There aren’t many professions where you inform a customer that you’re going to give him a ten inch rise in his trousers. The ‘rise’ in the world of tailoring is the difference between the outside and inside leg measurements. In simple terms it’s roughly the distance between the top of the waistband and the bottom…
DetailsIn a past life, I’m convinced I was one of the sun-worshipping Inca tribe down in Peru. God bless those healing rays and everything they stand for. Blue skies, short skirts, the crackle of Hendricks gin on ice and the whiff of Hawaiian tropic. Magical. Earlier on this month I was having it large in…
DetailsI’ve seen that look in my customers eyes before. Desire, longing, want. Every new Bond film spawns a thousand suit fantasies and the latest catalyst for sartorial spending has been The Great Gatsby. God bless The Silver Screen. I remember the ‘Unit 4’ cinema in Shipley when I was a child. A lurid horror-show of…
DetailsWith a big thanks to Chris Thompson at Broken Clock Photographic, I can now introduce “Michelsberg – The Movie.” Enjoy.
DetailsYesterday, I was visited in my showroom by a man of the cloth. Not in a Dan Brown, cassock and collar kind of way, but as a purveyor of quality textiles to the tailoring trade. Introducing Simon Murgatroyd, who runs the cloth business for Brook Taverner & Co. Ltd We’ve been doing business together for…
DetailsOn Wednesday the 27th of March, I hit the big four zero. Only a week before, I’d driven home through Headingley, closeted in my refined Germanic bubble of leather and walnut veneer. With misty eyes I smiled at the fancy dress wearing students, heading out for a night of Jägerbomb and M-Cat fuelled thrusting and…
DetailsI’ve just read the biography, “Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge” and it’s an absolute belter. Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridges department store in London, was the ultimate showman. A risk-taking visionary with ambition, self belief, unbridled energy and boundless enthusiasm. Sure, he had his demons (girls and gambling), but here was a man driven…
DetailsThe beard is back. Even my brother is growing one. A face full of fur smacks of swashbuckling “derring-do.” It’s testosterone on a chin. The hirsute marque of heroic daring. Beloved by World War two fighter pilots and pipe-smoking chaps who raced along country lanes in their Morgans, a bristling moustache embodied the spirit of…
DetailsIt’s Saturday morning, I’ve just done my last fitting before Christmas, there’s a brass band playing carols in the Victoria Quarter and I’m feeling simply bloody marvellous. Whilst the bling-tastic Christmas tree outside is impressive, it’s nowt compared to the bright lights of London. Last Thursday I spent twelve glorious hours in our throbbing metropolis.…
DetailsChristmas, to me, should be a Dickensian schmaltz-fest of ruddy faced joy and conviviality. The clatter of a carriage on cobbled streets. The crunch of snow under stout leather boots. An Inn with a crackling log fire where bearded men swill porter and supp mutton stew. No Sky Sports. No games of pool. Just raucous…
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