James Sherwood
Curator of "London Cut"
01 April 2008
Introduction
An interview with the curator of Savile Row suits "London Cut," currently at Isetan
I noticed that the Japanese Imperial Navy Suits were also Savile Row back in the days.
They were designed by Gieves. They are Gieves & Hawkes now, but it was just Gieves Ltd. back then. Gieves cut all of the navy uniforms. It's pretty much a shoo-in until 1790s. If there's a magnificent Naval uniform, it's Gieves. The Americans as well as the Japanese, the Chinese.
I love to show that, wherever we are, we can find a relationship between the city and Savile Row. And Tokyo is simple: Hirohito was dressed by Henry Poole when he was Crown Prince. When Hirohito did a state visit to England and met George V in 1921, Henry Poole sent tailors to Gibraltar and measured up Hirohito. By the time Hirohito got to Southampton, there was immaculate white tie and tails waiting for him so he could wear it as court dress to see the Duke of Winsor and Prince of Wales.
All the big families in Japan too: like the Baron Okura was a Henry Poole customer. It's pretty much familiar ground in Tokyo. It's not as if we're introducing bespoke tailoring, like they were kids and don't know what they're looking at. They know exactly what they're looking at. Although it does look a bit fancy for them since they don't normally wear morning dress or even tails. However, you can imagine it in Harajuku. There should be some kind of Savile Row kick. Let's see if it happens: kids wearing black silk top hats.
Did you make commercial merchandise to go along with the exhibition?
We are keeping things as a cultural exhibition rather than a commercial one, but I know that there was a Fred Astaire wool check blazer that Anderson & Sheppard made for Florence, and they took about 40 orders on it when it got home and they put it in the window. It was a hit, that one. Most of the houses took orders directly or indirectly through the exhibition. Anything that's in there can be made, no question. It can be done.
I started to experiment a bit more with Tokyo. I asked Anderson & Sheppard to create a new smoking jacket, because I'm not mad about frogging, I don't know about you, but I don't love it on a smoking jacket. So I asked them to make a smoking jacket with black-on-black embroidery. And it's going to sell. Even if it's a guy who has twenty smoking jackets, when he sees that, he'll want another one. It's not reinventing the wheel — it's updating and feeding the addiction. Because that's what bespoke seems to be. Once you become involved in that world, it's very hard to break the addiction.
It'd be hard to go bespoke one day and then go back to off-the-rack.
Such a sense of anti-climax to put on a suit that doesn't fit.
At the same token, people talk to me about bespoke being exclusive and expensive and all of those things, but it's really eco-friendly. If you think about it, it's all made on one street by craftsmen, the cloth comes from Scotland, it's going to last you pretty much forever if you take care of it. If you get fat, they'll adapt it for you. So it seems to be on the zeitgeist as far as eco's concerned. It's not throwaway fashion.
They were designed by Gieves. They are Gieves & Hawkes now, but it was just Gieves Ltd. back then. Gieves cut all of the navy uniforms. It's pretty much a shoo-in until 1790s. If there's a magnificent Naval uniform, it's Gieves. The Americans as well as the Japanese, the Chinese.
I love to show that, wherever we are, we can find a relationship between the city and Savile Row. And Tokyo is simple: Hirohito was dressed by Henry Poole when he was Crown Prince. When Hirohito did a state visit to England and met George V in 1921, Henry Poole sent tailors to Gibraltar and measured up Hirohito. By the time Hirohito got to Southampton, there was immaculate white tie and tails waiting for him so he could wear it as court dress to see the Duke of Winsor and Prince of Wales.
All the big families in Japan too: like the Baron Okura was a Henry Poole customer. It's pretty much familiar ground in Tokyo. It's not as if we're introducing bespoke tailoring, like they were kids and don't know what they're looking at. They know exactly what they're looking at. Although it does look a bit fancy for them since they don't normally wear morning dress or even tails. However, you can imagine it in Harajuku. There should be some kind of Savile Row kick. Let's see if it happens: kids wearing black silk top hats.
Did you make commercial merchandise to go along with the exhibition?
We are keeping things as a cultural exhibition rather than a commercial one, but I know that there was a Fred Astaire wool check blazer that Anderson & Sheppard made for Florence, and they took about 40 orders on it when it got home and they put it in the window. It was a hit, that one. Most of the houses took orders directly or indirectly through the exhibition. Anything that's in there can be made, no question. It can be done.
I started to experiment a bit more with Tokyo. I asked Anderson & Sheppard to create a new smoking jacket, because I'm not mad about frogging, I don't know about you, but I don't love it on a smoking jacket. So I asked them to make a smoking jacket with black-on-black embroidery. And it's going to sell. Even if it's a guy who has twenty smoking jackets, when he sees that, he'll want another one. It's not reinventing the wheel — it's updating and feeding the addiction. Because that's what bespoke seems to be. Once you become involved in that world, it's very hard to break the addiction.
It'd be hard to go bespoke one day and then go back to off-the-rack.
Such a sense of anti-climax to put on a suit that doesn't fit.
At the same token, people talk to me about bespoke being exclusive and expensive and all of those things, but it's really eco-friendly. If you think about it, it's all made on one street by craftsmen, the cloth comes from Scotland, it's going to last you pretty much forever if you take care of it. If you get fat, they'll adapt it for you. So it seems to be on the zeitgeist as far as eco's concerned. It's not throwaway fashion.