It Could Have Been So Much Better

Among my peers, Savile Row, its suits and tailors, is a thing of aspiration. It makes the best suits, has dressed the best people and justly carries an air of arrogance. One day, when we have enough money to sensibly spend a lot of it on a very nice suit, that is where we will go, with a certain amount of trepidation. There is a readymade market among British youth there, all with accelerating income and aspirations to luxury that include Huntsman, Poole and the rest.

The tragedy is that the BBC series on Savile Row may have popped this bubble, by trying to lure exactly that youth market.

Monday’s final episode in this series was entitled New Blood, and focused on the need for Savile Row to hire talented young tailors that are willing to stay in one unglamorous career their whole lives, for the love of the job and without much pay (at least to begin with).

Unfortunately, all it did was highlight once again Savile Row Bespoke’s mistaken efforts to brand the street as a whole, to bring together disparate individuals into one marketing exercise. The SRB association is planning to set up an academy to train young tailors. Unfortunately, one tailor further down the Row that is not a member of SRB has the same idea. Or, rather, a slightly different idea: he wants his own academy because he feels the work done on the rest of the Row is not up to scratch.

The two meet, have a reasonably gentlemanly discussion and depart, each refusing the other’s offer. So now any young man (or, increasingly, woman) wanting to be trained by the best has to choose between the Savile Row Academy and Savile Row Bespoke training. Both claim to be superior and to be aiming for the same thing, and will likely offer nothing to the potential tailor that clarifies the situation.

It reminds me of the many language schools that set up in Oxford so they can call themselves The Oxford School of Languages, trying to lure in foreign students who think they are somehow being admitted to Oxford University. Some even set up on Oxford Street with the same intention.

This view of the Row – as confused and unwieldy, amateurish in the extreme – is bemoaned even more by those closely associated with it. As Thomas Mahon says on his excellent blog English Cut, “I never thought I’d see the day that a programme about the business I’ve been involved with all my life could possibly make me cringe so much. It was all very sad and tragic.”

“It appears that Savile Row Bespoke is doing a better job than all the high rents, bad exchange rates and global fashion brands could ever do at eating away at the core of what makes Savile Row a wonderful and unique place.”

It will never puncture the image of Savile Row sufficiently for me. But for others it may well have done. It is a real shame that SRB (credited by this programme and therefore presumably involved) thought a documentary would help spread the Savile Row word, when it has undone anything positive that professional, targeted advertising would have achieved.

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An Interview with Suit Supply

Following on from Permanent Style’s posting on February 1, the following is an interview with Suit Supply staffer Richard Finlay-Newton about the brand’s economies of scale, and how to get value for money in your suit.

Permanent Style: How is Suit Supply able to offer made-to-measure suits more cheaply than other stores?

Finlay-Newton: Suit Supply is a vertically integrated company, so we design, make and sell our products ourselves. Therefore, the best and most direct line to the end customer makes a better price. We don’t have to pay for agent’s, trade fairs etc.

PS: What quality signs, such as fineness of wool or canvassing, should readers look for in suits generally, and how does Suit Supply compare here to other stores?

A suit does not take shape from itself, you need to put something inside a suit to give it form, a structure, the inter-lining. There are many ways to make this structure, most common even in the more expensive suits being a fused construction in which a plastic layer is fused to the outer fabric. We use the old-fashioned technique: a canvas of cotton and horse or camel hair. If you bend these hairs they come back, these hairs have long lasting ‘form memory’ and we use them to give form to a suit. The result is a suit which follows the form of the body, one that does not make you feel locked up, and which will keep its form even through the valeting process.

PS: How much of a suit’s price is attributable to branding and advertising, do you think?

Around 60%

PS: Where do most other brands have their suits made these days?

Quality suit making is still concentrated in a few areas, where we and other brands make our suits. These towns contain the people who have the required skills in their fingers. So we all stick together in a way. The skills don’t migrate as fast as in other more industrialized trades. So we and our competitors still produce a great deal in Italy, but China is also moving up in quality garment making.

PS: Do different brands tend to be made at the same factories and even with the same wools ?

