TAILORING COMMUNE TAKES SHAPE OFF-ROW

Few, if any, tailors - and indeed not many retailers generally  -  can celebrate a 90th anniversary in the same Mayfair premises in which they started.

L.G. Wilkinson is in the privileged position of owning its spacious old building, opposite St George’s Church off Hanover Square, and hosted a party this autumn in the showroom where the present owner’s grandfather opened for business in 1919.

Wilkinson is known for classically tailored, conservative suits, with a particular forte in the musical world. The late Dennis Wilkinson had a life-long passion for music and built up a reputation for meeting the special styling needs of musicians, particularly conductors. As his son, David, explained, this means “a high armhole and making the sleeve pitch according to how the arms might be used”

“One conductor might wave his arms about high, another keep them quite low and restrained. My father would know their actions and make instruction notes on the patterns accordingly.” And his two longtime tailors, Bob Bigg and John Reid, still follow those instructions.

The son continues in his father’s musical footsteps, inheriting his love of music. At least 15 of the world’s top conductors remain Wilkinson customers, including Sir Simon Rattle, the famous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (pictured). Wilkinson seems also to have cornered the market in German painters seeking bespoke, helped by the fact that he is fluent in German and is largely based in Berlin.

He is understandably proud of his firm’s longevity, which has a tailoring connection going back even earlier to his great-grandfather’s time. He took over the reins of the company when his father died in 2006, and though not a tailoring craftsman himself, had early initiation into its traditions and is enthusiastically nurturing a new era for the old house.

“My aim is to see the whole premises returned to a fully bespoke centre by 2012,” he states with conviction. And he is already more than halfway there, with a ‘commune’ of tailors occupying four floors and ongoing refurbishments readying the remaining two floors for other tailoring businesses by his deadline.

The ground and basement floors are now shared with Ravi Tailor of A J Hewitt, and Denman & Goddard, while Joshua Byrne, formerly with Henry Poole, occupies the first floor with his partner Emmeline Burge, for their Byrne & Burge company. Above that is a floor of workrooms for various outworkers. That leaves two floors above to provide places for more tailors by 2012.

The late Dennis Wilkinson surrounded by patterns.

“It will be a centre for small, independent businesses,” David explained. As a finance expert himself, he sees potential for savings on overheads by cooperation between the companies, to add to the benefits of shared facilities and help in emergencies. “But we all remain quite separate, we don’t encroach on one another’s tailoring activities. But it does create a nice, supportive network."

HUSBAND AND WIFE TEAM CELEBRATE

The only husband and wife team on the Row’s circuit, Byrne & Burge, has the lovely Emmeline Burge sharing the helm with husband Joshua Byrne, at their new premises within the Wilkinson hub (see above).

They have taken the first floor in this building, and held a house warming party recently to celebrate being back in the Savile Row fold after a sojourn in the country.

“We moved out to the Cotswold for a time,” said Joshua Byrne “which was lovely but finally we decided it just wouldn’t work.”

He trained first with Anderson & Sheppard, then Henry Poole, while his wife Emmeline studied Fashion Design in Canada, then came to Savile Row. “I  was brought up in Canada but born in Britain. And once I knew that it was tailoring that I wanted to do, then I had to head for Savile Row,” she explained. She served a coat-making apprenticeship at Gieves & Hawkes, then moved to Welsh & Jeffries and to Hardy Amies. She was doing a stint of work experience at Henry Poole when she met Joshua.

After he left Poole’s and they had joined forces, the couple spent a year working in London before trying their fortunes operating from the Cotswold countryside. “But it wasn’t viable. You have to realise that many of the people who come to Savile Row are from abroad, and others come to town for all over the U.K. We have to be where the action is.”

Above, Joshua Byrne wears one of the d.b. suits that are in favour.
Left, his wife Emmeline Burge.

And that means Savile Row. Though not actually in the Row, they are within the Golden Mile radius that has always encompassed top tailors. Their showroom has a more contemporary style than the traditional Wilkinson’s beneath them, mixing classic with modern and quirky in furnishings, to cater for the younger customers that they attract.

“Our customer all come by word-of-mouth,” said Joshua. He sums up the Byrne & Burge styling as traditional with a 1930s English inspiration. She sees the exclusive cloths that they offer as an important factor, with lots of tweeds. “It’s a softer, easy  English look that allows the character beneath to shine through,” she maintains, with a smile, “not that effect of being stuffed into a suit.” He nods. Byrne & Burge are in agreement.

They clearly work well together, bringing different aspects to bear on the end product, her’s described as rather more creative, his rather more technical. They also have help from master cutter, Tom Slatter. And to augment their bespoke work, they now offer a made-to-measure service.

Despite the prevailing climate, the company is enjoying steady growth and illustrates that the Row continues to attract young, talented individuals dedicated to the tailoring craft.