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David Gandy with some fans on Savile Row today

Patrick Grant and David Gandy were top of the bill when the second Concours on Savile Row kicked off in style today. After a successful debut last year, initial signs are that the second edition will be even more popular. Patrick Grant, the man in charge at Norton & Sons, talked animatedly about his enthusiasm for Made in Britain and David Gandy entertained the crowds with his love of motor cars and the success of his Wellwear clothing business. The two-day event, which continues tomorrow, brings together the world of luxury tailoring and the finest collector cars you could hope to see. With Savile Row closed to traffic, the public are free to stroll among the cars on display as well as enjoy the craftsmanship from the expert tailors. More than 40 world-class cars are on display, from pre-war thoroughbreds to the latest electric hypercars. The event starts at 10am and finishes at 8pm on each day and there will be tours of tailors available. Several big names in the car design and tailoring worlds will be speaking on the main stage, and there will be live music too.

Gallery of fun on Day One

Schedule for Thursday, May 25

10:00: Concours on Savile Row opens to all visitors
11:00: Keeping Heritage Skills Alive, with Dominic Taylor-Lane, Association of Heritage Engineers
11:20: In discussion with Jonathan Wells, Morgan Motor Company
12:00: In discussion with Jacky Ickx
12:20: In discussion with Simon Cundey, Henry Poole
1:00: In discussion with Steve Waddington, Aston Martin historian
1:20: In discussion with Paul and Simon Owen, and Tony Southgate, BRM
2:00: In discussion with Drew Pritchard, antiques dealer and restorer
2:20: In discussion with Michael Mallock, managing director, RML
3:00: The Golden Age of Savile Row, with Joe Morgan, Chittleborough & Morgan
3:20: Electrifying the Classics, with Justin Lunny, Everrati
4:00: Classic Cuvee and Classic Cars, with Eric Heerema, owner, Nyetimber
4:20: Ready to Wear, with Oliver Mumby, head of design, Cad & The Dandy
5:00: In discussion with Seb Inglis-Jones, co-founder, Maeving
5:20: Creating the Concours on Savile Row, with Geoff Love and David Lillywhite
6:00: Electric Bentley – Sacrilege or the Future? with Lunaz Design
6:20: Swinging Ninjas Swing Band
8:00: Concours on Savile Row closes

[caption id="attachment_6085" align="alignleft" width="252"] David Gandy with

By Daniel Evans

As the sun beats down on Savile Row, bouncing off the prestige and classic cars on display outside Britain’s finest tailoring establishments, Patrick Grant, director of Norton & Sons, is very much in his element. He is delighted to see the Row packed with enthusiasts of both fine clothing and exotic cars as the second Savile Row Concours gets underway and he feels the future is looking good for the home of high-class tailoring. “I started at Norton’s in 2005 and, back then, the number of young people looking for apprenticeships on this street was pretty low,” he says. “We probably got one person a month coming in to ask about apprenticeships. I was then involved with a BBC documentary about Savile Row which sparked a lot of interest. After it went out, the phone was ringing off the hook. Making things is becoming cool again and I think, for many young people, a job with your hands where you are using your skill and your brain to produce something of exquisite quality is now seen as a cool job to have in a way for a long time it wasn’t.

“After we made that documentary, there was an immediate change in the number of people who were coming to apply for jobs here. We went from about one a month to two or three a week. Now, happily for Savile Row, the position with apprenticeships is very buoyant. There are far more people applying for apprenticeships than we have places to teach.”

Patrick is certainly one of the more high profile tailors on the Row. As well as his involvement with Norton & Sons, he fronted a TV documentary about military uniforms ahead of the Coronation, has been presenting The Great British Sewing Bee since 2013 and is currently doing some work with King Charles (about which more later).

First, Patrick tells how he became involved with Norton & Sons. “I was finishing off my post grad and I happened to be reading the Financial Times and there it was, at the back in the businesses for sale section,” he recalls. “I couldn’t believe it! There was this little advert – For Sale, tailors to emperors, kings and presidents. I thought this can’t be real but it was. I flogged everything I could find to sell, including my house and my car.

“This year, we are 202 years old which makes us one of the oldest tailors on the street. We have always done tailoring. It’s a wonderful business. We’ve never been one of the big, shouty ones. It’s always been the one that connoisseurs will track down. We’ve enjoyed being almost under the radar but not quite. We were big on making clothes for people who travelled and explored. Even today we have some customers who are polar explorers and people who do mad things like take pianos to tribes in the middle of the Amazon.

“Lord Carnarvon was a customer so Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened by a man wearing a lightweight suit – although it didn’t look that lightweight, to be honest. It looks like it’s about 25 ounces from the photographs. We’ve always made lightweight, unstructured stuff. Everyone thinks the Italians were the only people to do lightweight tailoring but Brits, for good reason and for bad, spent a lot of time in hot places and they needed clothes to wear too and Norton’s was one of the houses that specialised in lightweight, unstructured stuff that you could wear in countries where it was 40 degrees all the time. We still have those skills in-house today.”

Patrick knows the fashion industry does not have a good reputation when it comes to green credentials and is aware that sustainability has shot up the agenda. “We need to buy fewer things,” he says. “We need to consume less and we need to consume better things that are going to last longer and are not going to have any damaging effects on the environment on the way in and certainly aren’t going to have any damaging effects on the environment on the way out.

“We need to get out of the habit of buying lots of inexpensive things. The inexpensive stuff has got so cheap. You can go and buy a pair of shoes for a tenner – polyurethane top glued on to a plastic bottom. Horrible stuff that’s doing terrible things to the environment at every stage of its production then when the sole falls off, which it will do after you’ve worn it about three times, it goes in the bin and ends up in landfill and never biodegrades. Instead of that, you could get a pair of shoes that are made out of something that’s a by-product of our food industry, that’s totally natural and biodegradable and will last you for ages and every time it needs repairing, you can take it to somebody who can fix it for you. So, you’re putting more money into the economy.

“I still have a dinner suit of my dad’s which was made in the 1930s by a tailor in Edinburgh. It’s a bit agricultural but it is bombproof. I wore it all through university, both under grad and post grad, I’ve crawled through hedges backwards in it but you give it a brush and it looks as good as new. It’s coming up for its 90th birthday and it’s still in perfect nick. I’ve got a couple of other pieces from my dad which were made in the 1930s and jackets from my grandad made in the 1950s which are still great. It’s not just that the clothes are good but the more you wear these things, they pick up history and become part of the story of your life, your interactions with your friends. We can remember wearing things at a particular occasion and that gives them value too. Every time you repair something, it adds to its value.”

Patrick saw a great example of longevity while he was making the programme about uniforms for the BBC ahead of the Coronation. “As part of that documentary, we went to a firm in Birmingham called Firmin which makes buttons. It’s the most incredible place on earth. There is equipment in that factory which dates back to the 1650s. They help make the Household Cavalry helmets and they have an old blacksmith’s elm that was there when the business was formed in 1655 and they still use it. After seeing it on TV, a lot of people got in touch, all saying the same thing: ‘Isn’t all of this craft wonderful and shouldn’t we all do more to preserve it?’ Of course we should, but that means putting your money where your mouth is. Don’t buy ten cheap things, buy one good thing and care for it. Make it last and enjoy it because you will enjoy wearing that one good thing so much more than ten inexpensive things.”

More recently, Patrick has talked about working with King Charles. “I’ve met him on many occasions,” says Patrick. “He is a lover of beautiful things – a lover of clothes and a lover of craftsmanship. He is a great example of how to live with stuff for a very long time. He was having some new dress shoes made by Tricker’s (in Northampton) but he loved the ribbon on his old dress shoes so he asked Tricker’s to take the ribbon off the old shoes (which were probably around 50 years old) and put them on his new shoes. It was the connection with the past, with everywhere those old shoes would have been. There’s something intangible there that adds to the value of our clothes – the more we wear them, the more we keep them.”

