How kosher is this?
There used to be some sort of Jermyn Street 'association' too - Just a marketing ploy.
Is there more to the SRBA than that?
Just curious...
t.
Marc has it about right, this is a cheerleading society. I think they will also use it as a chance to try and freeze out the smaller ex-Savile Row independents, they probably looking at this as business that should have gone to the Row and want to claw it back.
I wait with interest to see how they get around the maker location problem now that Davies and Kilgour are both going down the China route. I don't share Marc's aversion to outworkers provided there is consistency, I want to know that I get the same outworker every time, and that there is real quality control. At the moment I don't believe the consistency is there for true repeatability (hmm, maybe I do share Marc's aversion).
It will be interesting to see what their construction standards are. They are going to have to do a lot better that saying a suit must take at least 60 hours to make over six to eight weeks. And why six to eight weeks, does a suit need to be hung and aged like game? Do a firm lose it's certification (can you lose certification if you pay your dues?) if you hand over the goods to the customer to quickly?
Last edited by Marc Grayson (2007-01-27 00:40:32)
Thanks Marc & Passingtime.
More and more everytime I hear of organisations like this I smell a rat. It seems that everything has to be 'spun' in some way now before it's presented to the world at large.
I find it puts me off.
Another problem with the outworker system is if a customer orders several suits, which, presumably, everyone wants completed in a reasonable amount of time (In addiiton to the tailor wanting to collect the balance$ as soon as possible), English tailors will customarily distribute the suits to different outworkers in order that the garments be completed around the same time. If one particular outworker is especially popular and enjoying a backlog, there is pressure for tailors to give garments to outworkers seeking work or suffering from a light workload, in the interest of expediency. The customer is completely out of the loop on the very making of his suit. Even those tailors who swore up and down that all of my suits would be made by the same outworker ended up farming out to a series of outworkers. I could readily tell by the wide variances in the fit and even levels of workmanship of the finished product. Things fall out of spec because the originating tailor is not there with the outworkers and scrutinizing every garment every step of the way. It's bad enough if you actually live in the UK but if you live in the US and working with a traveling tailor who is on another continent and the fitting alterations are done with the customer not even there, just using a series of photos (Or, worse, just from memory), forget about it, it's a recipe for disaster.
Last edited by Marc Grayson (2007-01-27 08:40:45)
I am starting to feel a whole lot better about my little old Italian tailor who works out of his basement. My real dread is his age. What am I going to do when he retires?
Last edited by Marc Grayson (2007-01-27 12:57:48)
sites working
http://www.savilerowbespoke.com/
Is Evisu a tailor? I didn't know this. I should read more!
Since when are Richard James and Ozwald Boateng tailors? And, what of Welsh & Jeffries? I wonder if Kilgour is excluded because of their Shanghai-made stuff.
WTF, SRBA? Last time I checked, Sir Hardy Amies, one of your members, was still dead (as is his "member"), and Norton and Sons promotes on their Website something called "Handmade To Measure" that explicitly states uses block patterns. Further, Norton's owner, however well-intended is not a tailor. While Norton seems to also offer "bespoke," to my mind, either you're a pure bespoke tailor, or you're not. Are you listening, Len Logsdail???
http://www.nortonandsons.co.uk/handmade.htm
http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/news/archives/EMBA/Former+EMBA+Patrick+Grant+buys+Savile+Row+tailors.htm
"Savile Row has iconic status for well dressed men. Sited superbly in gentleman's London, within a short walk of the great clubs of St James's, the shirtmakers of Jermyn Street, the hatters and the bespoke shoe makers, the wonderful restaurants, hotels and shops of the West End, and with Old Bond Street just around the corner, the Row has maintained its reputation for over two centuries"
SRBA, you're certainly not placing yourselves in a favorable light with your close affiliation with "the shirtmakers of Jermyn Street," who, for the most part, um, what's the word, oh, yes, SUCK!
"Training
firms must actively participate in a Savile Row training scheme, either an in-house scheme or one with a partner institution.
apprenticeships to be at least 5 years long for a coat-maker and 3 for a trouser-maker"
SRBA: Sirs, might I suggest that your esteemed member, Richard Anderson, avail himself of remedial training on the proper making of trousers? The trousers the dear chap made for me were cut too short (with inadequate material to lengthen them) and too narrow in the waist, spreading the pleats wide open. This does little to burnish the fine Savile Row image.