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Savile Row has responded to climate change with lighter fabrics and reducing its carbon footprint. In fact, the Row was sustainable decades before the word was invented, says SRS.

Making textiles from plant-based fibres is nothing new. In fact, the very first fabric produced in England during the Bronze age textiles was made from the bark of lime trees.

Today, cloth merchants which supply Savile Row are experimenting with plant-based fabric in keeping with the drive towards sustainability.

Savile Row tailors, mindful of climate change, are working with ever-lighter cloths while keeping an eye on their carbon footprint, sourcing material from within Britain from merchants which can prove their ethical credentials.

The fashion industry accounts for 10 percent of global carbon emissions and remains the second largest industrial polluter, second only to oil.

Cotton production is particularly damaging to the environment if not done properly with untreated water poured back into rivers.

People’s shopping habits have changed. Online customers order cheap clothes only to throw them away months later – so-called “fast fashion”.

Of course, Savile Row is the opposite of fast fashion. By its very nature, working in a bespoke manner and using limited amounts of cloth, a sturdy tweed suit made in Savile Row can be handed down from father to son.

Simon Cundey, managing director of Henry Poole, says: “Rather than fast fashion ordered daily over the internet, a Savile Row customer will order just twice a year, typically a pair of suits and a couple of sports jackets.”

Geoff Wheeler of Huddersfield Fine Worsteds agrees: “It’s fast fashion that’s doing the real damage. Bespoke is the way forward because it’s a purchase that you keep for a long time. Making a garment that lasts is the best thing for the environment compared to the damage done by throwaway garments.We wouldn’t consider the products we make to be ‘fashion’, so they’re not thrown away into landfill once they fall out of favour,” says Emmanuel Guegan, head of accessories at Purdey. “What’s durable is sustainable.”

Because Savile Row deals with bespoke, the amount of wastage is far less than you get with fast fashion.

Again, the drive towards using natural fibres in Savile Row is nothing new: Awareness of natural fibres such as wool, linen and cashmere has been part of the Row’s DNA.

It’s not only suit materials in Savile Row that are sustainable but the way suits are made – with interlinings stitched together and not glued as with cheaper suits.

One thing that Norton & Sons has been thinking about is what to do with offcuts of cloth that are left over. Although New York-based Fabscrap that recycles offcuts and reweaves fibres from tailors such as Kozinn + Sons or uses it to stuff furniture, mattresses and pillows, this is a trend that has yet to arrive here.

Younger customers are increasingly interested in authenticity, quality and provenance – all of which fits in neatly with the Savile Row ethos.

“In the last decade, there’s been a drive towards sustainability,” says Cundey. Wheeler believes there will be a reaction to our throwaway culture, with customers unafraid to spend more on clothes with durability.

Changing climate
Every cloth merchant that Savile Row Style spoke to agrees that customers want lighter fabrics to cope with our changing climate. What would have been considered a sturdy tweed jacket would have been standard suiting back in the Fifties. Thirty years ago, 9oz was considered lightweight but today people wear 8oz cloth all year round. The latest generation of Italian Super 200s weigh as little as 6oz.

Norton & Sons says that when fathers accompany their sons into the tailors, often the parent will opt for a heavier 15-16 oz cloth while the son will stick at 11-12ozs. Predominantly this is because the British climate is changing.

“All the American market wants is rather nasty lightweight cloths because they move from air conditioned car to a temperature controlled office, which suits the ‘non-climate climate’ they live in,” says Dugdale Bros managing director Simon Glendenning.

Tailors, he says, dislike such lightweight cloth because it’s so difficult to work with.

Innovative fabric
That as is maybe, cloth merchants have had to respond with innovative lightweight fabrics.

Huddersfield Fine Worsteds recently launched a bamboo bunch at a 9oz weight in 34 colours. Clients include Henry Poole and Norton & Sons. Touching the swatch book, the bamboo cloth has a lovely feel, like lightweight cashmere. Wheeler had a blazer made up in the material that he calls “the best jacket I’ve ever worn, so soft feeling yet warm”.

“I’m a great believer in this range,” says Cundey. “It gives the impression of a relaxed linen look as a suiting or a dress blazer with distorted fibres or a white tuxedo.”

“Bamboo is no different from a linen range,” says Glendenning. “The fact is that it’s been brought to the West recently and it’s a bit unusual.”

Dugdale Bros makes the point that traditional wool is just as sustainable as newfangled super lightweight cloths. In fact, the traditional heavyweight wools are greener because, unlike, say, new Italian superfine wools, they are much more hardwearing.

The irony is that even something handmade in Savile Row using superfine wool will only last for a decade compared to generations for a robust suit.

Someone who needs a lighter weight cloth because of climate change buys something that doesn’t last as long and will ultimately been thrown away sooner – adding to the landfill, only increasing the problem.

