Four people. One cutting table. No interest in being fashionable.
We make suits to outlast the man who orders them. Several have.
Every suit is cut and sewn by hand, downstairs, over the same oak table Arthur Pellow bought in 1921. If you want one that is properly yours, ring Ruth. She answers the telephone herself when she is not cutting.
020 7946 0321 Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:30. Saturday by appointment. There is no email, on purpose.
Ruth at the cutting table, shears in her left handThe cost, before anything else
You will want to know this before you ring. You should not have to ask.
So here it is, the way it is written in the order book. These are the real prices, and nobody in this building will ever make you say one out loud.
- Two-piece suitfrom £6,400
- Three-piece suitfrom £7,600
- Jacketfrom £4,600
- Trousersfrom £1,500
RemarksCloth can change the price. Ruth tells you before you choose it, not after. Half on ordering, half on collection.
What the money buys
Hours, hands and fittings.
- Hand workabout 60 hours
- People on your suitfour
- Fittingsat least three
- First measure to collection12 to 14 weeks
- A brown paper pattern, yourskept for ever
- Alterations, for the life of the suitfree
- A hidden pocket sized for a paperbacksince 1921
RemarksNobody has ever been asked whether they wanted the book pocket. Every jacket has had one.
I don’t make clothes. I make a record of a person, in cloth, at one moment in their life. Then I spend three fittings arguing with it.
Ruth Pellow, head cutter
For the first-timer
The questions you are too polite to ask.
- Do I need to know what I want?
No. Ruth’s answer to every nervous first appointment is the same: “You don’t need to know what you want. You need to know what you do all day. I’ll work out the rest.” That is the whole of the first hour. A conversation, and measuring.
- Will I look ignorant in a room full of cloth?
There is no exam. Kofi, our apprentice cutter, arrived from a fashion degree and had to unlearn everything that made clothes look good in photographs. You have nothing to unlearn. Knowing cloth is our job. Yours is to turn up and answer honestly about your days.
- Will I be talked into things?
We would rather tell you what a thing costs than tell you it is worth it. The 1936 ledger records a customer who wanted turn-ups. Remarks: “Told him. He insists.” He got his turn-ups. You will get what you insist on, too, and you will be told first.
- Can I have it faster?
No. Someone once 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.”
The rest of them, answered: what to wear, who to bring, what happens when you change shape.
The cellar door, with the rule painted on itFrom the ledgers, every order since 1921, with a line for remarks
Four entries, out of a hundred years of them.
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1994, and again 2023
The funeral suit
A customer ordered a dark grey suit “to be buried in”, paid in full, and then wore it to every wedding in his family instead. In 2023 he came back at 91. We took his 1994 pattern down from its hook, re-measured him from it, and he ordered another one “for the actual funeral, the first one’s worn out”.
First one’s worn out.
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1936
The turn-ups
The shortest entry in the book, and the one we quote most. A customer, a pair of trousers, a difference of opinion. He won, because it was his suit.
Customer insists on turn-ups. Told him. He insists.
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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 measured to music.
Measured during a solo.
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Every year since 1921
Nobody is named
We have made suits for people you would recognise. We have never said who, and we never will. The ledgers are ours. The suits are theirs.
“If you want to know who else wears us, you’re asking the wrong tailor.”
Already one of ours?
Your pattern is still in the cellar.
Every customer since 1921 has a brown paper pattern hanging on a hook downstairs, labelled in pencil. There are about 11,000 of them and yours is one. Come back after twenty years and you are cut from your old pattern, plus whatever the twenty years added.
If the suit was left to you, bring it in. Alterations to any Pellow & Vane suit are free for the life of the suit, whatever its age. Ring, give Ruth the name it was cut for, and she will find the hook.
020 7946 0321 Alterations to other makers’ bespoke suits, by arrangement.
Who you will meet
Four people and a dog.
- Ruth PellowOwner and head cutter. Third Pellow to hold the shears. Thirty-six years at the same table. Left-handed.
- Kofi MensahApprentice cutter, fourth year. Cuts trousers on his own now.
- Dot AlbrightCoatmaker. Forty-four years of Pellow & Vane jackets, from the bench by the back window.
- HugoBorder terrier, very old. Sleeps under the cutting table. Not for sale.
The next step is a telephone call
Ring Ruth. If it rings out, she is cutting. Try again in a while.
You do not need a reason, but people usually have one. A wedding, a promotion, a first proper job, a fiftieth. Tell her what you do all day and roughly when you need it. The waiting list for a first appointment is about three weeks at the moment, and a suit takes 12 to 14 weeks after that.
020 7946 0321 Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:30. Saturday by appointment. Closed Sunday.
The door at street level, Savile Row