Fashion Resources

Bespoke

Journalist Peter Howarth explains the difference between bespoke and personal tailoring as follows: "In brief, the elements that go into making a pukka bespoke product: you start from scratch with measuring sessions, individual patterns are created, horsehair canvasses for inside the garment are washed, softened and hand-shaped over the knee, there's a great deal of hand-making, three fittings, six to 10 weeks waiting time, 65.5 manufacturing hours and a price tag of about Pounds 2,750 for a two-piece. Personal tailoring, on the other hand, is where you take an existing garment and make a version of it, largely by machine to the customer's specifications. You can change fabrics and linings and details and in four to six weeks have a pretty special result starting at that magical Pounds 695 for a two-piece." (Tailored to a Suitable Price, Financial Times, 27 November 2004.)

Further amplification is provided by Ray A. Smith in his A Real Savile Row, Wall Street Journal, April14-15, 2007. "William Skinner worries that customers will think that made-to-measure, which typically involves using a stock pattern that is then adjusted to fit the client's measurements and taste, is the same thing as bespoke or custom...Custom suits are made entirely from scratch - mostly by hand, in a process that can take at least two or three fittings and at least eight weeks. More than 20 measurements are taken for a besopke garment."

Thomas Mahon provides much helpful information on his website, English Cut. See, in particular, his What is Bespoke?. Other resources include The London Cut: Savile Row Bespoke Tailoring, an exhibition held in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence in January and February 2007, the Custom Tailors & Designers Association of America which has a Find a Tailor database, and Savile Row Bespoke an association formed in 2004 "to protect and to develop the art of bespoke tailoring as practised in the Row and the surrounding streets" which provides a member list

Bespoke tailors, many located on Savile Row, include: