november-2010

A new book celebrates Savile Row, the London street that has
led men’s fashion since Victorian times. Peter Watts finds a
long tradition of excellence still in its best bib and tucker
72 METROPOLITAN
When the journalist Henry Stanley fi nally
caught up with explorer David Livingstone at
Lake Tanganyika in Africa in 1871, the two
shared more than just a fearless sense of
adventure. Both were dressed in suits from
London’s Savile Row – Stanley’s from Henry
Poole & Co and Dr Livingstone’s from Gieves
– which demonstrates the remarkable
dominance the tailors on this Mayfair street
had over fashion at the time. Everybody who
was anybody in Victorian society dressed in
Savile Row suits, and that has remained the case
to this day, according to Savile Row: The Master
Tailors of British Bespoke, a beautiful new book
by James Sherwood published this month.
Savile Row is an unassuming, almost
characterless street for one with such a
reputation. Laid out in the 1730s, it was largely
populated by doctors until 1846, when Henry
Poole inherited the family tailoring business on
Old Burlington Street and knocked through an
entrance on Savile Row. “Poole was like PT
Barnum,” explains Sherwood. “But his kind
of social climbing wasn’t about an agenda.
He was affable and popular and knew that the
best way to meet people was at horse races.”
Simon Cundey, currently director at Henry
Poole, continues: “Henry Poole frequented
Rotten Row in Hyde Park, where gentlemen
went to ride and pose, and one of his chums was
Sir Henry Irving, the actor. A suit Poole made
for Irving was admired by Napoleon III [the
French emperor] and that led to Poole’s fi rst
royal warrant. After that Bertie [later King
Edward VII], the dandy prince, started to employ
Poole’s services and soon just about anybody
in London came here.”
Other tailors, attracted by the big names and
vast wealth heading to Poole’s, also set up on the
street, and Poole became known as the founder
of Savile Row. The original shop was demolished
in 1961 and Henry Poole & Co now occupies