new ruling on bespoke

[storeynicholas]

Costi - I especially like the metaphors of kosher shop and Christians pork corner and the sheep shearing!!
NJS

[Costi]

|}

Well, at least I am fun

[erasmus]

That is a bit rich coming from Gieves & Hawkes. Number 1 is a shadow of its former self.

Actually, speaking strictly from a production standpoint, one could say all extant Savile Row firms are but shadows of their former selves. Whether Huntsman or Henry Poole, the number of workers employed today by an SR firm is a just a fraction of the number employed at its peak (i.e. perhaps just a tenth or even less).

[erasmus]

Let's face it, bespoke tailoring is for a much smaller market now than it has ever been...However, I would suggest that, instead of feeling obliged to push tat and just preserve the terminology of 'bespoke' for an ever-decreasing circle of clients, the industry should get up on its hind legs and get the real message across - that Savile Row was originally the best and, across the board, remains the best, for real bespoke tailoring - but they need a better copywriter than I. Part of all this trouble is caused, of course, because ill-educated money-grubbing plutocrats have replaced aristocrats and gormless 'celebrities' have supplanted professionals in their buying power - because we live in the age which panders to the tastes of the common man.
NJS

Imagine that you are a managing director of a Savile Row tailoring establishment. You see several options to ensure the future viability of your firm. One option is the dogged pursuit of a purist strategy - produce bespoke and only bespoke to the true connoisseurs of taste. If you produce a quality garment, the customer will come to you. However, as pointed out above, the bespoke-buying elite is a "much smaller market" consisting of an "ever-decreasing circle of clients."

The purist solution, I'm afraid, is a rather passive, unimaginative and unattractive option because it simply preserves the business for the existing set of customers. It suffers from a fundamental flaw: consigning the business to the status quo (or even worse, to the past). There is no future envisioned to grow the business. Instead the firm is asked to cater to an aging clientele purchasing fewer and fewer garments over time. A principled strategy perhaps but one that ensures SR's gradual extinction.

The other option is to educate, cultivate and appeal to an entirely new set of customers (while preserving the existing clientele of course). The thinking is this: If the existing market is declining, find or create a new one. The upshot is that offering RTW does precisely this. It introduces a new pool of customers to the brand, brings them into the shop and perhaps more importantly gives the firm the opportunity to educate them and perhaps convert them over time to MTM or bespoke.

I agree with sartorious completely on this point. The tut-tutting of Kilgour or Gieves & Hawkes for diversifying into RTW misses a blindingly obvious business dilemma facing SR firms. If the existing customer base is declining (and has been for decades), how will you find new customers to replace the old? Conduct business as usual? I think not.

[storeynicholas]

erasmus - I understand your point - and, if anyone were to dare to thunder 'Business as usual he would need to be publicly puffing on a Partagas or an ReJ and trailing Clouds of Glory, which would be illegal - I am afraid that everything that you say just points to the sad fact that we do not live in a very heroic age. I suppose that I just grumble about it too much.
NJS

[sartorius]

The tut-tutting of Kilgour or Gieves & Hawkes for diversifying into RTW misses a blindingly obvious business dilemma facing SR firms. If the existing customer base is declining (and has been for decades), how will you find new customers to replace the old? Conduct business as usual? I think not.

erasmus - I couldn't agree more. The fact is that SR businesses are like any other: to stand still is to die, which is one reason why there are so many fewer SR firms today than in the past.

[storeynicholas]

