How to look like a million quid
Surrounded by signed photographs of Paul McCartney and his daughter Stella and framed letters of thanks and admiration from prominent cognoscenti of yesteryear and today, I somewhat tentatively stare ahead into a massive Victorian mirror that runs from the floor-to-ceiling and leans against the hot pink-coloured wall. To the left is a large period desk speckled with a dozen swatch books; it fronts a set of windows accessorized with heavy tweed curtains overlooking tony Beauchamp Place. On the right, mannequins dressed in tightly cropped multi-piece suits obscure a handful of mounted newspaper clippings on the wall.
The subject of the unsolicited written praise happens to be shadowing me in the oversized gilt-edged mirror, ducking in and out of range, making precise and deliberate markings on the swaths of large and disjointed fabric that, with their loosely-fitted stitching and exposed lining, remotely resemble a suit. “This isn’t for your benefit,” says the nasally voice of the second fitting he’s making. “It’s for mine.” That voice has been a fixture in Britain’s rarefied world of bespoke tailoring for nearly half-a-century; it has outfitted the likes of everyone from Mick Jagger to Eric Clapton. It belongs to one Edward Sexton, the man who, alongside Tommy Nutter, revolutionized Savile Row and gave it the reputation it enjoys around the world today.
See our slideshow of London's Bespoke Tailors.
Sexton, who is diminutive but with a full and healthy "shock of blond" looks younger than his 64 years, is adjusting the measurements which he made a few weeks earlier. “See that, you have a sagging right shoulder,” he elucidates, before making a handful of careful new markings to compensate for that physical oddity. More detailed and contemplative calculations follow—“You have a strong calf that sticks out and that creates a crease in the angle the fabric hits your leg that we need to offset”—before he asks me to disrobe and retires to the workrooms in the back of this, his second-story Knightsbridge atelier.
Weeks before, the master tailor together with his assistant-cum-business manager, a one-time customer-turned-apprentice, sized me up—quite literally. In addition to taking my measurements and asking me what sort of look I wanted (a classic side-vented double-breasted suit) they queried me about how I’d be wearing it (to special occasions with a shirt and tie or with jeans during everyday outings), what climate I’d be living in (Northern Europe with the occasional beeline to the Med) and how much travel I’d be doing (quite a lot)—all in an effort to determine not only practicality but alsor fabric type and weight. The latter considerations—“I think a rich, lofty finish would work best, something that’s not flat, certainly not milled but lightweight”—were determined based on my facial colorations. “Edward knows his way around the fabric and has been translating the customer into the fabric for 50 years,” assured his assistant Neil Spooner.
That sort of meticulous appraisal results in what Sexton calls “a well-designed, well-engineered” handmade suit that starts at upwards of $4,000 and goes even higher. In this realm, anything can be personalized: from the color of the lining (how about red, purple, azure or green?) and the shape and number of pockets (how about a hacking ticket pocket?) to the style of the jacket (peak lapelled perhaps?), number of vents (either one, two or none) or whether the button holes are working ones, it’s all possible, all of it adding a distinctive flair. “I won’t let anything go, until it is absolutely one-hundred percent perfect,” he says.
Sexton is, of course, not alone in creating these stylistic flourishes or doing them with such diligence. London has always been home to men with styling élan and the fastidious tailors who catered to them. But in an ever more crowded field, Sexton’s workmanship (he considers himself a sartorial sculptor) and provenance stand in an echelon of their own. His storied career began at 16 with an apprenticeship followed by a meteoric rise under Fred Stanbury, of Kilgour, French and Stanbury. A series of cutting jobs followed before he teamed up with Nutter and became what one social columnist called “Savile Row's Ambassador to Studio 54.” The rest is, of course, history.
See our slideshow of London's Bespoke Tailors.
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See our slideshow of London's Bespoke Tailors.
Today, with the hindsight of having reached the pinnacle of his craft and the lauding and admiration of loyal customers, including fellow tailors like Bill Glass, Sexton is demystifying the trade and making the practice more democratic. He’s getting rid of an unmistakable Savile Row trait, the staid and solemn showroom, in the process. “This is much more relaxing than going into some of the places on the Row,” says Spooner of the laid-back atmosphere in Sexton’s petite atelier in posh Chelsea, which mercifully lacks the needless pomp and pantomime of the Row’s stuffy stalwarts.
Sexton made the move to Beauchamp Place, he says, because of the astronomic rents on the Row and because “this street has a long history of fashion, especially ladies fashion, and we have a strong bespoke ladies clientele.” The location—his website playfully announces, “You can take the boy out of Savile Row, but you can't take Savile Row out of the boy”—isn’t the only thing that’s different about Sexton’s label. According to Spooner, most tailors “have the same house style, which means they all give their clients the same look. We instead, try to understand who people are and then try to match their clothing with their individuality.”
See our slideshow of London's Bespoke Tailors.
Achieving that is, of course, hugely time consuming and quite costly, a point Sexton takes issue with. “It’s not a serious investment, it’s a sensible one. With our suits, even if you put five, ten pounds on, we can enlarge it. You can’t do that with a ready-made suit.” But the reason Sexton’s handiwork is in such demand has more to do with his incomparable aptitude than with rudimentary tasks like enlarging waistlines.
According to Spooner, Sexton’s customers “Are people who’ve had a few suits made on the Row and want something more—something that’s more exclusive and more importantly, distinctive.” They include everyone from Rupert Murdoch and George Soros to Jack Nicholson and Bernie Eccelston—a clique that can easily afford clothing that’s meticulously fashioned by his practised hands. “We’ve discovered that there’s a budding dandy in everyone and we try to give them a bit of panache to help them do that,” says Spooner. “Additionally, we can help compensate for their irregularities and help them accentuate their better attributes, so if someone has a large neck, we can bring that down or if someone is slightly portly, we can make them appear taller and slimmer.” Adds Sexton, “We don’t have a set formula or a set pattern, we let the customer lead.”
Sexton—who also makes distinctive shirts and has just teamed up with Milanese shoemaker Riccardo Freccia Bestetti to market a line of handsome handcrafted shoes—is expanding his portfolio beyond bespoke: he is applying his technical finesse to a ready-to-wear collection that’s set to launch in Milan this fall and appear in New York and in London shortly thereafter. “We’re taking on a wardrobe approach,” says Spooner, “not just selling suits, but a range of products, including made-to-measure, that we’re calling ‘Gentleman’s Diary.’”
Despite the whirlwind surrounding these nascent expansion plans, I am promptly called in a fortnight after my second fitting to pick-up my finished suit, a light grey flannel number with brown buttons, side vents, peak lapels and a ticket pocket. It is, in a word, beautiful. All the measurements and queries have resulted in a lovingly contoured piece of nine-ounce fabric that flows and follows each and every curve, angle and abnormality of my admittedly irregular body. “I’m extremely happy with it,” he says of the finished product and what is now the most expensive two-piece item in my wardrobe. “But just remember,” he warns with a sly smile, “It’s my suit. It’ll always be my suit. We’ll just share it.”
Read on for a list of the ten most prestigious tailors in London.