ESTD. 1821.
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Norton & Sons – Expression
Moving Brands also designed the more esoteric fineries of the Norton’s experience: the clothing labels, signed by the cutters, tailors, and Patrick Grant and stitched into each suit – a mark of its pedigree; passport books that chart the progress of each suit’s creation; concepts for the interior design of the salon; bespoke storage boxes for all the records, some of which date back over a century, and include invoices and patterns for Sir Winston Churchill; concepts for shirt, tie and suit boxes for overseas orders.The new identity also restores Norton & Sons strong historical heritage: the Norton’s crest, which was awarded by a Prussian emperor in the 19th century, has been redrawn and reinstated, as has the original, idiosyncratic wordmark – which itself may yet be used as the basis for a bespoke Norton’s font. A short film about this rich history is also due to be shot in the salon and on location in Scotland.
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More Suits Please, We’re British
Patrick Grant of Norton & Sons, Savile Row.In a day and age when everyone from Jim Davidson to beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown is attempting to trumpet the virtues of Britishness, Patrick Grant - at 36, reputedly the youngest tailor on Savile Row - is proudly flying the flag at the epicentre of one of the world’s oldest professions. After Downing and possibly Coronation Street, Savile Row - the Tin-Pan Alley of quality tailoring - is surely the third most famous street in the land and Grant has created more than a splash here since taking over Norton and Sons two-and-a-half years ago. “It’s all about celebrating what we do really well as a country, and remembering that along that stretch of pavement up to Burlington Arcade are easily some of the most talented and skilled tailors at work in the world today. We’ve always represented the top of that profession and there’s no reason - with a bit of belief and vision - why that position can’t be maintained and enhanced.”
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“We’ve always represented the top of that profession and there’s no reason - with a bit of belief and vision - why that position can’t be maintained and enhanced.”
Immaculately turned out, no doubt in the cloth of his emporium - dark, pin-stiped trousers, off-set by a slim-fit white shirt - Grant could easily be older or younger than his 36 years; ageless in the manner of a school teacher. With a neatly trimmed beard and slicked-back, gelled brown hair, he resembles a peculiar cross between Richard Gere and a slimmer, better looking Ricky Gervais. In the manner of his business, he is a carefully styled contradiction - mod and rocker, conservative and liberal, assured, yet slightly unruly - all at the same time. “I’ve never understood why people feel they have to make such a definite choice”, he says assuredly. “After all, aren’t there usually two sides to any coin?” The interior of the store echoes this view; hunting prints and rural etchings sit alongside Mario Testino-style black-and-white photographs, a battered wooden glass display cabinet next to contemporary leather sofas on a stripped wood floor. The combination works incredibly well, although like a highly polished recording, can - at times - feel slightly over produced. “A lot of this stuff was actually here already”, Grant volunteers pointing to the wooden display cabinet (my favourite piece), “I’ve simply incorporated it into my scheme and refurbished around them”. Was the shop in an appalling state when he took over? “I wouldn’t say appalling, but - like the state of the business itself - things were pretty rundown and needed brightening up. It’s amazing what a lick of paint can do.“One of the things that immediately strikes you as you walk in the door is how light it is, a welcome contrast to the dinginess of some tailors and, in particular, the pumping, nightclub feel of Abercrombie & Fitch - the cocky ‘new kid on the block’ taking up the largest building around the corner. “They are what they are- and at least have brought new people to the area. They’re by no means the worst villain of the piece.“Which begs the question, who is?
