I'm Kirby Allison,
founder of The Hanger Project today we're on Savile
Row with Joe Morgan,
founder of Chittleborough & Morgan.
Thanks for joining us.
So here we are.
We really appreciate you having me down
here, it's such a privilege.
You know, Joe and his team here
at Chittleborough & Morgan are absolutely doing
some of the finest work
right now on Savile Row.
And so Joe, you've got an interesting background,
why don't you just give us a little bit of kind of a primer
on how you found
yourself here.
Well it's, when you look
at sort of Henry Poole,
and Gieves & Hawks,
and Huntsman you're going to work sort of new players.
I joined my
old pal Tommy Nutter 1970
and he arrived in 1969.
Say,
he was only accepted in Savile Row for doing
the same quality of work.
As of now,
we do the same quality of work as everybody else
but we have the style element.
And he was like rebel on Savile Row.
And you think "My goodness are we rebels?" No I don't
think so.
We're truthfully young traditional gentlemen's tailors,
but we do have this ability now
with the craft to develop
it on itself.
And I'm very fortunate here we
have a group of very talented people
which is developing our craft
and now competing
with the very best throughout the world.
And Tommy Nutter,
I guess he's best known as tailor to The Beatles
right and really pushing the boundaries of
cuts and of
style for that time
and I feel like you know whenever you look at
Chittleborough & Morgan, I mean it certainly is
muted compared to
what it was like back in the 70s.
But I still find kind of an
energy
and just a freshness
that is really juxtaposed against,
you know, kind of the traditional British
tailoring that has been
done the same way it's been done
for decades.
Yeah right.
Well I don't think there's anything wrong
with that, it's a very traditional aristocratic
design and make.
But what we try and do here is that
if you look at the body
and the gentleman, we try
and give him sort of presence
and I think our model
cries out for definition without
construction. This is what we give it.
We like our gentleman to have
a straight shoulderline,
very close high armhole,
and then we cut it into the waist
and we give a very sophisticated flair.
So it gives a very good image
and it does tend to make one sort of stand
up just a little bit more ragged,
but I think even with ones
posture that's not a bad thing
and the whole emphasis from the t rousers
which we like the trousers a little bit higher
and give good lines to the
waistcoat and so the whole jacket,
waistcoat, and trousers making the
suit work for us
and our gentleman.
I mean, you've assembled an incredible team here.
How many do you have down here working.
There are 10 of us.
My goodness.
I'm just very very fortunate.
And we have this craft where
we don't really have a front of house,
where when people
come in they can see whoever is here
at the time
and they can just talk through their requirements
and that's whether "Oh my goodness,
you know, I would like something for a very formal occasion"
or "I would like something for the daytime"
and we have a team that can look
after them, make great selections
on fabric,
talk for a model, or we do
listen to our client.
We would say "you have
great thoughts and design
with the model that you're wearing".
We would listen to you and I think that's really important.
When people sit in front of the mirror
and they say
"what do you think about sleeve length"
and they say "could we shorten that a bit?".
I say "of course we can!" whereas they had been to tailors before
and they say "my tailor wouldn't allow me to have my sleeves
over this line.
Hold on, hey, you know,
we listen to you
and sleeves length is so personal we'll
work with you to to make
it work for you.
And I mean, the clients come in here.
wHat do you think, at a certain
point whenever you kind of commission a piece
from a bespoke tailor,
I really feel like you're commissioning a piece
of artwork and that you're choosing
a particular tailor because you know
you like their style, their silhouette.
You know someone that comes in
with like too specific of a notion
of what they want,
I feel like in some ways compromises
or mutes you know,
the manifestation of the
cutter I suppose.
So how does that go back
and forth, I mean you don't want someone to come in
and basically hand you a pattern
and say make this because that's not what you guys
are in the business of,
but at the same time people come in
with their kind of predisposed notions,
so I mean do you have a lot of
back and forth with customers?
I mean is art the magic of that relationship?
Yes it is.
