Turn-ups
The whole entry, in the remarks column: "Customer insists on turn-ups. Told him. He insists." He got his turn-ups. You will get yours, if you insist. We will still tell you.
Bespoke tailors. Cut and made by hand, downstairs.
Four people. One cutting table. No interest whatsoever in being fashionable.
We have cut suits on Savile Row since 1921. They are made to outlast the man who orders them, and several have. Most of what follows is about what that costs, how long it takes, and why you are allowed to ring.
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.
020 7946 0321
Ruth answers it herself, when she is not cutting. There is no email, on purpose. Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:30.
PhotographRuth at the cutting table, shears in her left hand, Hugo underneath
What it costs, and what the money buys
We would rather tell you the price than tell you it is worth it.
A two-piece suit starts at £6,400. Cloth can change that, and Ruth will tell you before you choose, not after. You pay half on ordering and half on collection. Here is what the half-and-half pays for.
- Hand workAbout 60 hoursFour people. One of them is 71 and has been sewing our jackets for 44 years.
- FittingsAt least threeBasted, forward, final. Ruth argues with the cloth at each one.
- First measure to collection12 to 14 weeksYou can have it fast or you can have it right. We only know how to do one of those.
- Your paper patternKept for everIn the cellar, on a hook, labelled in pencil. About 11,000 hang there already.
- Alterations, for the life of the suit£0Whatever its age. Whoever it was made for.
- The book pocketIncludedHidden inside every jacket since 1921. Sized for a paperback. Nobody has ever been asked if they wanted it.
- £6,400two-piece suit, from
- £4,600jacket, from
- £1,500trousers, from
- £7,600three-piece, from
Painted on the cellar door
Measure twice.Cut once.Measure again on Tuesday.
People change shape over a weekend. That is why there are at least three fittings, not one.
If this is your first suit
You don't need to know what you want.
You need to know what you do all day. Ruth will work out the rest. That is her line, and she means it. Nobody at this table expects you to know cloth weights, lapel widths or the right word for anything. That is what we are for.
Nobody will talk you into things, either. The price is in writing on this page and Ruth will put a figure on your cloth before you pick it. If you want a plain dark suit and nothing clever, you will get a plain dark suit and nothing clever, cut properly.
The first appointment is about an hour. You talk, Ruth measures. Bring the shoes you will wear with it. The waiting list for that first hour is currently about three weeks.
What to wear, whether to bring someone, what if you change shape →
PhotographA first fitting: the basted shell, white thread, chalk marks still on it
From the ledgers
Every order since 1921 is written down by hand. There is a column for remarks.
A few of them, because they say more about us than we could.
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1936
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1994
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, aged 91, was re-measured from his old pattern and ordered another one. "For the actual funeral. The first one's worn out."
Twenty-nine years. Two suits. Same pattern, plus whatever the years added. -
Undated
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." He is not in the ledger because there was no order.
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Undated
The trumpet
A jazz trumpeter needed more room across the back so he could breathe on the high notes. Ruth cut the back while he played. It is the only order in the ledgers with "measured during a solo" in the remarks.
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Always
Nobody is named
We have made suits for people you would recognise. We have never said who, and never will. In Ruth's words: "If you want to know who else wears us, you're asking the wrong tailor."
If you already have 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. Yours is there. If you come back after twenty years, you are cut from your old pattern "plus whatever the twenty years added", as Ruth puts it.
If the suit needs altering, bring it in. Alterations to any Pellow & Vane suit are free for the life of the suit, however old it is and whoever it was made for. That includes the one you inherited. Dot can tell you who made it from the buttonholes.
We also alter other makers' bespoke suits, by arrangement, and twice a year Ruth takes appointments in New York. The dates go out by telephone to customers on the list. Ring, and ask to be on it.
The only way to book
Ring. It is easier than you think.
You will get Ruth, unless she is cutting, in which case ring again. Say you have never done this before, if you haven't. It changes nothing except that she will explain more.
020 7946 0321
Monday to Friday 9:00 to 17:30. Saturday by appointment. Closed Sunday. Door at street level on Savile Row, London W1; the workshop is downstairs and you are welcome to see it.