First Savile Row bespoke

[corpseposeur]

Moreover, he is one of the nicest fellows in the business. He's truly likable.

His prices, while on the lower end of what he offers are still probably more than what I should be spending on tailoring.

I like Terry as person and everyone at KHL, so if I have the means to stretch a bit for a structured style of coat, I do so happily because he's going to do right by me. He's also extremely knowledgeable about his craft, he's all gags until it comes to business and then he's very scrutinizing and calculating.

He as well as his partners also have a fantastic sense of humor as opposed to...ahem...some other firms. There is only so much "yes sir-ing" I need in my life. All I ask of my tailor is that they listen to my needs, steer my away from expensive mistakes, and make me look great in tailored clothing. Terry Haste does this very well.

 

[othertravel]

CM stands for Classic Menswear, which is this side of the forum. I'm not really talking about just this forum, but the general online community through which some people may encounter this type of look. I think fifteen years ago, there was more energy and excitement about this stuff, fueled by a combination of things -- Mad Men, a rich ecosystem of online media (not least of which included street style sites), and forums.

I've heard rumors that some of the big bespoke tailoring houses have talked about moving off the Row, but supposedly (and this is just rumors) no one trusts each other enough to do it. So much has been made of the name, many people still want that Savile Row address.

In the last couple of years, some lastmakers from the big three West End shoemaking firms have broken off and gone independent. Their online presentation is modest, often nothing more than a photo of the carving a last. They don't attract nearly as many customers as any of big names alone. Each of the indies is making maybe a dozen or two dozen pairs of shoes as year; any one of the big bespoke houses is doing hundreds. But the indies attract discerning enthusiasts who care little about name and only of quality. Prices are much lower through indies -- Lobb St. James is stretching into $7k or $8k for a pair of shoes, Templeman, a former Lobb lastmaker, is about half that. This is possible because of London's rich network of outworkers. I think we may see some of that happening in the future with bespoke tailoring houses -- cutters striking it out on their own as independents and then using the outworker network for coatmaking and trousermaking. But still, if they travel, they have to find enough customers in any given city to justify returning for three fittings, which I think is a questionable prospect in a few years.

It would make sense if they all moved to a new, cheaper neighborhood to create SR 2.0.
But it would require coordination, and secrecy to be pulled off successfully.

 

[Vizard]

I think SR prices are outpacing wage growth for many middle-class consumers, and have been for years. I believe many tailoring houses and shoemaking firms raise prices about 2-3% per year, which for many people, is more than their wage growth, even if things are supposed to keep up with inflation. I imagine this price hike is just fine if you're in the upper class, as your income probably keeps up.

My impression is that we're seeing the end of an era where a certain section of consumers can afford custom tailored clothing. That era, starting around the immediate post-war period, is when many tailoring houses saw their customer base expand to include middle-class customers. IIRC, Nothing But the Best by Thomas Girtin (a wonderful book about British craft, if someone hasn't already ready it) touches on this period.

I suspect this is heavily driven by real estate costs. Simon Cundy at Henry Poole once told me what he pays in rent. I can't remember the number but I remember being astounded. Someone at one of the big West End shoemaking firms (not Nicholas) also once told me what their firm pays in rent, and it was similarly amazing. Hence why we're seeing so many firms introduce offshore bespoke programs and ready-to-wear lines. They're trying to scale and still bring in middle-class customers.

For middle-class consumers, I think the shift is all towards Hong Kong and Italy, where things are still relatively affordable. The problem is that many of these firms don't travel to the United States, and I'm not sure if the community of enthusiasts in the US is growing for this sort of stuff. I think the online community of enthusiasts is shrinking and the loss in numbers is not being replaced with new blood. The space for tailored clothing is declining and you have to be intentional about wearing a tailored jacket (willing to stand out). I also think you have to make this stuff look modern nowadays to attract younger people, but the CM crowd is cantankerous, crotchety, and sometimes unwelcoming to newbies.

Excellent post.

I think SR prices are outpacing wage growth for many middle-class consumers, and have been for years. I believe many tailoring houses and shoemaking firms raise prices about 2-3% per year, which for many people, is more than their wage growth, even if things are supposed to keep up with inflation. I imagine this price hike is just fine if you're in the upper class, as your income probably keeps up.

My impression is that we're seeing the end of an era where a certain section of consumers can afford custom tailored clothing. That era, starting around the immediate post-war period, is when many tailoring houses saw their customer base expand to include middle-class customers. IIRC, Nothing But the Best by Thomas Girtin (a wonderful book about British craft, if someone hasn't already ready it) touches on this period.

I suspect this is heavily driven by real estate costs. Simon Cundy at Henry Poole once told me what he pays in rent. I can't remember the number but I remember being astounded. Someone at one of the big West End shoemaking firms (not Nicholas) also once told me what their firm pays in rent, and it was similarly amazing. Hence why we're seeing so many firms introduce offshore bespoke programs and ready-to-wear lines. They're trying to scale and still bring in middle-class customers.