And I think it is magic
because when you look at our wares,
our clothes,
there's a
pulse running through it that's really very important,
and it's not just in my products,
it's the young people here
that work with all the ingredients,
and you know
this week we had a gentleman that came in
that had top coat and had worn it for like
15 years,
this was part of what he wanted,
he wanted just reproduced.
So we just sent him away
and said just think about it,
because I thought,
you're developing to the next stage
in your career. It might be nice that you have a
jacket which is more useful.
You can treat it as a friendly
cardigan.
But it would just be just something
a bit more stylized.
And I think you could wear it just that much
better, so he's going away
now thinking about that,
which I think is really pretty important.
And again now gentlemen, ladies,
I think they come to us for a reason.
I would never h ave thought in my career
that people would walk past some of the other tailors
and come to us.
I would never thought that because we're in a basement
area,
we don't have a big brand.
But the people that care about
craft in London
and the skills that we're bringing
to tailoring now come to
us are very rewarding.
And one of the other things that's again,
quite unique,
about Chittleborough & Morgan is that
all the work is done on premises,
you don't send out to outworkers.
Why do you think that's important?
We've used people from
not in our location here.
And you do not get what you want.
And it's a compromise,
and we don't compromise.
And this is why we take a long
time producing what we do,
primarily because we just say,
hey look,
let's take the
whole thing apart.
Let's move it all out
and let's start again.
Very important to us.
As you've been in business,
you have a pretty unique
style,
right. And certain elements that
kind of find their way
and kind of across all the garments.
You know, talk about a few of the things that you
know that you do differently,
that you think really create a Chittleborough &
Morgan piece
versus something else someone may
find.
Well we do dress,
and you know when you get sort of young people
that sort of leave university
or they leave college to have this
sort of energy for street clothes
and you look at street clothes
and think oh my goodness,
these terrible things.
But I really believe in street clothes,
because I think the energy from them.
Each generation takes its look
and its model
with them.
And it's not what we do.
But within that sort of concept,
you know, things change.
So we can't just say this is our
model and this is what you're going to wear because
each generation demands from
you something different.
But traditionally,
gentlemen have their
spring,
summer, winter,
autumn models so we've got this
difference in clothes
and weights,
and also it's just once upon a time
people would have like a day suit,
an evening suit,
and if you went racing
or if you go to Henley,
or if you're shooting,
would these models come out.
Well this is w hat happens to our gentleman.
So lots of people just want
one suit that
can cope with that.
So that's why within our jacket,
waistcoat, and trousers, we say to them "look,
this is your suit,
go and destroy it,
but within the meantime you don't have to wear it as
a suit. What I'd like you to do is a wear the
jacket with a
wide open neck shirt and a pair of
cotton trousers or a pair of blue jeans
and you can lunch in any restaurant
in London.
And then the trousers,
they can stand alone,
they're good on the hip, good looking,
nice lines.
Sexy pair of trousers,
and you can wear those
with like a not a sport shirt
or a formal shirt.
Young people go out now
and they're young and they wear
jeans and a white shirt
and they've got n owhere for their phone,
their keys,
the car keys,
so they leave them on the top of a counter
and they may get stolen
or they're forget them.
So now we have a waistcoat that we filled,
that has a cloth back that's part
of our model
and you've got pockets
for keys, car keys,
phone, so you don't leave them around.
The basic suit,
which gentlemen say "oh this is yours",
you can wear it as a suit, but we like to break the whole
element down.
So you get three different sections
that you can wear all the way through your lifestyle.
Help us understand
the beauty and the magic
that goes into the garment that
one never sees,
but that still makes that garment
special.
Really is almost what makes it
special.
That's very very very galant,
and very very gracious of you.
The thing being,
it's just an everyday blue suit.
And
and you think "oh it's an everyday suit".
Well that's an everyday painting
and you're looking at an international gallery,
and you think well it isn't.
This is the same with our products.
The integrity of the make
is what we're all about,
it's the ethos of the company.
And everybody knows that,
it's just y ou can go to all
the workstations
and they will tell you this is how we work
and our fellows get beaten up.
They go talk to some some of our contenders
and say
"why do you do that?
Why do you need to do that? We say "Because
there are elements of this craft
around the world,
we are competing with them.
It's really important to us.