In many ways, Grant cuts an unlikely figure to have recently taken over the helm of the Norton and Sons ship, first established in 1821. Seeming to represent neither the Bernard Weatherill-style old-school of British tailoring, nor the camper, slicker continental equivalent, you can better imagine him as a City hedge fund manager or the marketing director of some television company based in Hong Kong . “You’re not far wrong, my background is in business and I was previously the…[insert].........” However, this side-step into Savile Row isn’t as surprising as may first seem; indeed, it’s the culmination of a life-long fascination and appreciation of quintessential British brands that goes back to childhood. “It’s always fascinated me, these companies - particularly in the luxury market - that we in Britain excelled at and were renowned for all around the world.” After undergraduate degrees at Leeds and the University of Orleans in France, Grant took his passion to an academic level whilst studying for an MBA at Oxford; his dissertation being, appropriately, the assent and survival of British luxury brands - Burberry being amongst those he looked at. When word reached him just under three years ago along the cloth grapevine that Norton and Sons was up for sale, Grant knew this was his chance and he had to seize it. “I just couldn’t understand why anyone would want to get rid of it - a piece of Savile Row history.”
Since taking over, Patrick Grant has tried to steer an uneasy middle path between maintaining continuity and being faithful to the finest traditions of the firm, and instigating the reform and changes that the tailor’s badly needed. “Despite a bit of a revamp, many things are continuing just as before. Some of the staff have gone, but others have stayed. And in many ways, I’m the one learning from them”. Has the philosophy of Norton and Sons changed since the hand over? “No, not really. If we have a mission statement at all, it’s simply to keep things simple and to try and become the finest exponent in our field”. Does Grant really think that’s achievable? “I like to think we’re getting there.“Understandably coy about his client base, which reputedly includes stars of Hollywood and the West End, various inhabitants of the Palace of Westminster, members of the Spanish royal family, and more significantly, the Duke of Edinburgh, Grant says the key to maintaining quality is not to over-stretch yourself. “We’re not even thinking about expansion or how many suits we make” (rumoured to be no more than around two hundred annually), “we just wish to maintain a top quality, personal service for those clients we have and those who end up joining us.” With prices ranging from between £3,000 to £15,000 for a bespoke suit, the client base seems hardly likely to expand out of control. Is he happy for a customer to play a key role in the design of a suit - something not all Savile Row tailors have previously been happy about. “Oh, absolutely - we encourage it. If a customer walked in today and asked for a suit to be made with three sleeves and the collar sewn up, we’d be quite happy to do it”, he says with a smile. One wonders how often this has occurred….
One of the more controversial aspects of Grant’s takeover of Norton and Sons has been his readiness to collaborate with some of the nation’s younger, most cutting-edge designers, including Kim Jones, Henry Holland, and Giles Deacon. “I’ve never seen anything wrong with those sorts of collaborations, involving designers from different schools of fashion working together. Kim’s a friend of mine, when he came to me earlier this year with the idea of us collaborating on his latest collection - my tailors putting it all together- I jumped at the idea. I’m extremely proud of what we’ve done together”. Sounds rather like Ella Fitzgerald duetting with Alice Cooper - although why not, one could almost imagine that having happened. “Surely the more we learn from each other the better for us all?”.We end, appropriately enough, where we began - on the subject of Britishness. As far as possible, Grant makes it a priority to source everything he uses in terms of cloth and material from Great Britain and Ireland . “I use a couple of mills in Yorkshire and the North East, and any tweed we may need usually comes from Scotland or Ireland .” Almost a qualification for a regional development grant, surely. “Seriously, any reputable British firm, particularly of the Savile Row variety, should really try to source as much as possible from here, otherwise how can it be considered authentically British?’ Sadly not a mantra many other so-called British brands have stuck by over the years. In keeping with the new man, David Cameron, eco-friendly attitude to business and Britishness, this latest buccaneer of Savile Row cycles off to meet Kim Jones for dinner. Four hours later I coincidentally bump into him amongst the hordes at the GQ Style awards. Why am I not surprised?
By Benjie Duncan| Photographed by Jonathan Bosworth
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Interview with Monocle
HISTORY MAN
-London
Preface
Patrick Grant, who bought Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons in 2005, has relaunched English 19th-century sports and military label E. Tautz.
