Nina takes great care before she starts designing to make sure she knows as much about the lifestyle of those she works for so the suit is both stylish and practical
know whether it’s a suit for dinner or work, whether they travel a lot and it needs to be hard wearing, whether it will be worn in hot climates or not, what they enjoy doing even whether they go to art galleries, which helps me build up a picture of who they are. Our styles are usually classic because I want our suits to last and not go in and out of fashion.” In common with the rest of the trade, Gieves and
Hawkes asks for a deposit of 50 per cent before starting work and 50 per cent on completion, though she shows me a finished suit on a rack in her brightly lit basement workshop, surrounded by shears and marking chalk, which has waited two years to be collected, which is not uncommon.
I
t was fascinating to observe what binds Daisy and Nina – their great love of fashion, their desire to please, passion and openness to ideas and expression – and yet what separates them, more than just their journey to the golden mile of tailoring, a greater gulf I suspect than two men doing their respective, very different jobs. Daisy lives in classic Chelsea, Nina in groovy newly gentrified Soho. Both share playful eclectic tastes in dress that gets them noticed but are very different in style. Nina, titian haired, today is wearing black cropped wide legged trousers with
Anda Rowland, top, proprietor of Anderson and Sheppard and Master Tailor Kathryn Sargent, late of Savile Row, now with her own emporium in nearby Brook Street
double monk strap tan shoes and a three-quarter length black coat. Daisy, inheriting her grandmother Patricia’s eclectic taste (she wore underwear made from RAF maps of silk to protect them when crew had to bail out into the sea) seeks out vintage, her latest acquisition classic Gucci loafers in black leather. “I saved up for months to buy them,” she says, “I’d go into the shop and try them every few weeks.” Daisy used to hunt, still loves racing, and can be seen on social media stroking a tiger and adores the elegance of 70s Bianca Jagger in her white Yves St Laurent trouser suits. Nina collects books of anatomy and bones, doesn’t have a television and enjoys going to the pub with her friends. It’s too early to say what the impact of this arrival of so many ladies will be in the long term on Savile Row but undoubtedly there will be a consciousness of benevolent feminine qualities as they grow more established. It is however instructive that Daisy and Nina, in their
different ways, offer a leitmotif of Savile Row’s ability to adapt which, ever since the 18th century when it changed from an enclave of medical men to tailoring, has continued to brilliantly re-invent itself, survive fashions and assorted world upheavals in its own un- showy style, to remain very much a cut above. n
SAVILE ROW STYLE MAGAZINE 43
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