In 2018, Patrick became co-chair of the Prince of Wales’ charity Future Textiles, an organisation that works towards creating jobs in the UK’s garment making industry. “It’s an amazing charity,” explains Patrick. “It teaches young people to sew. The main sewing school is in Dumfries House up in Ayrshire. So far, we’ve taught more than 6,000 kids how to sew. They come for a day or they come for a week and they learn how to sew with some brilliant people. We’ve also got a sewing school at Trinity Buoy Wharf in east London and now we have a school in the King’s home at Highgrove in Gloucestershire. The King believes we should all know how to fix our clothes and do these basic things so he set up a school to teach people to do it.”

As the crowds continue to teem up and down, Patrick’s words of optimism regarding the future health of the Row sound well founded. “Savile Row is unique because everyone understands that what we do here is incredibly special. People are prepared to pay for the skill of those who are making your suit,” he says. “Everyone who is a customer on Savile Row appreciates what that is worth – it is the skill of the human beings who crafted that suit, the skill of the weavers who have created that cloth, and the finishers and the spinners, and the famers who have raised the sheep or have grown the cotton. All of that stuff we need to value in a very different way. We’re lucky on Savile Row because people already do value it but we need to learn to have that same respect for craftsmanship and materials in everything we buy and ensure that Savile Row remains the absolute pinnacle of hand tailoring anywhere on the planet.”

By Daniel Evans As the sun beats down

The Concours on Savile Row is back. After a successful debut last year, the second edition will be held on Wednesday, May 24 and Thursday, May 25. The two-day event will bring together the world of luxury tailoring and the finest collector cars you could hope to see. With Savile Row closed to traffic, the public will be free to stroll among the cars on display as well as enjoy the craftsmanship from the expert tailors. More than 40 world-class cars will be on display, from pre-war thoroughbreds to the latest electric hypercars. The event starts at 10am and finishes at 8pm on each of the two days. There will be tours of tailors available throughout the two days. Several big names in the car design and tailoring worlds will be speaking on the main stage, and there will be live music too. Refreshments will be available from The Service café as well as several pop-up venues.

Schedule for Wednesday, May 24

10:00: Concours on Savile Row opens to all visitors

11:20: In discussion with Claudia Piaserico, head of product development, FOPE

12:00: Bentley Huntsman reveal

12:20: In discussion with Patrick Grant, Norton & Sons

1:00: In discussion with David Gandy

1:20: In discussion with Master of the Coachbuilders Guild and Christopher Tate

2:00: City Lions Best in Show presentation

2:20: In discussion with James Barclay, managing director Jaguar Land Rover Motorsport

3:00: The Electric Lady with Gered Mankowitz, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame photographer, and Richard Williams

3:20: In discussion with Sam Dracott, farrier

4:00: In discussion with Ian Callum, CALLUM Designs and Dominic Sebag-Montefiore, Edward Sexton

4:20: In discussion with Jeremy Hackett, JP Hackett

5:00: In discussion with Freddie Hunt, racing driver

5:20: In discussion with Nick Hewer, broadcaster

6:20: Swinging Ninjas Swing Band

8:00: Concours on Savile Row closes

Schedule for Thursday, May 25

10:00: Concours on Savile Row opens to all visitors
11:00: Keeping Heritage Skills Alive, with Dominic Taylor-Lane, Association of Heritage Engineers
11:20: In discussion with Jonathan Wells, Morgan Motor Company
12:00: In discussion with Jacky Ickx
12:20: In discussion with Simon Cundey, Henry Poole
1:00: In discussion with Steve Waddington, Aston Martin historian
1:20: In discussion with Paul and Simon Owen, and Tony Southgate, BRM
2:00: In discussion with Drew Pritchard, antiques dealer and restorer
2:20: In discussion with Michael Mallock, managing director, RML
3:00: The Golden Age of Savile Row, with Joe Morgan, Chittleborough & Morgan
3:20: Electrifying the Classics, with Justin Lunny, Everrati
4:00: Classic Cuvee and Classic Cars, with Eric Heerema, owner, Nyetimber
4:20: Ready to Wear, with Oliver Mumby, head of design, Cad & The Dandy
5:00: In discussion with Seb Inglis-Jones, co-founder, Maeving
5:20: Creating the Concours on Savile Row, with Geoff Love and David Lillywhite
6:00: Electric Bentley – Sacrilege or the Future? with Lunaz Design
6:20: Swinging Ninjas Swing Band
8:00: Concours on Savile Row closes

The Concours on Savile Row is back.

Report By Daniel Evans

Girl power was the name of the game at Golden Shears 2023 as three young women walked away with the honours at this year’s prestigious event. And, unlike in recent times, it was the college entries which dominated, ahead of the trade contestants. First prize and The Golden Shears went to Mila Dastugue from The Wimbledon College of Arts with Victoria Demekhina, from The Tailoring Academy, collecting The Silver Shears. The Rising Star was Imogen Pike, also from The Wimbledon College of Arts.

From the left: Imogen Pike, Mila Dastugue and Victoria Demekhina. Top: Mila’s entry

The presentations were made at a packed Merchant Taylors’ Hall on Monday night with all 22 finalists – whittled down from more than 70 entries – presenting their finished works in stunning surroundings in front of family, friends and industry experts.

Simon Cundey, Chairman of Golden Shears and MD of Henry Poole & Co, could not have been happier with the evening. “We’re delighted to be back as a live show after the pandemic and at this historic and amazing venue,” he said. “It’s lovely to be live. That is a big thing for us. Having the rapport with everyone – the families, the college lecturers, the trade shouting and screaming for their entries was fantastic. It is imperative that the clothing industry does all it can to motivate the next generation of fashion leaders and nothing demonstrates that better than the Golden Shears competition.

Click here for Golden Shears Gallery 2023

“It was big transformation this year with a swing towards the colleges. It shows that if you get the right lecturer and your lecturer gives you the inspiration to do something special, you can win Golden Shears. And it’s quite dramatic for me to see that. It was incredible to see the colleges come through so well this time. Wimbledon were very strong, so, too, Sunderland and Rochester. They are real class acts now. And I’m super happy to see three women win.”

Mila, who also won a cheque for £3,000, was blown away with her victory. “I’m extremely happy to have won,” she said. “I put in so much work and I was really hoping to do well but not expecting. From design to finishing took 500 hours. My entry was inspired by the 1930s – Marlene Dietrich and Elsa Schiaparelli. The 1930s is such a nice period for art and one of the first periods with women in suits. I’m interning at Thom Sweeney at the moment and I really would like to be a cutter.”

Victoria Demekhina’s design

Runner-up Victoria, who received a cheque for £2,500, explained: “I started my journey in fashion less than two years ago and it’s unbelievable to win this award. Tailoring has been my passion since I was at school. I moved to this country with my husband before Covid and then went to The Tailoring Academy in Macclesfield. I’m currently working at Samuel Brothers in Aldershot. They do military tailoring. Looking ahead, I want to be in tailoring, absolutely.”

Imogen, who was presented with a cheque for £2,000, said: “It’s amazing. I’m so surprised and so excited to win this. I study costume design and am really interested in history. I’d love to work on Savile Row some day.”

Imogen Pike’s entry

The Golden Shears, known as “The Oscars of the Tailoring World” were founded in 1974 by Robert Bright, MBE. Entrants are either apprentices with a tailoring company or university/college students on a tailoring course. All have to demonstrate excellence in both their design and tailoring skills and be vetted by their master or course leader. This year, from over 70 entries, 22 were selected on technical merit to go through to this week’s final and be judged by a celebrity style panel.

This year, the Technical Judges were:  Joe Morgan, Chittleborough & Morgan; Dario Canera, Huntsman; Victoria Townsend, The London Academy of Bespoke; Juan Carlos Benito, Hackett; Davide Taub, Gieves & Hawkes. The Style Judges were: Kirby Allison, Tony Gaziano, Harry Jarman, and Hilary and Michael Whitehall.

The participating colleges and companies were: Anderson & Sheppard, London College of Fashion, UAL, Cosprop, Inkberrow design centre (IDC College), Leeds Arts University, Morgan and Fenwick, Savile Row Academy, The Tailoring Academy, The University of Sunderland, University for the Creative Arts Rochester and Wimbledon College of the Arts, UAL. The evening was hosted by Nick Hewer.

The event was held with the support of CAPITB Trust, The Merchant Taylors’ Company, The Pollen Estate, The Textile Institute and Savile Row Gin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Report By Daniel Evans Girl power was the