"Ideally we would like Tautz to be a brand that is associated with a certain elegance of dressing, behaviour and lifestyle," Grant says. The ready-to-wear autumn/winter 2009 line, which includes six suits, five sports jackets, trousers, shirts and ties all crafted from cloth made in the UK, is available through Harrods and Matches in London and Beams in Tokyo. Future collections will be available in New York and the Middle East. - LL
etautz.comIssue 27 . volume 3 . October 2009
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PATRICK GRANT
Norton & SonsStep inside the Savile Row tailoring house that has modernised without losing a drop of its heritage. Norton and Sons young, new owner, Patrick Grant, personally picks his cloths from some of Britain’s best mills. There's only one shop and the owner is on the end of a phone – or an email – for each of his customers. Staying small – and passionate - is the secret, he says.
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Ready-to-wear-revival:
An Interview
With
Patrick Grant
of E.TautzThese days, so many clothing companies claim that their products are the ‘real thing’, ‘100% authentic’ or ‘the genuine article’ that the phrases have become practically meaningless. When the advertising – and the label – promise a world of French or Italian glamour and sophistication it can be a bit galling to discover that a suit or shirt was actually made in a large, faceless factory and not in the atelier of a master craftsman.
It is then, a refreshing change to see the relaunch earlier this year, of historic British men’s sportswear label, E. Tautz. If the name promises a world of classic style, inspired by the likes of the Duke of Windsor. Then the collections so far, have delivered; High-quality cloths from around the British Isles have been used and the pieces are cut and tailored in Savile Row at the home of Tautz parent, the bespoke tailors, Norton & Sons. Indeed, Patrick Grant, the suave head of the 187 year-old company described the ready-to-wear collection as being ‘.. as close to a bespoke product as we can make a suit without actually making it for one person’.
Continue reading after the jump.
Swipelife caught up with Grant in London recently where he told us about the Autumn/Winter 09 collection, why he chose to create it entirely in Britain, where the inspiration for its rugged, long-lasting style came from and his opinion on the state of British menswear.
How did you become involved with E. Tautz and the world of Savile Row?
It was an accident really, well, not an accident. A fabulous coincidence. I stumbled upon it completely by chance. I was at Oxford finishing off an MBA and a friend of mine was supposed to meet me for lunch. He called to say he couldn’t come, so I grabbed a copy of the Financial Times and sat and read it because there was nothing else to read. I got as far as the ‘Businesses for sale’ section and there happened to be an advert on that one day for Norton & Sons. There was just a little advert that said ‘Bespoke tailor for sale, 16 Savile Row. Contact Mr. Granger by letter’. That’s as much as it was planned. There was no planning whatsoever. It was just completely fortuitous.
I came and met the owner and came to the shop and looked around and having never worked in clothing before I just fell in love with the place. I’d always been very interested in craft and making things, I’d always worked in manufacturing companies and I’d always been very interested in clothes but I’d never thought ever, to work in the clothing and tailoring industry.
Looking at how you make things currently, how important is it that all of the Tautz range is made in the UK?
There are two things that are really important to Tautz; one of them is its history, where it has come from as a firm, what it has done and how that colours what it is doing now but also, very directly, the provenance of the pieces we make. How we make things, where we make them, what they are made from and everything that is associated with the way we put them together and the way we deliver them is very, very important to us.
Tautz’ history is certainly fascinating, it started as a maker of Sporting and Military clothing didn’t it?
That’s right they started as a sporting tailors. It’s very interesting to see the evolution of that firm from the 1860s through to the 1950s. They started very much as a sporting tailoring house – they actually started as britches makers, sporting britches makers.
We were military and sporting tailor to Churchill. We made his uniforms for the Hussars but we also made his sports clothes. He was a racing and polo fanatic and we made things like white, cashmere racing britches and chocolate and pink satin racing jackets and matching hats and things like that for him. We were sportswear when gentlemen did sports in the kind of clothes that Americans now call sportswear. That is wear Tautz came from.
In the current incarnation of Tautz it is very central to the way that we put everything together. The way we think about our clothes is very much coloured by that sporting and military heritage.
What is the difference between Tautz and its parent, Norton & Sons?