For middle-class consumers, I think the shift is all towards Hong Kong and Italy, where things are still relatively affordable. The problem is that many of these firms don't travel to the United States, and I'm not sure if the community of enthusiasts in the US is growing for this sort of stuff. I think the online community of enthusiasts is shrinking and the loss in numbers is not being replaced with new blood. The space for tailored clothing is declining and you have to be intentional about wearing a tailored jacket (willing to stand out). I also think you have to make this stuff look modern nowadays to attract younger people, but the CM crowd is cantankerous, crotchety, and sometimes unwelcoming to newbies.

Excellent post.

I am a middle class British customer, who buys bespoke suits on Savile Row. I am in a vanishingly small minority of British buyers of expensive clothing.

Even twenty-five or thirty years ago, a middle-aged man like me would have aspired to dress from Savile Row, once income allowed. I remember sitting in my office in London in 1998 weighing up when I could afford the required £800 to buy a suit with two pairs of trousers from Richard James. It was another twenty years before I walked through their door and I can almost guarantee that NONE of the other people I worked with in 1998 will even be wearing a suit now. Most men just don't want to do it anymore.

Some of my friends are accountants and analysts in the City and they wear jeans. If they dress up it's chinos and a formal shirt. If they put on a jacket, they are probably going to a wedding!

At the moment, Savile Row's customer base, or potential customer base, is not the majority of British men. Some of the senior people perhaps, but not volume businessmen. I would love that to change, but it would be a long road.

Henry Poole's customer base is mostly foreign, as far as I know. I do know that Simon Cundy was on the first plane out of Heathrow after the first lockdown, which probably tells us something.

 

[Frog in Suit]

Excellent post.


Excellent post.

I am a middle class British customer, who buys bespoke suits on Savile Row. I am in a vanishingly small minority of British buyers of expensive clothing.

Even twenty-five or thirty years ago, a middle-aged man like me would have aspired to dress from Savile Row, once income allowed. I remember sitting in my office in London in 1998 weighing up when I could afford the required £800 to buy a suit with two pairs of trousers from Richard James. It was another twenty years before I walked through their door and I can almost guarantee that NONE of the other people I worked with in 1998 will even be wearing a suit now. Most men just don't want to do it anymore.

Some of my friends are accountants and analysts in the City and they wear jeans. If they dress up it's chinos and a formal shirt. If they put on a jacket, they are probably going to a wedding!

At the moment, Savile Row's customer base, or potential customer base, is not the majority of British men. Some of the senior people perhaps, but not volume businessmen. I would love that to change, but it would be a long road.

Henry Poole's customer base is mostly foreign, as far as I know. I do know that Simon Cundy was on the first plane out of Heathrow after the first lockdown, which probably tells us something.

I am a French middle class customer, now retired, who used to buy his clothes on Savile Row (well, Sackville Street, to be precise). I started to buy bespoke in the mid-eighties. SR was affordable then, especially if you stayed away from the most expensive houses (Huntsman...).
I would say that ALL SR houses nowadays rely heavily on their foreign customers, to varying degrees, Americans (and Canadians), but also from the Middle East and the Far East.
There still are native customers in France and the UK who can afford bespoke : aristocrats (Meyer & Mortimer supposedly used to have a number of Scottish aristocrats -- Mortimer was from Scotland), financiers, tycoons, royalty, "celebrities"...Those customers can probably tolerate high prices. Middle class ones are pushed towards Lamb's Conduit Street (a "mini SR"?) or the City or, as you point out, stopped wearing proper clothes altogether ("Harrumph!").
Moving out of the SR area entirely would probably kill the industry as it exists now. One might want to consider whether a shop front is essential. All the firms now have websites and are on social media. How many people find their tailor by just walking down the street and looking at a window? Upper floor rents would be cheaper (How much, I don't know). Workshops could stay under street level or move elsewhere (there already are some in Soho, just across Regent Street).
Or one could hope for a strong, enlightened, government enforcing strict rent controls only for tailors in Mayfair ...

 

[comrade]

Twenty years ago when I spoke to Brian Lishak, then of
Huintsman, said that (even then) the Row was dependent
on non- British clients. He further remarked that for most
clients, bespoke was something of a hobby and that
equivalent quality could be had RTW from Oxxford and
the like. That surprised me as an SR aspirant- who has yet to achieve his goal.

 

[DaAlSh]

I think this might be true of the larger or 'famous' Houses (certainly A&S relies highly on Americans who come, I suspect, because of the 'name' and association with the Prince of Wales), but I don't think it's true of the smaller houses. My own (Kent Haste) seems to have a predominantly English 'professional' class as clientele, with a fair number of Americans, and a few members of the English aristocracy, though this might also have something to do with their extremely high quality and more reasonable prices!