There are exceptional businesses, which ignore modern pressures and survive across the spectrum: Budd Shirtmakers is an example - they don't even have a brochure, let alone a website; no e-mail and one gets the idea that the installation of a telephone might sometimes have been thought to have been a dangerous step too far - but it is a burgeoning, family-owned buisness. Foyles' Bookshop - still, in the autocratic Christina Foyles' own lifetime, without a website and even refused telephone sales but it was not until after her death that it ceased to to be billed as the biggest bookshop in the world - and, for all the confusion of the shelves, always a tremendous attraction - and combined of course with her famous luncheons - sales' gimmicks basically - but what a way to do it! It goes from strength to strength. I sometimes think that it is a question of confidence - of self-confidence in the business and confidence of the customers in it too. It is reassuring to know that Budd are so firmly against giving into pressures of the bigger commercial world. Bristol Cars is another - website yes, dealerships - no if you want a new Bristol you go there and order one to your requirements - also still a burgeoning family-owned firm. And no motor car tat. Budd do RTW of course; almost all the shirtmakers do but they are discernibly their own - again no tat - whereas the RTW which is, sometimes, peddled as Savile Row MTM or RTW just doesn't have the quality to justify the name and so damages the brand - I cannot speak personally for Kilgour - but the photographs don't look much like Kilgour bespoke, do they? Maybe it isn't as much about the offering of a different service as well as much about the way that it is done and the quality of the goods themselves. That's why firms like Henry Maxwell - which held every royal warrant for boots from George IV - were worth saving from the brink by (Foster & Son) and may they glide back to where they belong - but it won't be by offering tat to bring customers through the door. I also believe that there are fewer firms than before because the customers or potential customers often don't have the leisure anymore to go and have clothes made (even if they do have the taste and the cash) - and the economy is in such a state that nearly everyone's money (whatever they earn) arrives with its hat on and the earners - even the big earners - are constantly under the cosh to work very, very hard (too hard often) to maintain their lifestyles which are, anyway, too fast. Moreover, property prices are so grossly inflated that fewer and fewer people actuallly live in St James's and Piccadilly and Mayfair anymore. So it's a whole host of reasons, besides the important fact that the prices for bespoke have had to increase at a rate to cover the ever-soaring business rates, before any profit shows.
NJS

[sartorius]

One can always find the odd exception to the rule. But the fact remains that in the overwhelming majority of cases businesses must evolve or face extinction. This is not a reflection on "modern times" or "the country going to the dogs" or a general decline in quality of product. It is simply an economic reality.

Charing Cross road used to be lined with independent booksellers. There are now only a handful (Foyles being one of them, if indeed it is still independent) and some of those which do remain are little more than dilapidated second hand market stalls. I don't know enough about the likes of Morgan and Bristol to comment on their business models but what I do know is that most SR firms do not have sufficient control over their overheads to persevere with century old business models. They therefore face a simple equation: generate a level of turnover sufficient to turn a profit (having paid the rent, the staff and the owners) or close.

I have never used Budd but from reading other threads on LL it seems clear that they too have had to evolve (e.g. by sourcing cutting and sowing from overseas, or at least outside London). So perhaps things are not entirely what they seem in the Piccadilly Arcade.

To return to my original theme, perhaps I too can cite an example as an exception to the rule. Berry Bros & Rudd is a wine merchant in St James's which has existed for centuries. It is housed in one of the oldest premises in London. They do have a website, and a website which has won numerous awards for innovation. They have done what so many others seem to have found impossible: evolving without giving up the heart and soul of the business. It can be done. As BBR have demonstrated.

[storeynicholas]

Sartorius - I think that we might have been at cross purposes and actually not in disagreement over whether businesses have to modernize; it's just the way that it's done and what comes off the production line for sale. Obviously, owning the premises helps: BBR and Lock & Co do (not sure about Lobb) G&H do - but when one speaks of modernizing and budgets and cost-cutting there is always the option of moving to cheaper premises, while keeping the Savile Row credentials. Thomas Mahon seems very popular around the LL and he is 'up North' - wothout compromising his craft.
NJS

[sartorius]

it's just the way that it's done and what comes off the production line for sale

As an old managing partner used to say to me when I was a trainee back in the last century, "I understand your point dear boy, but I disagree"!

If you don't like what they're selling you don't have to buy it. To complain about it on the grounds that it somehow "goes against tradition" simply misses the point. One thing we can all agree on is that there will be no tradition to maintain unless the SR tailors which do still exist can survive into the future.

The second point (and I realise that I'm in danger of going hoarse, having banged on about this many times already) is that the quality of these companies' RTW garments should not be seen as indicative of their bespoke work. Feel free to challenge the wisdom of these companies' business models but don't just complain that "they're not what they used to be". In my view that line of argument is the ultimate non sequitur.

when one speaks of modernizing and budgets and cost-cutting there is always the option of moving to cheaper premises, while keeping the Savile Row credentials

This is true, but it takes us back to the original subject of this thread. SR itself is fundamental to the SR brand, and the brand is fundamental to the survival of SR businesses. That is why they are trying to preserve and protect it. Whatever your views on whether SR should be a trade mark or not, the fact is that it is a brand of enormous value (why else would companies like Evisu, the Savile Row Tailors Guilde and Alexandre have rented expensive premises there). It still represents the epicentre of modern male elegance. At least for now. It will die out if everyone simply ups sticks and heads for the country. And if the brand dies, so, in all likelihood, will the SR firms which we all cherish.

