgow. He was to be apprentice vet to Farnon, a demanding boss with the softest of hearts. His calling-card saying was “You must attend!” reminding me of my Irish father who famously wanted everything done yesterday. As a country vet, Farnon’s guiding rule was that when the phone rang he responded. Soon his apprentice, James, shared that load.

 

I, Maureen, son Matt and his wife Karen walked in the footsteps of that famous vet and his television family of true-to-life professionals and country folk. We had lived inside so many “All Creatures” shows that we felt a kinship with the actors, their realistic characters, and the unchanging sheep-filled Dales.

 

Herriot wrote truth about his fellow workers, his love life, animals encountered, and how tight-fisted farmers tested his patience. His first novels were “If Only They Could Talk,” and “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet.” The book’s stories were slice-of-life tales that transferred easily to the small screen.

 

Nonetheless, Hardy had doubts about the show’s appeal. He worried that it would “bore the townspeople and irritate the country folk.” Hardy’s analysis turned out to be spectacularly wrong, but his opinion made sense. Early on in his career, Hardy performed in Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at Stratford-upon-Avon.

 

Hardy’s varied acting life spanned 70 years. Yet, his winning role of an irascible television vet became his legacy.

 

It became easier and easier to care about each character in “All Creatures Great and Small.” Young James Herriot learned how to navigate Yorkshire farmers and their singular personalities.

 

One, Mr. Biggins, would corral James in the pub and try to get free vet advice rather than pay for an official visit. In one scene he had the whole pub smiling at his demonstration of an odd hitch in a cow’s back leg. The camera took lingering views of the farmer’s rear end, as a smiling James asked for repeat performances.

 

James drove up and down the hilly stonewalled roads that we tackled 10 years ago. The actors drove a succession of cranky vintage vehicles in order to match the 1930s and onward settings. In lambing season the vets might find themselves in a cold shed as spring snows quieted the scene around them.

 

In Acorn’s modern version, Peter Wright says of a new lamb nestling up to its mother, “After 35 years I still think that what’s life is all about.”

 

During the show’s run James Herriot had two actress wives. Carol Drinkwater was unaware that her part as Helen, a farmer’s daughter and James’s girlfriend, had turned her into a sex symbol until she was mobbed wherever she appeared. Before James got around to asking for her hand, Siegfried told him not to wait. Helen, he observed, nearly stopped traffic just by walking in the town.

 

James had rich competition from an upscale young man who drove a beautiful car and chased Helen about. The broad humor of difficult courtships found James a bit worse for drink at a dance as her boyfriend looked down his nose at a floored James while Helen laughed. In vino veritas, so they say, but all came well.

 

Their unique honeymoon saw James testing cows across the Dales even as he was showing off his new spouse to kind farmers’ wives. Helen was one of them.

 

The show was once critiqued as a “cup of cocoa drama,” meaning it’s the perfect nightcap leading to a good night’s sleep. Compared to far too much of today’s television entertainment, watching “All Creatures” I never had occasion to moan or throw objects at the TV screen because of language “that would make a sailor blush” to quote Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady.”

 

Robert Hardy passed away last month at age 92. Like most of us he played many roles in life. Siegfried Farnon, was just one. In six films he was Winston Churchill!

 

Yet, in his obituary his canny, often grouchy vet was held out to be his legacy. The good news is that “All Creatures” lives on in colorful bucolic videos borrowed from a local library, seen on YouTube or purchased from a bookstore.

 

In these harrowing times, being vetted as “a cup of cocoa” is praise indeed. May Robert Hardy rest in peace and may a godlike Siegfried Farnon continue caring for animals — like and unlike us — for eternity. Amen.

 

Jim Cahillane, who writes a monthly column, lives in Williamsburg with creatures wild and domestic, including Liddy, a fairly odd cat.

THE "NEW" ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL // CHANNEL 5