Cloth can be sold from one mill to several companies, with the suit possibly being made at the same factory. The main difference is often the cut of the jacket. Each company will aim to create a shape that sets it apart from its competitor. You may still find the same cloth in different shops at different prices.

PS: What other industry insights can you offer about how suits are made and how to get value-for-money?

The make of a suit is just the starting point. The satisfaction you will get from a suit is decided largely by how it fits you. If the person measuring your suit has got it right you will feel better in the suit, and wear it more often. It is about expertise in making the suit, but just as important in the skills of the people measuring you. You can buy an ill-fitting suit for a lot of money. That is the reason why we focus on just one thing: suits, and do not divert  into casual wear, shoes etc. It enables us give our full attention to the promise we give to every customer a perfect fitting suit.

PS: Does Suit Supply have any plans to extend to the US or any other markets?

The first months of trading have been very successful, so we are going to open more stores in the UK this year. We are also planning to open a store in Milan and Zurich in the next 12 months. The UK is in a way a portal to the US, although suit wise there are some big differences – our orientation is probably more westwards in this regard.

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Savile Row Splutters Abroad

I liked the first episode of the Savile Row TV series. But episode two kicks it into touch. Gone are the reverential shots of tailors and their workshops. Gone the image of a British institution comfortable with itself. And gone the unity that attacking Abercrombie & Fitch briefly sparked.

Savile Row is trying to modernise itself and market itself. But no one in the Savile Row Bespoke council seems to know what they want (or how to go about it). And they all fail to know what they want in slightly different ways.

To ward off competition and retain the purity of Savile Row, the council is drawing up rules about who can qualify as Savile Row Bespoke. Most clothes must be cut and made on the premises, on the Row or within 100 yards of it. But two tailors, Edward Sexton (of 1960s and Tommy Nutter fame) and Ravi Tailor were excluded. Sexton had moved to a Knightsbridge address a while ago, and Ravi was forced out after a mistaken partnership with Japanese jeans company Evisu. Both were judged to be more than 100 yards away (despite a heartbreaking scene when Ravi’s young son paces out 78 yards to the new store).

But surely the point of the association was to prevent new tailors using the Savile Row name, and keep the spirit of the brand pure. It was meant to be forward-looking. Little seems to be gained from excluding these two historical names from the list because of rules just invented. Moreover, different members of the council seem to have different views of the point of this rule, and some even think it is 50 yards, rather than 100.

The project seems even more ridiculous after a section following Henry Poole’s expansion in China. They have one store already in Beijing and are setting up another close by, both managed by a Chinese tailor. Not only is this nowhere near Savile Row, but the staff working and cutting in the new store are not Henry Poole staff. They use cloth sent from England, but no mention is made of the training Chinese staff receive.

(It has also been suggested that the exploits of Henry Poole’s man in China are rather like David Brent abroad. This may be unkind, but the beard and lack of social graces are certainly there. See Andy Forum discussion here.)

It is also instructive that no mention is made in the programme of two Savile Row brands that have successfully expanded their marketing and appeal – Kilgour and Richard James. Kilgour recently began offering a service that uses Chinese tailors that are hired and trained by Kilgour, but work in China. This cuts around £1000 off the price of a suit.

When this is mentioned to Henry Poole cutter Angus Cundey on an ill-fated branding exercise in Florence (their designer produces table placings with “Savile Road” emblazoned on them) he disowns any suggestion that he has operations in China. Apparently it is better to have a store there but no workers that export work back to the UK, which seems a little academic.

The story of Savile Row’s tailors and their expansion is a fascinating one, but you can’t help feeling that with so many individuals among them, they would be better off branding individually. Follow the examples of Richard James and Kilgour, or what’s left will be a vague “save the Row” campaign, not a modern business plan.

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Savile Row on TV

Those in the UK are being treated to a three-part TV series on Savile Row at the moment. The launch pad for the programme, evidently filmed last year, is the opening of Abercrombie & Fitch’s London flagship store at 40 Savile Row – the rather imposing old building at the end of the row that used to be the London tailors’ bank.