Norton & Sons is a bespoke tailors on Savile Row. It has one shop. There is one sole address on our letterhead. That is the only place you can buy Norton & Sons clothing. Everything that you buy from us is made by us there. That is the way it will always be. We are completely unapologetic about the fact that if you want to come and have a suit from us you are going to have to come and see us at least four, possibly five times. You are going to have to wait three, possibly four months at the moment for your first suit. This is something that is very special and we want to keep it exactly the way that it is.
Will we be able to buy the Tautz range at 16 Savile Row?
The plan with Tautz in the immediate future is that it will be sold through existing high-end stores. We are in Harrods this season and the plan is that we will sell Tautz in the best retailers in the best cities around the world. Longer term, it is perfectly conceivable that we would consider having a Tautz store in London. Tautz is never going to be Paul Smith though, it’s a very different product. It’s as close to a bespoke product as we can make a suit without actually making it for a person.
Is that traditional understanding of sportswear where the inspiration for the knitwear, with its bright colours and distinctive badges comes from?
Ah! That comes from a very particular piece of English public school history! Back in the early part of the twentieth century, schoolboys all had white rugby jumpers. They would hand-sew badges onto their jumpers to distinguish one house from the other. We’ve got a couple of old emblems from Rugby school from the twenties, one of them has a skull and crossbones and of them has a knights helmet with a giant plume. There’s a photograph of the Winchester school rugby team in our archive, they are all wearing badges on their shirts. It’s an amazing image. We all really liked it. They are done in a sort of naïve way. They are cut out by hand and sewn on by hand. So that’s how we do ours. It was a fun link back to our, slightly aristocratic, sporting heritage. We like to have little details like that.
The badges on the jumpers all come from either the royal warrants or the family crests of old customers. One of them is a castle that comes from the King of Spain’s royal warrant, one of them is a club, from the Emperor of Austria’s royal warrant, one is a Martlet and one of them is a fox. The fox comes from our sign and the Martlet comes from another customers coat of arms. They are all heraldic symbols.
Is that wear the symbols on the knitwear come from? Was that a conscious decision not to brand the clothes heavily?
Tautz has a logo that was created in, well, we don’t know exactly when, but it first appears in Tautz adverts in the middle of the 1880s. We have an advert from 1886 but there may be earlier ones. They advertised all the time and at some point when we have the chance it would be nice to put together a complete archive. However, in 1886 the monogram is there and in use. It’s ‘E T & S’ but the ‘E’ is a pair of spurs and the ‘T’ is a riding whip, the tail of the whip forms the ampersand and the leather straps on the spurs form the ‘S’. It’s just such a beautifully created piece. If at any point we do decide to do something that is logo’d in that way I think we would always fall back to the Tautz monogram.
I don’t wear logo’d clothing and haven’t done since I was in my late teens. We use those emblems (on the knitwear) as embellishment, as part of the design rather than as a recognition of who has made them. I think that is appropriate. Emblazoning things with logos is not what we are about. We are about simple, elegant clothes and not excessive showiness.
You have relaunched Tautz with a ready-to-wear range, do you intend it to be an entry for people into the world of bespoke clothing?
I don’t think of it as an entry to Savile Row. I think of it more as an entry into a world of well cut, beautifully made, suits and clothing. It’s not like we’re consciously trying to draw people into Savile Row. I hope what it might do though, is make people think differently about suits, jackets and that type of clothing as part of their normal wardrobe.
When would I wear a Tautz suit? The pieces seem less formal, is it intended as casualwear?
