Secrets of the tailor to the superstars
Tom Cruise? Don’t mention his height! Mick Jagger? He likes a seamstress waiting in the wings. Benedict Cumberbatch? A vegan who wears cloth made from bamboo
BOOK OF THE WEEK BOY WANTED ON SAVILE ROW by Timothy Everest (History Press £22.99, 222pp)
IaM not what you’d call a clothes-horse. I still wear the socks and pants bought for me by my mother when I was at school. The elastic has gone and my bum hangs out.
My only suit is my late father’s, which admittedly came from Gieves & Hawkes. I daily sing the praises of whoever invented the elasticated waistband. Most of the time, I shuffle about indoors in a tattered kimono, like ron Moody’s Fagin.
Though he is a fellow Welshman, Timothy everest, therefore, couldn’t be more different, as he has always had a fascination with male apparel.
‘I was obsessed with trousers,’ he says of his youth. (I was obsessed with Hazel Pugh’s knickers in badminton class, but that’s another story.) even as a teenager, he noticed who was wearing ‘three-button jackets with patch pockets on the side.’
as a junior sales assistant in Barrett’s, Haverfordwest, and Hepworth’s, Carmarthen, a chain absorbed by Next in 1985, everest learned the rudiments of sewing, selling, and marketing. He went to London and saw the connections between nightclubs, disco music, after-parties and clothes: ripped Levis and studded jean jackets, lemon tank- tops and white canvas shoes, spats and flamboyant handkerchiefs.
‘ I loved being out, keenly observing and studying not just what people wore, but how they wore their clothes,’ says everest, whose passion impressed Tommy Nutter of Savile row.
Tommy it was who provided elton with ‘countless boater hats and tailcoats in Prince of Wales check’. Tommy also made clothes for The Beatles to wear on their album covers.
He designed Mick and Bianca’s wedding wardrobe, and created Jack Nicholson’s orange and purple Joker costume, though everest doesn’t mention this — and I only know because I tried to buy it. I called up his shop, expecting to get through to an underling, but Tommy himself answered and politely explained that, if I’d seen Batman, I’d recall that Jack, wearing the suit, with its 38-inch waist, fell into an acid bath at the finish. The garment was no more.
EvereST became Tommy’s apprentice, thrilled at the way ‘ Tommy walked in wearing a light tan, double- breasted, three-piece flannel suit with a lovely burnt orange overcheck and little hints of blue’.
Unfortunately, Tommy ‘ went downhill badly and quite quickly’, dying of aids in 1992 — but not before giving everest a new suit of his own. ‘It was low-fastening and double-breasted, in chocolate brown.’ everest, a whizz at his job, had soon been able to afford a two-door coupé Mercedes and a Jensen-Healey sports car from his commissions. He was designing suits — ‘Just make the shoulders a bit bigger and make the balance a little bit lower’ — and becoming a sort of image consultant, working on the way luxury clothes belonged in the same world as posh cars, exotic travel and fine dining. everest’s customers all owned Ferraris and helicopters.
Then in 1989, he started his own brand and company, based in a ‘lovingly restored’ Georgian house in Spitalfields. everest became part of the trendy local scene, alongside the Chapman Brothers, Sarah Lucas, Gilbert and George, and Tracey emin. He successfully persuaded West end and Savile row customers to come and spend across town.
‘People wanted Italian colours, a slimmer silhouette, and their clothes to be made exclusively by us.’ The Press dubbed everest ‘the New rock-n-roll Tailor of Spitalfields’.
Young City businessmen queued outside the door. and so did celebrities. everest looked out of the window and saw Suggs from Madness parked on the curb. David Beckham came looking for an ivory frock coat.
Gordon Brown, of all people, made an appearance. ‘We neatened him up with many bespoke suits, both as chancellor and
prime ministerminister.’’ William Hague, alas, ‘just didn’t do casual well’, and his figure and profile were ‘ hard to flatter’. Everest had more success with Tom Cruise.
Before measuring up the star, he was told not to mention religion, nor to allude to Tom’s height. Consequently: ‘ It’s quite an ominous feeling, seeing Tom Cruise march towards you.’
Everything went swimmingly. ‘Tim,’ said Tom, ‘I just want to look good but be comfortable at the same time.’ Everest knew exactly what to do, playing around with proportion to give the illusion of extra inches — elevating the waist, so the jacket could be shorter; making the legs seem longer with a pinstripe fabric, tapered around the calves.
‘We can make you look taller,’ Everest the magician asserted, ignoring the taboo on any mention of munchkinness. Cruise, instead of being offended, was so pleased and Everest es was invited to make ma him a ‘beautiful dress-black dr Barathea suit su and a midnight-blue tie’ for the Oscar ceremony. cer This time he visited the star at home, noticing there was a flight-simulator in the greenhouse. Later on, ‘we all danced around the furniture to Hakuna Matata from The Lion King’. Everest made the suits for Mamma Mia (‘For Pierce Brosnan we want something quite sleazy, because that’s his character’); he repointed James Coburn’s polka dot pocket square; he had a peep in Burt Bacharach’s walk-in wardrobe, to see 40 identical pairs of pale blue-washed jeans.
HE made a deep sky- blue cotton poplin shirt and navy embroidered fleur-de-lys braces for Ralph Fiennes. Benedict Cumberbatch, we are told, ‘is a very moral person’ who expects wool to be ethically sourced. Everest finds him fabrics made from bamboo. ‘ We always rise to meet challenges,’ he says dryly.
This book is about how incredibly vain men are; all these prancing peacocks. Mick Jagger, for example, insists on one of Everest’s team sitting in the wings with a sewing machine, ‘ in case Mick needed something adjusted or repaired in an emergency,’ e.g. if his ego burst through his corset.
Everest is truly dedicated to his profession, regularly making 120 long-haul flights a year. He deserves to be known as the Welsh Ralph Lauren or Giorgio Armani.
The business side of things, however, can be churlish, even swinish, we are informed. Litigation is common. Bosom colleagues fall out. Swindles occur. It is ugly. Serves them right, really. Fashion is so ephemeral, so decadent.