 

[othertravel]

Cut us some slacks! Tailors warn Mayfair's Savile Row may 'disappear'

EXCLUSIVE: Stores on the prestigious Mayfair street (pictured), which boasts the finest tailors in the country, are 'struggling' due to the 'potentially devastating' pandemic.

www.google.com

 

[dieworkwear]

I think many of the big names have been reliant on Americans for some time. My understanding is that the internal British market was heavily burdened after the war, as people were left with little money, and shoemakers and tailors had to go to the US, where a booming middle class was eager to try out new things. Colin Haywood once told me that Anderson & Sheppard would have shut down in the immediate post-war years if it weren't for American orders. However, the firm would not start traveling for proper fittings until the 1990s. Before that, they would come and take orders and expect to see you in London, so perhaps even then, it was for the upper-middle class.

After the war, many British bespoke shoemaking firms were also closing down or getting bought up. Peal traveled for quite a while, even before the war, and eventually closed in 1965. Nicholas Templeman, who used to work at Lobb, once told me that Eric Lobb's trips to the US saved the family's firm after the war.

I know Steed is almost entirely dependent on overseas orders and from enthusiast type of customers. Most customers only order one thing per year, but regularly year after year. They are not the type to wear suits because they have to, but because they find it to be a hobby. Many other tailors, such as Edward Sexton, have told me that they mainly serve this sort of middle-class customer base (enthusiasts).

I'm not sure how long it will last. Between the pandemic, people's closets getting filled, and what sometimes feels like the slow death of online culture for tailored clothing, I suspect this population will shrink in ten years. The Armoury is one of the few stores that I think does a good job of promoting a CM look to a younger audience (there are also new shops such as The Anthology, which is doing a similar service). Simon Crompton also does a good job of writing about the trade. I think this world will shrink even further if either of those two end up leaving this market. You need new people with empty closets to replace the dandies with 50 suits already in their home, or the people who have moved on for various reasons.

 

[dauster]

Interesting - I didn't know RA did MTM. Sadly I've seen a fair few poor fits from there, but this might be the reason why. Certainly their bespoke I find far too rich for the result - Kent Haste represents (to me) far better value.

looks pretty good to me

 

[DaAlSh]

looks pretty good to me

View attachment 1734796

MTM or bespoke?

 

[Nytailor]

Dieworker seems to have good insight as to the state of the bespoke trade. When I moved here from London to start my business 30 years ago there were a host of good, bespoke tailors (mostly Italians) who had extremely good businesses. All but a very small handful are left. As I view bespoke tailors in London and chat to the friends I still have there, it appears this might be happening over there. The reliance on overseas clients added to the decline in orders from their home trade has now come to haunt them. There was nothing that they could have done to change this outcome. The brits stopped ordering and then Covid crippled just about everyone. Game, set and match. But I've had a number of new, younger people contact me order . And this has given me hope for the rest of the trade. I sincerely hope that Savile Row will also find these younger clients who want bespoke clothing

 

[Vizard]

I am inclined to observe that sometimes the tailors on Savile Row don't work as hard as they might to nurture new and existing customers.

It is almost as though they are expecting the Edwardian gentry to rise from their graves and order up half a dozen suits each.

 

[dauster]

MTM or bespoke?

MTM

 

[Krish the Fish]

This thread has been fascinating. As someone who recently commissioned his first order with an off-row tailor named in this thread (for 3 suits and a jacket), I’ve thought of myself more of the enthusiast archetype but maybe he is perhaps lumping me in to the other. Just have to tack on some more orders as the years go by, if these 4 work out as well as I hope!

 

[jdldore]

I’m sure there are several more recent posts than this, but this is the one I found when I was looking something else up.

I’ve been using a tailor in the US for about 15 years and have been very pleased with him. I found myself in London for a somewhat extended period after the COVID restrictions eased and decided to branch out and try a couple of others—to find a second tailor (because, as others have noted, the hobby can become a bit addictive). I don’t wear suits very often any more, and am well covered by the tailor I’ve used, but all of my sport coats are RTW, so I decided on a sport coat from each. The two I tried were a very traditional structured maker on-Row and a less traditional—and less expensive—young maker off-Row. While they are both quite distinctive styles, the cost difference led me in part to choose the off-Row maker. I’m hardly a big customer, though. I have purchased two total. I have a far more than sufficient number and feel pretty well settled.

My takeaway thoughts: a lot of SR tailors do cut in distinctive styles that are not often replicated elsewhere.They are undeniably quite expensive. For someone like me who has made it to “comfortable,” SR bespoke is better viewed as a treat. Several off-Row makers do even more distinctive work that is very interesting.