![]() ![]() Imagine the reaction when a Richard James cinema ad – yes, an actual tailor actuallyĪdvertising – appeared to show a man throwing himself from the top of a building, albeit in a fetching suit or when Used by even many of the Row’s oldest names since. But it’s hard to express, to anyone too young to have been paying attention at the time, how theįirst wave - James, with Ozwald Boateng and Timothy Everest - really broke the mould, and created one that has been With order books dating back to the 19th century something for those who aren’t landowners, City types or of a That makes English tailoring more dynamic something more than what has long been offered by those impressive firms Overhauled repeatedly by what could be called a second wave of British tailoring - the likes of Thom Sweeney, Tony Lutwyche, Steven Hitchcock and Spencer Hart have contributed to the gene pool in a way Savile Row and its environs has since been “ make you a beautiful suit - but it will be the suit of his particular Inaugural winner of the British Fashion Council’s Bespoke Designer of the Year award - has noted. “Bespoke is all about you, not a designer telling you what to do,” James - the Ready to dress you as they saw fit, which was largely with at least one eye on the past. Intimidating place - only for those in the know, of a particular income and, preferably, class - full of people It was about changing attitudes, shifting away from Savile Row’s reputation as a stuffy, somewhat But what James did, with his business partner Sean Dixon, was Island beach - so hawking his wares came naturally. And, yes, James’ first job was selling candy floss on Barry “parasites” was doing was all “image and marketing”. No wonder, as Welsh & Jefferies said, what the likes of James and other Or ‘youthfulness’ - of the kind that Savile Row hadĬaptured, if fleetingly, during the swinging sixties. ‘Fashion’ might have been another of his dirty words. He wanted to respect Savile Row, but also to make it Street that was, as he put it at the time, “dying a death”. Here, in other words, was a tailor keen to operate as a modern retail brand on a Silhouette, to have catwalk shows and to dress brightly-lit shop windows that you could actually see through, to. Here, after all, was a tailor ready to get contemporary with colour, pattern and a signature long and lean But then disruptors - and especially those in cosy, rather unchanging worlds - usually get a poor reception. “We were hated,” the tailor has put in, not mincing Tailoring business on Savile Row, a little over 25 years ago. But that’s what Richard James felt when he first opened his According to the New England Historical Society, they vowed to be millionaires by age 50 - exactly the opposite of where their dad had been at that age.Hate is a strong word. The tragic work situation that Dick and Maurice saw their father grapple with however, was the push they needed to west with nothing more than a pair of high school diplomas and ambition to reach for something higher. "We made up our minds, that one way or another, we'd be financially independent," Dick McDonald once recalled. Learning their father had been cut loose without a pension undoubtedly had an impact on the brothers and they knew staying in their New Hampshire community wouldn't lead to a more prosperous life. ![]() The elder McDonald had been told that he was simply too old to do the job any longer and the brothers saw their father face down unemployment after decades of hard work. Krafts shoe factory in Manchester when he was laid off after 42 years. ![]() Their father Patrick McDonald had worked as a shift manager at the 20,000-employee G.P. ![]()
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