Don’t call us stuffy old men!

How a dying breed of tailors saved famous Savile Row by turning to apprentices

ASK any of the designers who visited London Fashion Week and they’re likely to acknowledge that trends come and trends go.

But just a few streets away from where the world’s top models strutted their stuff there is a road where style seems eternal.

The tailors of Savile Row have dressed Winston Churchill, the Duke of Cambridge and David Beckham ( picturedbelow).

And to this day their designers are still winning international plaudits.

Despite t heir worldwide acclaim this famous street has been facing extinction.

Its heritage, although the reason it is celebrated, has also threatened its very survival.

Until recently the average age of tailors on the Row was 60plus and its stuffy image of wellto-do gents with tape measures was, for the first time, starting to hinder its reputation. Suddenly, despite all that experience and 170 years of history, the future did not look so bright.

However, thanks to a handful of individuals the industry is on course to welcome a wave of young talent with a number of women among the new breed.

Many of the tailoring businesses have come together to create the Savile Row Bespoke Association. Director Su Thomas is the driving force behind an apprentice scheme which includes Henry Poole & Co, Gieves & Hawkes, Kathryn Sargent and Anderson & Sheppard.

Henry Poole & Co’s chairman Angus Cundey and vice chairman Philip Parker, are working alongside Thomas, and the scheme has taken off.

Parker explains: ‘ We have been desperate to regenerate the Row and get young people to join.’

And inside a few years the average age of the tailors on Savile Row has fallen from around 60 to 40. And it is dropping further, and dropping fast.

Part of this has been driven by the success of arts and crafts made popular by TV shows such as the Great British Bake Off and, more pointedly, The Great British Sewing Bee. And while new blood has proved vital, remembering heritage and history are also essential for a company like 200- year-old Henry Poole, which is celebrating 170 years on Savile Row this year.

Cundey and Parker realised that without the young joining the industry there would be no future for bespoke tailoring.

Both in their 70s, Parker started his career in 1963 at Sullivan, Woolley & Co and it was later taken over by Henry Poole in the early 1980s. Cundey, who received an MBE for services to bespoke tailoring and trade charities in the New Year’s Honours List, is part of the sixth generation of the company, which was founded in 1806. He is the great grandson of Henry Poole’s cousin Samuel Cundey who took over the business in 1876.

Cundey, who has worked on Savile Row for 58 years, runs the tailor with his son Simon, who is managing director. Without Cundey’s support and vision and hard work from Thomas and Parker the apprenticeships in the sector would not have happened.

Parker explains: ‘There were NVQs for trainees in the 1960s and 1970s but there was no formal cross-trade standard. ‘During the 1990s the whole of the clothing trade was in decline in the UK. Even as far back as the 1960s attitudes outside the industry were “its finished”. People didn’t really value it.’ What has helped is an ever increasing demand from consumers to know where their products come from and a desire even to get i nvolved i n the making of the products.

Young consumers want to know where their jumper is made and where their vegetables are grown. This craft movement is something the so- called stuffy tailors of London’s Savile Row are taking advantage of.

The tailors may be rivals in one sense but they all want to protect their unique street and their future.

Henry Poole has five apprentices and there are 30 training in t he Savile Row Bespoke scheme.

Parker adds: ‘The only reason this apprenticeship scheme has been successful is because we [Thomas and himself] have driven it. We have made sure we progress the scheme and get the job done. It is a big job to make it work and ensure the apprentices have the guidance, the advice and the mentors. It is extremely time consuming.’

The once almost exclusively male trade of tailoring is being f l ooded with women. They include trouser maker Emily Durham, 24, and Tara Hansen, 29, apprentice coat maker at Kathryn Sargent.

SARGENT was the first ever female head cutter on Savile Row. She took the top post in 2010 when she worked at Gieves & Hawkes and has since set up her own business.

There is also a female-only tailor on the Row – entrepreneur Phoebe Gormley has founded Gormley & Gamble to cater for women who want smart tailoring but don’t want to visit one of the established players.

Parker adds: ‘ Attitudes have changed. There is a real buzz that wasn’t there before. Now there is so much demand.’

The latest buzz is around a diploma for apprentices. Thomas and Parker helped launch a Bespoke Tailoring and Cutting Level 5 Diploma, in association with the Savile Row Bespoke Association.

Thomas says: ‘ This initiative has its origins in Savile Row and is backed by tailoring companies across the UK. It will support the recent renaissance in bespoke British tailoring.’

The scheme is part of the Government’s Trailblazer initiative that brings together groups of employers to design and test apprenticeship standards and courses.

Parker says: ‘Many of our people stay because they love the company. They become part of the family.’ Not every firm will be able to tempt trainees to stay and ‘ become part of the family’ but Parker argues that is no reason to not try.

‘Of course you lose some,’ he says. ‘There is no guarantee. But you have to invest in talent. Be a responsible company and invest.’

The success of the apprenticeship scheme mean Savile Row tailors appear to have combined tradition and modernity rather stylishly.