Thrifty Charles has offcuts ready to patch up old suits
AS HEIR to the throne, he may be expected to have a new suit for every occasion – but it has emerged that the Prince of Wales has a remnant from every suit he has ever ordered, in case it needs mending decades later.
A box of leftovers kept by Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard goes back more than 30 years, and is understood to include offcuts from the 1984 grey morning suit the Prince wore to the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in May.
His frugality came to light when he invited readers behind the scenes of his favourite tailors in a special issue of Country Life magazine, guest-edited by the Prince to mark his 70th birthday.
John Hitchcock, the now “quasi-retired” managing director of Anderson & Sheppard, showed the magazine the box of “jumbled” offcuts stored under one of the work tables. The Prince’s name was scrawled on the side in black felt tip.
He said the Prince “insisted on using only British fabric, generally from smaller mills”, and he had been “extremely supportive of the firm’s apprentices”, meeting them in 2016.
The thrifty Prince raised eyebrows when he appeared on the BBC’S Countryfile in 2013 in a patched-up jacket. His RAF uniform is understood to date back to 1972, he still wears a pair of shoes bought in 1971, and has his dinner jacket cuffs turned up so they can be easily repaired if they get frayed.
With the Prince’s penchant for recycling in mind, Anderson & Sheppard is also said to save samples of material to turn into coats for the royal dogs.