Cue shots of dapper men standing on their porches, sniffing as the hoardings for Abercrombie are put up – black-and-white shots of chiselled male torsos. The sniffing reaches a crescendo when the store actually opens, and teenagers cue round the block to get in. The Abercrombie philosophy of pumping music, dark lighting and piled-high goods couldn’t be much further removed from the Savile Row aesthetic.

But the truly interesting observations are at the margin of this drama. For example, most of the men sniffing on their porches are younger tailors, dressed a little flashier than their older colleagues, hair greased down, face and tone competitive if not aggressive.

The more senior tailors are a little more relaxed. They realise that Abercrombie is only there as a gimmick. It wanted the address, nothing more. It is not competition and it is more than likely that it will not be there in 50 years, or it will have moved to Oxford Street. A meeting of the senior tailors of the row is described by our narrator as a “council of war”, in response to the Abercrombie opening. Yet no one at that meeting looks particularly upset, and nothing seems to come of it. The subject is quietly dropped during the programme, in order to concentrate on a trip to the Isle of Harris for some genuine tweed.

It is equally interesting that the tailors have, to a certain extent, a right to be there. While rents might be expensive, the landlord has it built into the letting contract that only the work of tailors or clothiers can go on there. This doesn’t prevent the landlords turning the top floors into apartments, or stop Abercrombie (as it strictly speaking could be described as a clothier) but it does partly explain why Savile Row has maintained its consistency and security of address over time.

Another fascinating observation, made in passing, is that few of the tailors are rich. While all of the bespoke suits they offer are expensive, starting at around £2500, they are genuinely made by these experienced old men, by hand, on that site in central London. Given the number of hours it must take to make and fit each one, it is not surprising that the profit margins are not huge. Those trips up to Harris to personally order a few bolts of tweed can’t be cheap either. Remember that next time you are comparing Savile Row tailoring to the big fashion houses (and their profit margins – see posting on January 25).

The Savile Row series screened the second of its three parts on Monday this week. However, all the episodes can be seen in retrospect and by those abroad on the BBC’s iPlayer.

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A Good, Honest Umbrella

The text read: “You’ll know this Simon, where do I get a great umbrella in London?” It was from my cousin Harry, but I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know what to answer.

Being absent-minded at the best of times, I’ve never spent more than five pounds on an umbrella. Even the free brollies from various law firms that litter the office get lost. I take them out when it’s raining, and they get left on the tube, the bus, the Pret a Manger counter. I once bought what seemed a rather nice umbrella from Muji for five pounds. Full-length, a mossy green and smart without being boring. It got left on the bus on the way home.

Ashamed by my lack of brolly knowledge, I didn’t reply to Harry. Being the sort of wandering fellow he is, though, he spent the next hour exploring Bloomsbury and its environs. And I got a triumphant text: “Found the most brilliant umbrella shop. Old, musty, lovely men inside. Didn’t buy anything, but there was a great one with a sword inside.”

The only thing he could tell me was that it was on New Oxford Street. But a bit of research easily identified his find as James Smith & Sons, purveyors of fine umbrellas, sticks and canes since 1830.

From the website it looked as though most of the umbrellas would be out of my price range. With city umbrellas starting at £79, it would be foolish to spend that amount of money on something that could be lost of the train back to Dulwich.

For the sake of research more than anything else, I wandered in there last week – not intending to buy anything, but merely to gain sufficient knowledge of the place to be able to answer a text (and perhaps its detailed follow-up) the next time around. 
The inside felt practical. Rough and ready, with a taste of sawdust in the air. Somehow, a place so unpretentious makes you feel that you are implicitly getting value for money. The sheen and gloss of a fashion brand may seem alluring, but you know you’re paying a sizeable premium for that excitement, that sense of belonging. At no point does it seem honest.

Anyway, turns out James Smith does a rather nice range of city umbrellas that start at £39. For your handle there’s a choice of cane, redwood and a rather rough wood that looks as if has just been hacked off a nearby trunk. They are long-lasting, and can be repaired at any time on site.

I opted for redwood, and am rather pleased with it. It’s lovely to extend that feeling of luxury or tradition to another part of your attire. I really hope I don’t leave it on the train.

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