Savile Row Tailors Thomas Mahon, Bespoke Tailor
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the new old way…..
Savile Row tailors in England produce arguably the finest tailoring in the world and of course I would argue that;) But in all seriousness we’re all suffering from the same problem, a lack of skilled tailors and very high manufacturing costs. We’re particularly fortunate at English Cut as we are a small company with our own home grown skilled artisans.
If you walk into many of the larger Savile Row workshops your going to notice many different nationalities working on your clothes. Don’t get me wrong this is not a criticism but simply a fact of life. If I wanted to double our bespoke business we’d have to look to these people for their skills also. I know lots of young people want to be tailors because we’re now caught up in the fashion world. They see bespoke tailoring as a vibrant and cool business to be in, which it is but I wish people realised this ten years ago then we’d have the necessary skills now. Never mind, better late than never. On hindsight we should have started English Cut five years earlier then we’d of encouraged more young people to take an interest in our trade.
As I said whilst having my ten o’clock cuppa, we feel we’re doing something new with our made to measure and eventual ready to wear collection. I certainly feel it will revolutionize our expectations on what we should accept in standards of comfort, style and craftmanship in our clothing. Here are the facts and you can decide if what we’re trying to achieve will be worth while.
Bespoke is expensive which is a real and controlling fact. We want to get people wearing and enjoying real clothes that have been made with passion and not drilled out on some distant production line. We want to bring the cost down to a more attainable level, basically about half the cost of an English hand make. We are still looking at a substantial cost to commission a suit but it will give many more people the opportunity to raise their sartorial bar. Ultimately to create this standard of tailoring at a more attainable cost we’ll have to make them outside of the UK. We’ve looked at many manufactures around the globe and the only people that passed our tests for quality, craftsmanship and more importantly were willing to make our way and to our standards were in a bespoke workshop and training school in Chennai, India.
At the time of our research about eighteen months ago I was introduced to a gentleman and his brother who told me how they had set up a workshop and training school for the local people in their home town. They have a selection of older, highly experienced artisans teaching a new generation of tailors. Their eagerness and passion is absolutely infectious. Anything that could possibly bear the English Cut name had to be thoroughly scrutinized but we were fascinated by their vision for the continuation of true bespoke tailoring . On our initial visit Paul and I were astonished with what we found. In an immaculate, bright and cheery workshop where we found 20-30 young skilled people enthusiastically competing with each other to be the very best in our craft. This was how the trade was when we fell love in love with it nearly thirty years ago. The conditions, pay and atmosphere in this workshop is far superior than many found in London. These youngsters would not normally have had the opportunity to learn such a craft. In fact many were orphaned from the boxing day tsunami of 2004 which left so many without a future at all. In our workshop environment they enjoy learning and are rewarded for their hard work and attention to detail. They are paid well whether they have to do something once or five times to get it perfect.
(told you our workshops are messy)
We’ve set what we believe are the highest standards and more’s the point we’ve re-written the book on how clothes should be tailored. Our bespoke clients know how important this is, as it’s the way our clothes feel that have kept our order books full throughout this miserable recession. After a lot of hard work, re -drafting and continual re-making I feel we’ve created something that’s worthy of an English Cut label.
As from July you’ll initially be able to make an appointment with myself where you can choose your cloth, style details and then be measured. We’ll also have our full rage of sample garments in the basic sizes. To compliment your full set of measurements we can try the clothes on you so we can both see the type of look we’re aiming for. After this stage we’ll meet again with a completed suit which we can fine tune as necessary. The entire process will take about six weeks from start to finish and the cost will be approximately £1400.00 for a two piece. Before you receive your suit everything will be finalized and checked here at the hall, the home of English Cut.
In simple terms you’ll own a hand made garment that’s been made by craftsmen who love their work. The style will be soft and natural, exactly as we make here in our own workshop, Paul and I will make sure of this. They’ll be cut using patterns designed by yours truly and quite simply there will be nothing to compare in made to measure tailoring. Remember, this is unique, we’re not using one of the three factories that everyone else uses to machine produce soulless garments that all look the same. These have been redesigned from the paper pattern right through to the final pressing technique.
Ultimately the proof is in the pudding and as they say “the truth will out in the end”. We have a lovely business which will continue unchanged. However, people will talk and when we have a new range of clients and they’ll talk for us so we’ll all know if these are truly something special.
As with everything associated with English Cut we leave the door open to anyone who wants to drop in, ask questions and learn about what we do, there are no secrets here. This invitation is also open for people who want to learn of our new service. If you want to make a trip to India, which I can highly recommend, you’ll be made very welcome by our craftsmen. You’ll find them very eager to show off their skills and you’ll witness first hand the pride they take in their work. Many companies quietly sneak their production off shore and hope you’ll not notice. We don’t like to do business that way. At English Cut you’ll know what your getting and if people criticize us for what we’re doing we certainly don’t care.
If you’re wondering what we’re all laughing about at the end of the movie , we were simply enjoying ourselves and Paul was trying his best to understand the famous Indian head wobble.
Well I’ll have to get on but hope you’ve enjoyed our little movie which will hopefully give you more of an insight into how we do business. I’d also like to thank Claire my wife and my son Patrick for sleeping long enough so that Claire could make this for us with lot of help from her clever little Mac.
