Suits made to outlast the man who orders them. Several have.
We are four people, one oak cutting table and a cellar holding about 11,000 brown paper patterns. We have no interest whatsoever in being fashionable.
We don't do email. You ring, and Ruth Pellow answers it herself when she isn't cutting. That's the whole system, and it is deliberate.
Ring Ruth020 7946 0321Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:30. Saturday by appointment.
Pattern kept for ever.
Ruth Pellow is the founder's granddaughter and the third Pellow to hold the shears. She has cut at the same table for 36 years.
She is left-handed, so every pattern chalked since 1988 reads from the "wrong" side. The apprentices learn to read them backwards.
If you are nervous about ringing
If you're nervous about ringing, this is for youYou don't need to know what you want. You need to know what you do all day. I'll work out the rest.
Ruth Pellow, to every first-timer who has apologised for not knowing
You don't have to know the word for a lapel. You don't have to have been here before, or know anyone who has. Nobody will test you on cloth. Tell Ruth what the suit is for and what your days are like, and bring the shoes you'll wear with it.
How the first hour goes, and the questions people are too polite to ask
What it costs.
We would rather tell you what a suit costs than tell you it's worth it. You can decide that.
| Garment | From |
|---|---|
| Two-piece suit | £6,400 |
| Three-piece suit | £7,600 |
| Jacket | £4,600 |
| Trousers | £1,500 |
If the cloth you like moves the price, Ruth tells you before you choose it, not after. Half is paid when you order, half when you collect.
What the money buys
Not a label. Hours, hands and arguments with a mirror.
Stories we tell, and one we don't.
Every order since 1921 is written by hand in the ledgers, each with a line for remarks.
-
1936
The turn-ups
A customer wanted turn-ups. The cutter had views. The customer had turn-ups. The ledger kept the minutes.
Customer insists on turn-ups. Told him. He insists.
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1994 & 2023
The funeral suit
In 1994 a customer ordered a dark grey suit "to be buried in" and paid in full. He then wore it to every wedding in his family. In 2023 he came back, aged 91, was re-measured from his old pattern, and ordered another.
"For the actual funeral, the first one's worn out."
-
Undated
The trumpet
A jazz trumpeter asked for more room across the back, so he could breathe on the high notes. Ruth cut the back while he played. It is the only suit in the ledgers with this line against it.
Measured during a solo.
-
Once
The two-week suit
A customer offered double the price for a suit in two weeks. Ruth said no.
"You can have it fast or you can have it right. We only know how to do one of those."
-
Never
The names
We have made suits for people you would recognise. We have never said who, and we never will. You'll be glad of that when it's your name in the book.
"If you want to know who else wears us, you're asking the wrong tailor."
The book pocket.
Inside every Pellow & Vane jacket there is a hidden pocket, sized for a paperback. It has been there since 1921.
Nobody has ever been asked if they wanted it.
Painted on the cellar door, by Ruth
Measure twice.Cut once.Measure again on Tuesday.
People change shape over a weekend. So we check. If you change shape over the next thirty years, that's what the free alterations are for.
Your pattern is still downstairs.
It is. Every customer since 1921 has one, hanging on a hook in the cellar, labelled in pencil.
Come back after twenty years and we cut you from your old pattern, plus whatever the twenty years added. If you have one of our suits already, whatever its age and however you came by it, we will alter it free for the life of the suit.
Ring and give Ruth your name020 7946 0321Your name, in pencil.
Cut in whatever year you came.
Plus whatever the years added.
Come and see the workshop.
- Where
- Savile Row, London W1
- Nearest Tube
- Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Circus
- The door
- At street level. The workshop is downstairs, and you can see it.
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:30
- Saturday
- By appointment
- Sunday
- Closed
- Telephone
- 020 7946 0321
- None. Deliberately.
- First appointment
- Currently about 3 weeks' wait
Hugo, a very old Border terrier, sleeps under the cutting table. He is not for sale.