Savile Row

• 1. Introduction

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  Savile Row ended the Beatles' live career with a line of dry humour. The band's last words as a performing group were "I hope we passed the audition." John Lennon spoke them on the 30th of January 1969, as police stopped the band's concert on the roof of 3 Savile Row. That roof belongs to a short street in Mayfair, central London. The street is far better known for suits cut to fit one man at a time. Who built this street, and who first moved in? Why did tailors, explorers and a pop band's business all end up at the same few addresses? And how does a street keep its trade alive when the rents around it climb?

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• 2. Burlington's Street

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  In 1674, a house described as "a fine House and Ground" went up on the plot that is now No. 1. A series of nobles lived there until it was demolished in 1730, clearing the way for new houses on the east side. The land belonged to a merchant tailor named William Maddox. It was known as Ten Acres and was mostly covered with fruit and other trees. Some of it is still owned by his descendants, who hold it as the Pollen Estate.

  Between 1731 and 1735, the ground became Savile Row, part of the Burlington Estate. It first appeared as Saville Street, named for Lady Dorothy Savile, wife of the 3rd Earl of Burlington. At first it ran from Burlington Gardens, then called Vigo Lane, to Boyle Street. Houses lined only the east side, and the west side was built up in the 19th century. Today the street runs parallel to Regent Street, between Conduit Street at the north and Vigo Street at the south.

  The design followed Burlington's own reading of Palladian architecture, which came to be called Burlingtonian. The original plan is believed to be the work of Colen Campbell. Henry Flitcroft appears to have been the main architect, working under the supervision of Daniel Garrett. William Kent designed No. 1 and Nos. 22-23, and he moved into No. 2.

  The first residents were mostly military officers and their wives, with politicians among them. William Pitt the Younger wrote letters from the street when it was still Savile Street. The Irish-born playwright and MP Richard Brinsley Sheridan lived at No. 14 from 1813 until his death. Jules Verne later placed Phileas Fogg, hero of Around the World in Eighty Days, at No. 7. Verne called it a "fashionable address" and "the former home of Sheridan". Of all the original houses, only No. 14 still keeps much of its first external appearance.

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• 3. Institutions on the Row

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  From 1870 to 1912, the Royal Geographical Society occupied No. 1. British exploration of Asia, Africa and the South Pole was planned from its rooms. The society itself says the address "became associated with adventure and travel". When David Livingstone died, he was laid out in state at the society's headquarters before his burial in Westminster Abbey. The society also reshaped the building. It added a glass-roofed map-room in the courtyard, a small astronomical observatory on the roof and a new portico. That portico may be the basis for the façade seen today.

  A year after the society arrived, in 1871, the Savile Club followed it into the street. This gentlemen's club had been founded in 1868 as the New Club, with rooms overlooking Trafalgar Square. It took its present name while living at No. 12. In 1882 it moved to Piccadilly and kept the street's name.

  The twentieth century brought public institutions and war damage. Savile Row was extended to Conduit Street in 1937-38. By 1939, a Metropolitan Police Station stood on the corner of Boyle Street. In September 1940, a German bombing raid damaged that police station and destroyed the building opposite, No. 21a. No. 7, Phileas Fogg's fictional home, had been destroyed earlier the same month.

  Postwar rebuilding added an eight-storey office block faced with Portland stone. Fortress House, at No. 23, was built in 1949-50 and housed a series of government ministries. English Heritage was its last long-term occupant, staying until 2006. The block was demolished in 2009 and replaced by a mixed-use development designed by Eric Parry, Architects.

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• 4. Apple on the Row

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  Apple bought 3 Savile Row on the 22nd of June for £500,000. In July 1968, the Beatles moved in Apple Corps, their multimedia corporation. A recording studio was built in the basement. Its design was poor, yet the band still recorded Let It Be there.

  In 1971, a new studio was constructed at an estimated cost of $1.5 million. Other artists passed through the basement as well, among them Badfinger, Mary Hopkin and Marc Bolan. The studio closed in May 1975.

  The building is listed Grade II*. On the 11th of May 2026, Apple Corps announced that it will reopen as an exhibition space. The public is due to be admitted in 2027.

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• 5. Bespoke Takes Shape

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  Around 1790, tailors began opening for business near the future Savile Row, first in Cork Street. By 1803, one had set up on Savile Row itself. None of those first tailors survives. The affluent and influential residents appear to have drawn them. As tailoring moved in, houses gained glass frontages and lightwells, which brought daylight into the workrooms.

  In 1846, Henry Poole opened an entrance at No. 37, linked to his late father James's premises at 4 Old Burlington Street. His firm is now at No. 15. Edward VII's patronage helped make the street fashionable. In 1860, Poole made a smoking jacket for the young Edward. For that garment he is credited with creating the dinner jacket, also called the tuxedo.

