![]() Though the new shop will mostly retain the look and feel of James’s airy ready-to-wear boutique at 29 Savile Row, the designer’s silhouette in vivid neon will hang on the wall just as it does at his bespoke headquarters at 19 Clifford Street, across the way. ![]() Richard James cutters-tailors are the people who sew the cloth the pattern cutters are the true visionaries of bespoke-will visit four times a year to take measurements, then finish the clothes back in London. It’s an opportune moment: Men’s wear sales continue to climb in the U.S., and the American market, the company’s biggest after the United Kingdom, holds untapped potential. This fall, Richard James ready-to-wear and full bespoke services will be arriving in New York, at the Ritz Tower, on 57th Street and Park Avenue. A few standouts: the Swarovski-studded dinner jackets James designed for Elton John the highlighter yellow fluorescent cashmere felt jacket from fall 2000 and the camouflage suit, first made in 1998 using authentic British Army fabric, that launched a thousand imitations. Since opening his small boutique-“white, bright, and welcoming, with contemporary art on the walls,” according to Dixon-James, who has a keen eye for combining color and fabric, and a permissive attitude toward what’s appropriate, has attracted rock stars (the Gallagher brothers, Alex James from Blur, Mark Ronson, Sean “Diddy” Combs), fellow fashionistas ( Tom Ford, Tommy Hilfiger, Valentino, countless editors), and royals (Linley Prince William, Duke of Cambridge).Īt Mark’s, the tony Mayfair club where this story was shot, a rack brimming with James’s greatest hits was marveled over by the habitually dressed-down actors Tom Ellis, Tom Bateman, Ben Robson, and the model Toby Huntington-Whiteley. Soft-spoken and self-deprecating, with a ready giggle and loopy sense of humor, and dressed in a pristine dove gray suit, a knit peppermint tie, and white Jack Purcells, Richard James may have an edge, but it’s always served with a smile. “I went to all the other ones and they’d say, ‘Stand at attention!’ Meanwhile, Richard would measure me on my motorbike.” “Richard was the first of the imaginative men’s tailors,” he says. The interior designer David Linley, who happens to be 18th in line for the throne, was an early client, and remembers the sea change. “I remember coming here and thinking the place felt like Dickens, and not in a good way,” says Sean Dixon, who set up shop on the row with his business partner, the designer Richard James, in 1992-and then proceeded to change everything. ![]() It was a place where a gentleman could expect to be told what colors and fabrics to choose for which occasion, according to established rules, in order to maintain tradition rather than subvert it. never stopped turning out impeccable attire for prime ministers and the landed elite but by the mid-20th century, with the exception of a flare-up by Tommy Nutter, tailor to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, innovation had pretty much left Savile Row. Tailors like Huntsman and Henry Poole & Co. The de facto headquarters of bespoke tailoring since the early 19th century, the small Mayfair street became a stomping ground of invention for the upper class, offering three-piece trouser suits, raincoats, and Wellington boots. And yet, were Winston Churchill to stroll down London’s Savile Row today, he likely wouldn’t recognize the bright colors and international brands sparkling in the shop windows of the stately Georgian buildings. Men’s wear, it is often said, is about details.
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