Ironically, the best customers for Dugdale’s proper characterful English cloth are to be found in Italy – the home of the super lightweight textiles English cloth merchants compete against.

Corinne Metcalfe, a clothing designer at Purdey, used to work in the sailing industry and has noticed the same drive towards lighter, more breathable fabrics when it comes to country sports – partly as a response to our warmer, wetting climate.

Metcalfe says that customers want lighter and more breathable fabrics. Purdey launched its first synthetic membrane into its technical shooting range this autumn. This technical tweed is 30 percent lighter than standard sports jackets “which allows you to move more freely when you’re out on the moors and you’re doing more active shooting”.

Sympatex was chosen for the membrane because, being made of recycled materials itself, it is more ecologically forgiving than other brands. Not only that, but when Sympatex reaches the end of its lifecycle, it too can be recycled.

This new technical shooting range has been so successful that Purdey will extend it to womenswear in A/W19.

Elsewhere, Purdey has used the common nettle for its range of holdalls and gun sleeves. Nettles were first used around a century ago in Switzerland to make the iconic Swiss Army Rucksack – cotton was scarce and nettle fibres are actually stronger.

“Nettles grow in the wild and don’t need to be treated with insecticide. Nettle combines with our ethos of durability and sustainability,” says Guegan.

Ethical sourcing
Another trend making inroads into Savile Row is provenance and what Huddersfield Fine Worsted calls ‘traceability’. Just as people want to know where food is sourced from, they want to know that yarn has been gathered ethically. Savile Row has to assume that the actual sourcing of the yarn is conducted ethically by its mills.

Dugdale Bros has an ethical code of conduct when it comes to sourcing yarns. Dugdale says that some of the larger wool growing countries have, in the past, used questionable practices – such as cutting into fly-infected sheep in a practice known as ‘mulesing’, which has been called cruel and inhumane.

HFW is in the process of being able to trace where its cloth comes from, right back to the exact sheep in Australia – tracing the journey from shearing to yarn spinners to Chinese brokers. It’s the same as proving the provenance of a work of art.

Small footprint
Where Savile Row can really show its green credentials is by using British mills manufacturing locally. This shortens its supply chain and avoids the energy spent importing from China and the Far East. In short, reducing its carbon footprint.
Dugdale Bros sources its wool from local yarn suppliers, mills and finishers within a five mile radius of Huddersfield, which similarly reduces its carbon footprint.

Alexander Lewis, brand and business director at Norton & Sons, says: “We do think about this a lot. As a house, Norton & Sons prefers to work with British-made cloth. We only use foreign-milled cloth if there’s something we cannot get from a producer-weaver in the UK”.

“Bespoke tailoring is at the very top of sustainable fashion producers in terms of the footprint it leaves behind. The effect that it has on the environment is very different to say, a big fashion brand.”

“Keeping our carbon footprint small is a luxury that a high-end brand such as Purdey can afford. Sustainability is very much in our ethos,” adds Guegan.

Savile Row has responded to climate change

Karl Lagerfeld, one of the most influential and recognizable fashion designers of the 20th century, dies at the age of 85.

The German designer is best known for his work as the creative director of Chanel, the French luxury fashion house. He was a prolific designer, also at the creative helm of Fendi and his eponymous label at the time of his death.

Lagerfeld died in Paris, the city he helped turn into the fashion capital of the world, his label said. Rumors had swirled about his health after he was absent from his Chanel show in late January, due to what the fashion house described as tiredness.

Lagerfeld, who transformed Chanel into a global powerhouse after becoming creative director in 1983, was rarely seen without his dark glasses, a silver ponytail and fingerless gloves – gaining him the reputation as the most recognizable man in fashion, and one of its most outspoken.

“My job is not to do what she did, but what she would have done,” he said of the brand’s founder, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. “The good thing about Chanel is it is an idea you can adapt to many things.”

“Today the world lost a giant among men,” Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, said in a statement. “His creative genius was breathtaking and to be his friend was an exceptional gift. Karl was brilliant, he was wicked, he was funny, he was generous beyond measure, and he was deeply kind. I will miss him so very much.”

Chanel CEO Alain Wertheimer said in a statement that the late designer was “ahead of his time” and his “creative genius, generosity and exceptional intuition” contributed to the House of Chanel’s success throughout the world.”

The head of LVMH, which owns Fendi and Louis Vuitton, said the fashion world had “lost a great inspiration”.

“We owe him a great deal: his taste and talent were the most exceptional I have ever known”, Bernard Arnault, the chairman and CEO of LVMH, said in a statement. “We loved and admired him deeply.”

Born in Hamburg, Germany, Lagerfeld went on to win a womenswear design competition in 1954.

He got his start in Paris working under Pierre Balmain in the 1950s, moving three years later to the House of Patou. He had stints as a freelancer for Chloé and was hired by Fendi in 1967 as a consultant director, responsible for modernizing the Italian house’s fur lines.

When Lagerfield took the reins at Chanel, he set to work reviving the brand’s staid offerings.

“[Chanel was] a sleeping beauty. Not even a beautiful one. She snored”, he said of the fashion house in “Lagerfeld Confidential,” a 2007 documentary. “So I was to revive a dead woman.”

Wertheimer said that he gave Lagerfeld “carte blanche in the early 1980s to reinvent the brand.”

Not only did his designs turn Chanel into one of the world’s most valuable couture houses, but Lagerfeld’s business savvy made him an early proponent of the now ubiquitous luxury collaborations with high street brands.

In 2004, he became the first designer to design a collection for H&M, a trend that was later followed by the likes of Stella McCartney, Comme des Garcons, Versace and Maison Martin Margiela.

He also had a reputation for his quips about the fashion world, and courted critics for controversial remarks about migrants in recent years.

In his latter years, he became the adoptive parent of Choupette Lagerfeld, a Birman breed cat that came to stay one Christmas and never left. The cat’s jet-set lifestyle by Lagerfeld’s side earned her a 120,000 personal Instagram following.

Chanel said Virginie Viard, director of Chanel’s Fashion Creation Studio and “Lagerfeld’s closest collaborator for more than 30 years,” will be taking over Lagerfeld’s role.

“So that the legacy of Gabrielle Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld can live on,” Chanel wrote in a statement.

SRS will publish a full celebration of Karl Lagerfeld’s life and times in our next edition.

Karl Lagerfeld, one of the most influential

All luxury travel experiences boast similar ideals: excellent service, abounding amenities and lavish accommodations. While they very rarely disappoint, most properties hardly match the level of passion for hospitality found in the Lauren Berger Collection.

Lauren Berger prides herself on offering superb accommodations. Over the years Lauren has cultivated a keen talent for creating elegant, luxurious environments and assembled an impeccable collection of luxury rental properties. Found in prestigious locations around the world, each home is an expression of Lauren’s meticulous approach to hosting and entertaining. Elegant, lavish, sophisticated and comfortable; these properties were originally intended for Lauren’s closest friends and relatives to utilize and she now extends that privilege to her clients.

As a guest of the Lauren Berger Collection properties, you will develop a personal relationship with the individuals who are ready and waiting to serve you time and time again including Lauren herself. The staff is hand-picked and most of the team has been with her for decades. Every detail and desire is carefully intuited ahead of time and each property offers a plethora of services and privileges.

The gratitude Lauren feels towards the people in her life who have helped bring this dream to fruition – her husband, her family – is manifested in the extreme care and love with which she presents her homes. This graciousness nature is even more evident in her generous hospitality and desire to create a home away from home” for each of her guests. That is why those who select to stay at one of the Lauren Berger Collection consistently choose to return year after year.

Contact: Eddy Taylor +1 646 808 0648
Email: eddy@laurenbergercollection.com
www.laurenbergercollection.com

All luxury travel experiences boast similar ideals:

For more than two decades Michael Michaud has perfected the craft of creating botanical jewellery by achieving the seemingly impossible: creating a mould of the most delicate, unique botanical elements, capturing infinitesimally fine and lifelike details then reproducing them as stunning, wearable jewellery using soft patinas on bronze accented with pearls, beads and semi-precious stones.

He has quietly honed this unique expression of his creativity, inspired by nature. His singular ability to do this combined with an unequivocal vision for the jewellery he would create, has stood the test of time and authenticity.

Michael Michaud’s current incarnation has been as wearable art that can be purchased in the most prestigious museums in the world, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Van Gogh Museum and the Château de Versailles.

Our latest Lemon Drop collection has been developed in collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It was inspired by the V&A’s Green Dining Room, the world’s first museum café, and its fruit panels designed by the firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. in 1886.

Email: gisela@michael-michaud.com
Website: www.michael-michaud.com

For more than two decades Michael Michaud

Savile Row Gin, London Fashion Week

SAVILE ROW GIN supported the British Fashion Council as the gin partner to London Fashion Week Men’s this January. Visitors and guests enjoyed cocktails and The Perfect Serve – 50ml of Savile Row Gin, 150ml 1783 Schweppes Crisp Tonic, a slice of pink grapefruit and a mint leaf.

Commenting on the collaboration, Stewart Lee, Managing Director of Savile Row Gin said he was proud to support this important event for the industry. “It was wonderful to see so many talented British designers showcase their new collections. This really is an exciting time for the men’s sector and we are delighted to be a part of it” added Lee.

www.savilerow-gin.co.uk

.attachment-newsroom_elated_post_feature_image { display: none; } SAVILE ROW GIN supported the