by Ross Furlong | Jun 17, 2015 | Bespoke Suit, Bespoke Tailor, Film & TV, The History of Bespoke Tailoring
Chris Kerr is the oldest bespoke tailor in Soho, now in its 56th year and third generation of Kerr family involvement.
The business was established in 1960 as Len Wilton at 52 Berwick Street, where it remained for 50 years (eventually moving to 31 Berwick Street in 2010). In 1963 a young Eddie Kerr joined as an assistant cutter and by 1970 had been made partner, eventually buying the business outright in 1990.
In the early sixties ‘Mr Eddie’ as he became known by customers began to make bespoke suits for the new pop & fashion scene emerging around Carnaby Street including stars like Matt Monroe, Procol Harem & The Swinging Blue Jeans. (more…)
by Mansel Fletcher | Mar 5, 2014 | Bespoke Suit, The History of Bespoke Tailoring
This show is about the revolution that took place in the way people dress during the Thirties. While it’s about the clothes worn by men and women here I’m only concerned with the men’s wear. G. Bruce Boyer, surely the English speaking world’s best style journalist, co-curated the show, which features beautiful period pieces by famous Neapolitan tailoring establishment London House (now better known as Rubinacci), H. Harris and James & James. The latter two are now defunct, but were tailors to the Duke of Windsor. (more…)
by Mansel Fletcher | Dec 23, 2013 | Bespoke Suit, The History of Bespoke Tailoring
The recent publication of the book I am Dandy, by Rose Callahan and Nathaniel Adams, has put the idea of dandyism back in the spotlight. While the word is casually thrown around it’s hard to define, especially as it seems to be popularly understood to mean the exact opposite of what it originally intended. Most of the men in the book are, at least in the traditional sense, fops rather than dandies. (more…)
by Mansel Fletcher | Nov 8, 2013 | Bespoke Suit, Style Icons, The History of Bespoke Tailoring
The famous London shoemaker GJ Cleverley offers a beautiful slip-on shoe named after the legendary man of style Baron Alexis de Redé (1922 – 2004). The Baron, a banker and a minor Austrian aristocrat, lead one of the most stylish lives of the second half of the twentieth century, based in a majestic apartment in the Hotel Lambert on Paris’s Ile Saint Louis. He was also such a prolific customer of GJ Cleverley that the company’s managing director, George Glasgow, remembers being told by its late founder, George Cleverley, that he simply couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t making shoes for the Baron. (more…)