[storeynicholas]

On the first point, we each "hears what the other says" - which is a variation on your old managing partner's line!!

On the second point - whole blocks of businesses in central London have moved off elsewhere - Covent Garden Market - long gone to a purpose-built site called 'New Covent Garden' in Vauxhall - largely because of the cost of the old site and its value to developers. But all the traders went together. Same with Fleet Street - all moved off en masse to Docklands - same reason but, again, they all stuck together - and the press is still even called 'Fleet Street'. The rent and business rates (sometimes the rates are as much as, or even more than, the rent) have a lot to answer for in terms of cost in SR. Has anyone actually done a RPI comparison between the cost of a SR bespoke suit in say 1960 and now? So I disagree with some of your second point and I am not saying that all the businesses in SR should move off in all directions into the countryside - although it has been done successfully - and it could be done en masse to a cheaper London area. The clients would be glad to make the saving. Moreover, the firms could all share large central SR premises for measuring and fitting but do the cutting and tailoring work in the cheaper area. Cutting rooms take up quite a bit of space. As for timing fittings - customers wiould need to understand the new arrangement and acknowledge that for a sustantial saving they need to be flexible about fitting times - and - oh yes - have Saturday morning opening!!
NJS

[Costi]

I wonder if it is really a matter of survival with SR firms using their brand names to sell RTW. It certainly does increase the turnover over a short and medium term, but is that extra turnover essential to their survival, or is it just that - "extra"? Perhaps other tailoring houses have a harder time surviving, but I am under the impression SR tailors still have sufficient (even though not as much as in the past) clientelle to survive without the need to resort to such schemes.
I think there is (or should be) a certain amount of pride in the name of a good bespoke clothing house with tradition. I also think that doesn't go very well with a mercantile policy such as: if you have money, I can give you bespoke; if not, you can wear ready made suits just as well - I can even sell them to you. It induces the false idea that bespoke clothing is a more expensive and fancy alternative to RTW, when in fact it is a different thing altogether. It reduces the possibility to speak out the arguments that make bespoke so different from RTW, because you must be careful not to drive the client out of the shop in case he can't afford bespoke and quickly turn the score over and play the ode to RTW: how it is more economical, how you can leave the shop with your new suit over your arm etc. etc. Such a versatile style of doing business is what I think NJS deplores - and I agree with him. The question is - returning to the beginning of my post: is this really indispendable?

[storeynicholas]

Costi - OK well, here goes - Most of the bespoke shoemakers do RTW; most of the shirtmakers do too and most of them do good stuff for RTW quality. John Lobb RTW is a separate business with separate premises (maybe owned by somebody else) - the shoes are nothing like John Lobb bespoke. Foster's do RTW which are made by somebody else - quite good shoes but not the same as their bespoke. Tricker's seem more or less to do bespoke on the side - but their RTW is very good - same goes for Edward Green. Skone Poulsen (at New & Lingwood) are the bespoke side and N&L RTW go out under their N&L name. G&G - we know about - seems to be great stuff all round. There is not much room for confusion here. As for the shirtmakers - take one of them - which used to be tailors too (no names here no pack drill, you'll know who I mean) they seem to do a roaring trade in Jermyn Street on the pile 'em high sell 'em low basis - same principle and same quality as a chain store; using a name that claims to have invented the Windsor tie knot and kitted out many a star of stage and screen - all the history and skill buried beneath boxes of cellophane-wrapped tat, sold (I believe the term is) 'on cost': big doors open and attractive young ladies tempting passers by with glasses of cavee in the perennial summer sales until the winter sales arrive - when they put on an extra layer and go back out there - with mulled wine. Is this what Savile Row wants? Is that where it is going? Youngsters with money and some desire for good things will go to SR and, presumably, be asked whether they want bespoke or (rather in the fashion of a 1960s barber), the equivalent of "Ahem - something for the weekend sir?" - and be led around the side to be handed over to a sales' assistant, trained in the very best tradition of "Ooh! SUITS YOU SIR!" - in for a quick killing on his monthly sales' target, regardless of the fact that the garments 'fit where they touch'. As Costi says, is this necessary to sustain the bespoke business or is it an add-on that some bright young spark of a marketing analyst has dreamed up for everyone to chase because it is just extra business - a spin-off? Hasn't the modern age yet had enough of 'spin' and 'spin doctors'? Do we expect great gunsmiths to do the same? - They don't. Or if we go to bespeak a Bristol motor car do we expect to be asked whether we are there for the Connolly-hide-uphoulstered-replica-Mini-Mokes which are due from the shipping dock within the hour? No, of course we don't. That's my point - in an age of dumbing everything down, soon nothing good will have any value because it just won't be there anymore. If the bespoke trade is doomed, it's doomed (I sincerely hope that it is not). That's just life - but better to go down fighting to preserve its purity that sell-out to spotty youths with their polytechnic degrees in economics. Snob? In certain respects - unhesitatingly yes. When it comes to knowing and appreciating and wanting the best, definitiely. If other people have a problem with that - it's their problem and not mine!!
NJS

[sartorius]

Costi wrote:

I wonder if it is really a matter of survival with SR firms using their brand names to sell RTW. It certainly does increase the turnover over a short and medium term, but is that extra turnover essential to their survival, or is it just that - "extra"?

I'm sure you are right Costi - it is not just a matter of survival. But if their RTW lines make firms a little more profitable then that too is a good thing in my view. Extra profits means more money to invest in the business and we can hope that some of it might be used to help recruit and train new talent.

I think there is (or should be) a certain amount of pride in the name of a good bespoke clothing house with tradition.

I must say that whilst I find myself intuitively in agreement with you on this, a moment's reflection reveals what a strange thing it is to say. Tailors have no moral or ethical duty to maintain a certain image, or indeed to conduct their businesses in a particular way. And in the grand scheme of things the mere fact that a company is purveying RTW clothing is surely of profound triviality. Consider instead the high street retail chains who profit from child labour in the sweat shops of Asia, or those that use real fur sourced from animals which are literally skinned alive in the name of fashion. The fact that a few SR tailors have dared to sell clothing off the peg is laughably trivial considered in the context of these genuine issues of ethical manufacture and employment. And in any case, if you don't like the way they run their business you are free to go elsewhere!

storeynicholas wrote:

all the history and skill buried beneath boxes of cellophane-wrapped tat, sold (I believe the term is) 'on cost': big doors open and attractive young ladies tempting passers by with glasses of cavee in the perennial summer sales until the winter sales arrive - when they put on an extra layer and go back out there - with mulled wine. Is this what Savile Row wants? Is that where it is going?

I would not paint so stark a picture, but I agree that we should be realistic. SR is already much changed from the exclusive enclave of bespoke firms which characterised its 'golden age' (if indeed there was ever such a thing). Evisu, Alexandre, The Savoy Tailors Guild and a host of others have moved in, none of them offering true bespoke in the way we would understand it. Those firms which do still offer the real thing are trying to protect it, in some of the ways we've been debating here. I applaud them for it and I don't begrudge them their forays into RTW either.

Hasn't the modern age yet had enough of 'spin' and 'spin doctors'? Do we expect great gunsmiths to do the same? - They don't.

The power of the brand is all pervasive, whether you like it or not, and things may not be all they seem even in the gunsmiths trade. Purdey has been owned by Richemont for 15 years, a Swiss company whose stable of luxury brands includes Cartier, Mont Blanc, Alfred Dunhill and Chloe. Holland & Holland is owned by Chanel, the French cosmetics giant, and if we are talking about spotty salesmen and their monthly targets you should vist their Bruton Street store and experience for yourself their delightful approach to customer service.

Snob? In certain respects - unhesitatingly yes. When it comes to knowing and appreciating and wanting the best, definitiely. If other people have a problem with that - it's their problem and not mine!!

I have absolutely no problem with it at all, NJS! Indeed, if one is able to know and appreciate the best then one should be able blithely to ignore anything less, even if one has to pass it on rails and hangers on the way to the bespoke fitting room at the back of the shop. G&H, Kilgour, Huntsman and others are trying hard to remain successful, and in my view they should be supported in their endeavours.

[storeynicholas]

Sartorius - I congratulate you on a very reasoned and reasonable reply - and I do hope that, by whatever reasonable means, the brand-leaders of bespoke survive - but I remain of the view that it is a bleak picture. Just a personal view!! Moreover, at 50 years, it bothers me less (for myself) than it would have done at 25. As for the next generation - they are already in cyberspace and, probably, in another 50 years, will be vacationing in real space - where there will be shellsuits and modified trainers galore!!!
NJS