One of the biggest challenges facing a heritage-led company today is how to keep its history alive while also welcoming change — stagnation is dangerous whatever business you’re in. A long brand history, defined by craftsmanship and skilled expertise can make all the difference when converting browsers to buyers. Customers will always go with an experienced hand if they have a choice — but what if they don’t have to choose?
Today, on and off Savile Row — arguably the world’s most premium destination for bespoke suits — there are plenty of tailors pushing themselves into the 21st century. Some upgrade their marketing strategies, others invest in modern machinery, and a few join the men’s fashion week schedule. None of these options can be considered awry — each to their own — but, as is the case with English Cut, there is another path to the future.
Savile Row, per definition, is just a street in Mayfair. Even if you count a few of the surrounding streets where tailors have set up shop, it’s a very limited in terms of the geographical area. That’s why plenty of brands, including English Cut, travel the world to meet old and new customers where they live. But Savile Row, to use the street name as a collective term for British formalwear brands, needs to push its pocket squares a bit further than that. I’m not suggesting they need to start using memes or join Snapchat, but we certainly need to see a change in how old customers are spoken to and how new ones are attracted. The biggest challenge facing ‘The Row’ in 2016 is how to adapt to new technology without loosing its Unique Selling Point.
That USP is, of course, immaculate suits made out of the finest fabrics available to man. Whether you’re buying ready-to-wear, made-to-measure or bespoke, English Cut, or any of its contemporaries, will uphold that promise, that’s old news. What I’m excited about, now that English Cut is opening up new stores — first in Boston, then in London this autumn and in New York next year — is its renewed dedication to communication. Having trained at Anderson & Sheppard before setting up English Cut in 1995, Tom Mahon famously launched the first Savile Row blog. These days all brands create content but back then, in the mid 90s, that was unheard of.
Today, twenty-odd years later, Mahon is pioneering another aspect of Savile Row tailoring, by offering his worldwide customers the chance to buy quality made-to-measure suits online, he’s opening up a whole new channel of communication. Ecommerce is of course a must today, and also suits are readily available online — but not with English Cut’s sartorial safeguards in place. Tom Mahon would be able to explain the procedure a lot better than I ever will — and he does, on page 08 — but suffice to say, this is where the aforementioned challenge is met: it’s a new frontier, if you like, for a cyber platform so far utilised for just about everything except for Savile Row-approved made-to-measure tailoring.
This magazine aims shed a light on that system, but also to showcase English Cut’s new made-to-measure and ready-to-wear collection, its fundamental aesthetic and Tom Mahon’s humorous and quirky approach to life and tailoring, on which English Cut is built.