Oh all the time, when you are not doing actual athletic activities. You can wear the suits to work. We do have beautiful, simple charcoal flannel, charcoal worsted or navy blue suits that are absolutely, perfectly correct for wearing to work, wherever it is you might work. Also, we are cutting beautiful trousers and jackets. I am wearing a pair of trousers and a jacket today and I would be perfectly happy wearing this out in the evening or away at the weekend. I wear shoes, trousers and jackets, when it’s very hot I wear unstructured, lightweight jackets and when it’s very cold I wear thicker, heavier ones. I dress, much as I am dressed today, pretty much all the time. I think men have lost sight of how much fun it is to be well dressed. It’s actually really fun to spend a little bit of time every morning putting your clothes on, picking tie, picking a handkerchief, choosing a shirt from your wardrobe, picking a jacket and a pair of trousers and putting it all together and feeling great in your wardrobe. It’s really a lovely thing to do each day. A lot of people don’t ever have that pleasure, they’ll put on a pair of jeans and a white shirt and will look perfectly good but won’t feel special about what they’re wearing. It’s actually really, really fun and people look at you and people appreciate that you’ve done that. I think it shows greater respect for people as well. When someone goes out for dinner in the evening and doesn’t dress up, I think it’s really sad. Girls love to get dressed up and really enjoy the process of making themselves look beautiful in their clothes. It seems like men are almost embarrassed to be well-dressed. It feels like it’s too much, or you’ve tried too hard.
We are very fortunate on Savile Row to have the most incredibly dressed men coming into our shop. They are very inspiring to me, I have changed the way I dress a lot in the last four years. I used to wear a dark suit, a light shirt and a dark tie and that was pretty much it. It always looked quite smart but you could never say I was well-dressed, just reasonably smartly dressed.
We have so many clients that are just beautifully dressed. The combination of the colour and pattern of their shirts, the colour and pattern of their suit and their tie and cufflinks and their handkerchief, a little speck of colour in the sock that is also in the tie. Little things like that that are such a joy to do. We get so little time to do nice things for ourselves most of the time. It’s almost like a little, quiet personal moment. I think when people are so busy, they ought to take a little time just to… I mean, I am frantically busy but I really love taking the time to do that.
Many other menswear companies place great emphasis on accessorising the male wardrobe. The Tautz collection includes a small range of leather goods, is that something you think you will expand upon?
Essentially, at the moment, it is a clothing range. If we are successful in selling the clothing and the stores that we are selling to like what we’re doing, then of course, we will consider doing cufflinks or small leather goods but we are a sporting and military tailors and that’s what we are going to base our business on. There’s lots of things that ultimately we could do but for the time being we are going to stick to this. We are a small house, we’ve got limited resources and I think we’ll stick to doing what we’re best at.
Lastly: Why did you decide to relaunch Tautz now?
Why now? Until we restarted Tautz, there wasn’t a really good English, menswear house. Italy has a few, Brioni, Kiton and Isaia. There’s Hermes and Louis Vuitton in France, or Tom Ford in America. But there was nothing in the UK. It’s almost as if people were afraid to do anything too close to Savile Row because of a fear of unfavourable comparisons. We’ve got Savile Row which is a beautiful institution and creates undoubtedly the best menswear anywhere, but beneath that you’ve got this enormous leap, all the way down to Burberry and Dunhill and the ready-to-wear lines from the other Savile Row houses who all decided, for whatever reason, to throw away everything that they hold dear in their own bespoke business and mass-make their suits off-shore, using lesser quality materials .
I just didn’t understand it. We know all about beautiful cloths and how to manufacture and how to cut fabulous clothes, so it seemed obvious that if we ever did something ready-to-wear we would do that. It just seemed to me there was a great big hole there. I think there is a market for it, I think British and European and American men like British style, and there is a certain population within that total group that have the money to pay for the very best of that and of those, some will come to Savile Row and have their suits made, but many, either because of reasons of geography or time, or both, can’t come to Savile Row four or five times a year to have their clothes made and they want something immediately. That’s what we aim to provide.
Patrick Grant, thank you very much. The E. Tautz Autumn/Winter 09 collection will be available in store at Matches and Harrods in August.
Also, please visit: www.etautz.com for more information on the line.
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The Last Frontier:
Norton & Sons.
