The Master

What makes a Savile Row tailor? Lots and lots of people call themselves Savile Row Tailors, and as there is no ‘qualification’ as such to earn the honour it tends to fall to personal preferences and credits to the individual person.

Our cutter Brian,  easily qualifies as one of the old school. With 52 years, yes over half a century of working on the Row, what he doesn’t know, frankly isn’t worth knowing. Brian is a genuine master tailor who has perfected the art of tailoring and cutting clothing.

So I decided to sit down with him and pick his brains on his long and illustrious career so far, which at 72, he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon!

Brian left school at 15, and went straight into a factory where he learnt to make jackets, after 18 months he moved to Huntsman, where he continued as a coatmaker, teaching himself how to make trousers along the way. At 18 he had to do his 2 years of national service and when he went back to tailoring he struck out on his own. He made jackets for Jarvis and Hamilton where he worked with Master cutter John Reid (tailoring stalwart) for ten years.

In 1979 he moved to Nortons where he learned to cut as well as continuing to tailor garments, eventually shifting his focus completely on being a cutter.  He spent the eighties travelling the world measuring clients.

It was in 1999, he met Ray at Gieves and in 2007 they formed Stowers Bespoke, first at Liberty and now at No13 Savile Row. Brian has cut for everybody, from Sultans to celebrities and all that falls in between. When I asked him what was the best thing about his job he said it was making for families where he has cut clothes through 3 or 4 generations over the years.

You cannot gain the knowledge Brian has learnt on a course or by spending weeks or even years on the Row. In his time Brian has specialised in shooting, military and dresswear with the best in the game, to find one person that can do all this is extremely and somewhat worryingly rare. Brian is fantastic in that he is happy to pass on the knowledge that he amassed , his most recent undercutter, Claire joined us last year and the two have been working together on our clients clothing.  We will be speaking to Claire next to see what she thinks of working with the Jedi Master!

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