Reputed to be the founders of Savile Row as well as the creators of the tuxedo, Henry Poole has a long and proud history of tailoring. Their website has a good amount of information about them so I won’t get into it much, except to say that they have also been known to be among the more flexible and progressive on the Row. They even had a female cutter as early as the sixties, IIRC.Read More
Month: December 2009
A notice came today indicating that the post office is holding a parcel for me. That must be the Henry Poole coat so I had better get the Huntsman finished! This suit was cut for a very short man, but in typical English fashion, the trouser is cut with a very high rise and a fishtail back. Intended to be worn only with suspenders (or braces, as they would refer to them), the waist isRead More
This one’s for the tailors. Tiny little details that I obsess over….. I have always operated under the assumption that there were two basic methods of setting the breast welt pocket (with many variations on the methods, but two global methods). The first being the hand-made method, in which the welt is constructed (usually by hand), sewn to the front, then the ends felled or slip-stitched in place by hand. This is how I haveRead More
Since my last post, a reader emailed me to tell me that the initials of the cutter would be found on the label, those initials being “TH”. I assume this must mean Terry Haste, former MD of Huntsman, but was he there in 2000? I’ll have to go back and read the book again. Or do some more homework. But in any case, we’re not evaluating the cutting here, only the sewing. It’s just funRead More
I just finished reading Richard Anderson’s recent book, Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed. It tells of his apprenticeship and work as a cutter at H. Huntsman, widely regarded as the Row’s best and most expensive tailor, and how a change of ownership and some questionable practices led him to leave and start his own bespoke house, Richard Anderson, Ltd. I rather enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone who has an interest inRead More
I got an email from my Gutermann rep; Germany, it seems, has relented and will now allow me to order my gimp by the spool instead of by the box per colour- a box containing 5 spools of 100m of gimp which would make, I guess, about thirteen thousand buttonholes. That’s too much. Now if only they would relent on the silk twist as well. UPDATE If you are located in North America and areRead More