The case for the custom suit is well-known and irrefutable: It’s the last frontier of superior craftsmanship, entirely built by hand. The knowledge that goes into a Savile Row suit can rightly be deemed historic. Your cutter might have been taught by the man who cut suits for Winston Churchill. The sheer range of fabrics is just as astounding. You may think you know everything there is to know about tweed—think again. Some sheds in Scotland make only a handful of bolts of fabric a year. One of those bolts can be the yours.
That doesn’t make it any easier when the reckoning comes: it’s going to cost north of $4000, and you’re going to take it like a man. Once indoctrinated, however, there are few complaints. Rare is the man with only one handmade suit—he’ll do everything in his power to buy another.
That money does not go into an advertising campaign or a cologne destined for duty-free stores. Instead, it returns, as is right, to tailors who’ve apprenticed for years to become expert at what they do. In fact, the profit margins at Savile Row tailors are surprisingly small, and many have closed or left the Row. It takes clear thinking to run a traditional tailor in the modern age. Enter Patrick Grant of Norton & Sons. Grant purchased the venerable tailor (established 1821), in 2006, while still in his thirties. The Norton space at 16 Savile Row is a classic, but not everybody can be in London for the three requisite fittings. So Grant dispatches his head cutter, David Ward, to the US four times a year. ACL recently met with Mr. Ward in a midtown hotel, where he had taken a suite of rooms to conduct fittings.
Norton & Sons shop at 16 Savile Row
An Oryx head at Norton & Sons on Savile Row
Visiting a hotel room—especially in the town where you live—feels rather illicit. With large sums of money are involved, even more so. When the door opens you’re not sure if you should expect an upscale escort or Sigourney Weaver asking if you’re the Gatekeeper. On the contrary, it’s the engaging David Ward, who’s been expecting you. Entering the suite, you pass a rack of suits and sport coats and paper patterns, and sit near a table covered with swatches. It may be intimidating to be fitted at the house that made suits for Churchill, but David Ward is so disarming that you’re immediately at ease and can concentrate on the important things in life, like lightweight grey flannel.
Norton & Sons head cutter Mr. David Ward
Ward makes about 20 measurements and then steps back to assess your posture, which, as expected, is not that good. ‘Downward left shoulder slope.’ He takes these eccentricities into account when he cuts the pattern. Ward’s counsel for first-time buyers? “Get your basics in.” When you have solid three-season suits, “Then you can start building with stripes and plaids.” Common requests? “People ask about James Bond.” That would be Sean Connery, naturally, From Russia With Love vintage.
Norton now offers custom shirts from Stephen Lachter, whose private customers have included Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant. That’s exalted company. You will want to wear your new clothes far and wide. When somebody tells you you’re overdressed, remember, if done correctly, it merely means you’re the best-dressed man in the room. That’s a burden you deserve to bear. —DAVID COGGINS
Custom suit measurements
Just a few fabric options
Stephen Lachter custom shirts
In January I covered the re-launch of the storied British label E. Tautz, but it was not until recently that the photos of the clothing became available. The collection is the perfect assemblage of “English clothes,” wonderfully crafted tailored items, knits, shirtings, leather goods and accessories, nearly all of it made in Britain. In fact, the tailored clothing is made by the same cutters at Norton & Sons, Tautz’ parent. I was lucky enough to meet with Norton’s director Mr. Patrick Grant during New York Fashion Week and saw the range first hand. I can attest to the quality and artisanship of the collection. Personally, there hasn’t been a line of clothing this sought-after in a long long while. See images from the AW09 E. Tautz range after the jump and learn more about the AW09 launch here.
“If you look at it under a magnifying glass it’s amazing. Most yarns are very simple, they usually contain one or two colours. But a Harris tweed yarn will routinely contain seven or eight different coloured wools, which are blended together and then spun,” says Grant. “So at a distance it might look like a blue, a pale blue. But when you get up close you will see little bits of green and turquoise and navy, perhaps a touch of yellow. There’s an amazing richness of colour.”
Patrick Grant
.........................................................................................“ FANTASTIC! ”
-the portastylistic
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