(you have asked to see, so here’s our son Patrick as usual, very awake)
Tags: made to measure suits, Savile Row tailoring
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 29th, 2011 at 1:23 pm and is filed under people, ready to wear, savile row, Shop, traveling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
8 Responses to “the new old way…..”
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Thanks for the informative, interesting and honest update Tom. They did seem a happy bunch of tailors, who were open to instruction from you and Paul. Hope it goes well for you and your stellar reputaion remains intact.
Patrick is very cute btw!
My goodness.. makes me want to move to India so I can learn how to do this.
As someone who works for an organisation which has 1,200 people in India. I know how fantastic they can be, and this sounds genuinely interesting. I’ll be calling you when it gets up and running, as someone who can’t currently quite justify spending £2,500 on a bespoke suit, but gets made to measure for £1,400 already. Good luck!
Greetings Tom,
I am glad to see you up and running with this and I certainly hope that you have great success. My question is how do you see the Bespoke side of English Cut fitting in with the ready made side vis-a-vis Bespoke production at the Hall? Do you anticipate producing the same amount of Bespoke or do you see that particular production tapering off a bit? I have so thoroughly enjoyed the suit you made for me last year and am planning my next commission hopefully for our fall trip to Edinburgh and was just curious if more advanced notice might be necessary as the ready wear business starts to increase. Thanks for sharing the picture of Patrick, he couldn’t be cuter. And please give our best to your lovely wife.
All the best
Greetings Tom,
I am glad to see you up and running with this and I certainly hope that you have great success. My question is how do you see the Bespoke side of English Cut fitting in with the ready made side vis-a-vis Bespoke production at the Hall? Do you anticipate producing the same amount of Bespoke or do you see that particular production tapering off a bit? I have so thoroughly enjoyed the suit you made for me last year and am planning my next commission hopefully for our fall trip to Edinburgh and was just curious if more advanced notice might be necessary as the ready wear business starts to increase. Thanks for sharing the picture of Patrick, he couldn’t be cuter. And please give our best to your lovely wife.
All the best
I work in US manufacturing tooling, and I regularly see profoundly bad business decisions made with regards to outsourcing. There is this constant drive to chase ‘cheap’, especially cheap direct labor, at the cost of all else.
What is missing from most outsourcing equations is the value component. People have brains, and many companies fail to see those brains as an asset, much less take advantage of them.
You have gone looking for value, which is laudable. That you have found it is downright impressive. You found an honest, actual workshop that values the accumulated skill of the craftsmen. I enjoyed the video, and I look forward to reading about the progress of your endeavor. I’m particularly interested in quality control in your now global supply chain.
I guess my last thought is this: Particularly with made-when-ordered crafts, the further production is from the customer, the more limits are placed on flexibility. I hope that imported made-to-measure serves as a way to strengthen and renew interest in your domestic sartorial industry…And perhaps it will strengthen the bespoke industry in India as well.
I think there’s alot of talent in India not solely in South India but also in the north. You might want to visit the Punjab next time. Brilliant. Thanks for this.
I own a tailoring company that adopts a global sourcing strategy. When I was investigating the industry 6 years ago yours was the only blog that offered me an informative insight and it continues to be the best source of learning.
My back ground is blue chip business, but the 5 years growing and establishing a tailoring business have been the most enjoyable and rewarding by a long way. It is a fantastic industry to be in but it also has some worrying challenges.
I am accutely aware of comments and views within the industry of ‘new comers’ like me. My response is simple. As owners of reputable tailoring companies we should want two things to happen. To increase the tailoing category as a whole and to increase our own shares within it. The former is a group objective, the latter a personal and competitive objective. To encourage the former we need to attract new customers to try the made-to-measure or bespoke products. Only then can they get the buzz that I got when I first had a bespoke suit made for me. In order to attract new customers we need to accept that price is a barrier to entry for many and that different solutions at different prices are required.
You have acknowledged this and boldly embraced the fact that global sourcing can help us do this. I hope that all your clients recognise that this is about you delivering a fantastic product to more people and not about sacrificing quality (I am sure they will).
But we also need to accept that there are many other solutions that can also help grow the category through trial. Many of our clients would not be able to afford your made-to-measure, and similarly, many of your made-to-measure clients would not be able to enjoy your bespoke service at this point in time. The point in time piece is key. I see this as a customer journey and people within the industry should embrace the fact that someone might be purchasing a suit for £350 because one day that client might well be purchasing a suit for £2500 from them. It is up to us as businesses to show and educate the consumer why they should be paying the extra (something again that you do very well).
My concern (which I think you share) is the fact that people aren’t open and honest about their product and they try to create an impression that it is something that it is not e.g bespoke, or Savile Row style etc. However, my response is always that we should focus on the 2 objectives as ultimately well run businesses will survive whilst those that are dishonest will eventually fail.
So, a long email but as I enjoyed reading your blog I thought after 6 years it was about time I posted something. What you have developed creates a new level within the tailoring category within the tailoring category as I see it. It is a premium product that utilises global sourcing. I think that this is really exciting and will definitly grow the category and I wish you the best of luck.
Kind regards
David Brooke