The house

Same table since 1921. Same name on the door, even the half that died in 1962.

Arthur Pellow founded the house after cutting for other houses on the Row. Edmund Vane was his partner and the better salesman. Vane died in 1962 and his name stayed up "because Arthur said the sign would look lopsided without him". It is still up. It still isn't lopsided.

Three Pellows have held the shears since. The current one is left-handed, which has consequences for the cellar. More on that below.

The shop front on Savile Row, the sign with both names, the door at street level — The door is at street level. The workshop is downstairs. You are welcome to see it.

The scar across the oak cutting table, close, chalk dust in the grain — Oak, 1921. The scar is from 1940.

The cutting table

One table. One scar. Never planed out.

The table is oak and has been here since the house opened in 1921. In 1940, during the Blitz, a piece of window glass landed on it and left a long pale scar down its length. Arthur refused to have it planed out. Ruth still cuts over it, thirty-six years at the same spot.

Everything starts here. Your pattern is drawn and cut on it. Your cloth is cut on it. Hugo, a very old Border terrier, sleeps under it and is not for sale.

Four people

Who will have their hands on your suit.

About sixty hours between them, spread over twelve to fourteen weeks. This is all of them.

PhotographRuth Pellow, head cutter, chalk in hand

Ruth Pellow

Owner and head cutter. 36 years at the table

Fifty-eight, the founder's granddaughter, the third Pellow to hold the shears. The shears were her grandfather's and are still sharpened by the same family firm in Sheffield. She is left-handed, so every pattern in the cellar since 1988 is chalked from the "wrong" side and the apprentices learn to read them backwards.

Dry, precise, and funny without smiling. She dislikes the word "luxury": "it's a word for things you don't need; a good suit you need for thirty years." She dislikes "timeless style" more: "nothing is timeless, some things just age well." She does not do email. She answers the telephone herself when she is not cutting.

PhotographKofi Mensah at the trouser bench

Kofi Mensah

Apprentice cutter, fourth year

Twenty-six, from Peckham. Came to the Row from a fashion degree and "had to unlearn everything that made clothes look good in photographs". He now cuts trousers on his own. If yours are ours, he cut them.

Ruth says he has "the best eye for a sleeve I've seen in thirty years, and I'm not telling him that". She has not told him. It is on this page instead.

PhotographDot Albright at her bench by the back window

Dorothy Albright

Coatmaker. 44 years of our jackets

Dot is seventy-one and has sewn Pellow & Vane jackets for forty-four years. She works from a bench by the back window because the light is better, and she is not moving it for anyone. She can tell which coatmaker made a jacket by its buttonholes.

If you inherit one of our jackets and want to know who made it, bring it to Dot.

PhotographHugo, asleep under the cutting table

Hugo

Border terrier. Very old

Sleeps under the cutting table. Not for sale. He is the fourth person only in the sense that he is always here.

The pattern library

About 11,000 people, in brown paper, on hooks.

The cellar holds a pattern for every customer since 1921, hanging in rows, each labelled in pencil. Yours joins them after your first visit and is never thrown away. Come back after twenty years and Ruth cuts from your old pattern "plus whatever the twenty years added".

Since 1988 the patterns have been chalked from the other side, because Ruth is left-handed. The apprentices learn to read them backwards. Kofi can.

The rule on the cellar door is painted, not printed: Measure twice. Cut once. Measure again on Tuesday. People change shape over a weekend.

The cellar: rows of brown paper patterns on hooks, pencil labels, the painted door — Every customer since 1921. Yours will be on the nearest empty hook.

The ledgers

Every order since 1921, by hand, with a column for remarks.

The remarks column is where the house keeps its opinions. A few of them.

1936

"Customer insists on turn-ups. Told him. He insists."
Undated

"Measured during a solo." A jazz trumpeter wanted more room across the back to breathe on the high notes. Ruth cut the back while he played. The only such entry in the books.
1994

A dark grey suit, ordered "to be buried in", paid in full. Worn to every wedding in the family instead.
2023

The same customer, aged 91, re-measured from his 1994 pattern. A second dark grey suit, "for the actual funeral, the first one's worn out".

One thing the ledgers never say is who. The house has made suits for people you would recognise and has never named one. "If you want to know who else wears us, you're asking the wrong tailor."

Chalk, shears and paper

Nothing here is new, except the customers.

Ruth's shears were her grandfather's. They go back to the same family firm in Sheffield to be sharpened, as they always have. The patterns are brown paper and pencil. The marks on your cloth are chalk. The first fitting is held together with white thread.

Every jacket that leaves here has a hidden inside pocket sized for a paperback. It has been there since 1921 and nobody has ever been asked if they wanted it.

How a suit is made here, step by step →

Arthur Pellow's shears, chalk and a pencil on brown paper — Sharpened in Sheffield by the same family firm since her grandfather's day.

Come and see it

The workshop is downstairs. You are welcome.

Savile Row, London W1. Nearest Tube: Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Circus. The door is at street level. Ring first, because the person who would show you round is usually cutting.

020 7946 0321

Monday to Friday 9:00 to 17:30. Saturday by appointment. Closed Sunday. No email, deliberately.