  H. Huntsman & Sons was founded by Henry Huntsman in 1849. It moved to No. 11 when the First World War ended in 1919. During that war, the firm tailored for the military and produced dress uniforms for British officers.

  The word bespoke has its own history. Its roots run from "to exclaim" to "discussed in advance", and it came to mean made to order. Tailors claim it has been in common use for tailoring since the 17th century. Savile Row tailors argue it means a suit cut and made by hand. In 2008, a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority allowed machine-sewn garments to be called bespoke as well, provided they are made-to-measure.

  The district has been called the "golden mile of tailoring". Its customers have included Lord Nelson, Napoleon III, Winston Churchill, Charles III and Jude Law. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, ordered his suits there too. Ian Fleming and James Bond are often said to have shopped on the Row. The novels give no evidence of it. Both Fleming and the film Bond wore suits by Anthony Sinclair of nearby Conduit Street.

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• 6. Softer Cuts

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  Early in the 20th century, a Dutch tailor named Frederick Scholte loosened the stiff look of English tailoring. He developed the English drape for the Duke of Windsor. His "dress soft" style passed to his protégé Per Anderson, who turned it into the "London cut". That became the house style of Anderson & Sheppard. The cut pairs a high, small armhole with a generous upper sleeve. The jacket stays close to the neck while the arm moves freely.

  Ready-to-wear clothing reached the Row through Gieves & Hawkes, formed in 1974 by a merger. Gieves was a Royal Navy tailor founded in Portsmouth. Hawkes was a London cap-maker and tailor to the British Army. Both businesses dated from the late 19th century.

  Hardy Amies went further. He founded his company in 1946 by converting the bombed-out shell of No. 14. In 1961, he staged the first men's ready-to-wear catwalk shows, at the Ritz Hotel in London. He designed costumes for the 1966 England World Cup team and for the 1968 film 2001: Space Odyssey. He also dressed the Queen, designing the gown used in her Silver Jubilee portrait in 1977.

  Amies sold the business to the Luxury Brands Group and retired in 2001. The company went into administration in 2008 and was bought by Fung Capital. It went into administration again in 2018, and this time no buyer was found. The Savile Row store closed in March 2019. In June, Hackett took over the space as its flagship store.

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• 7. Rebels and Revivals

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  Valentine's Day 1969 saw the opening of Nutters of Savile Row. Tommy Nutter and Edward Sexton, who had worked together at Donaldson, Williamson & Ward, ran it. Cilla Black and Peter Brown of the Beatles' Apple Corps financed the venture. Bold window displays came from Simon Doonan, who was then unknown. Clients included the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Elton John and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

  Nutter left the firm in 1976 and went to work at Kilgour. He died in 1992. Terry Haste, a cutter at Tommy Nutter, carries on with John Kent nearby at 7 Sackville Street. Kent holds the Royal Warrant for the Duke of Edinburgh.

  By the early 1990s, the modernising had slowed. Savile Row tailors were described as "struggling to find relevance with an audience that had grown increasingly disassociated". Three tailors each broke away from the traditional mould independently: Ozwald Boateng, Richard James and Timothy Everest, who had been an apprentice of Nutter's. The public relations professional Alison Hargreaves coined the term "New Bespoke Movement" for this new generation. In 1997, interest peaked when Vanity Fair featured all three together.

  The newcomers changed their shop fronts and used marketing and publicity to their advantage. They added twists and "a fine sense of colour to bespoke suits", with bolder fabrics and more contemporary silhouettes. They set out to attract celebrity clients, to attract wider national and international custom, and even to sell their clothing through supermarket chains.

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• 8. Protecting the Row

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  In 2006, only 19 tailors remained on Savile Row, down from roughly 40 in the 1950s. Rising rents played a part. So did criticism from Giorgio Armani, who said the street was falling behind the times. The numbers recovered afterwards. By October 2014, a local online directory listed 44 tailoring and clothing businesses on and around the Row.

  Some tailors had worried in 2005 that commercial development could end their trade locally. Many make their suits on the premises, in basement studios, and could be priced out of the property market. In 2004, the Savile Row Bespoke Association was founded to protect and develop bespoke tailoring. Its member tailors are typically required to put at least 50 hours of hand labour into each two-piece suit.

  In 2012, the Association objected to American retailer Abercrombie & Fitch's plan to open a children's store at 3 Savile Row. It feared that chain stores would drive up rents. The protest succeeded at first. Even so, the store was allowed to open in 2013, and it had closed by 2021.

  The Association and the Pollen Estate, which owns the freehold, are working with Westminster Council. In 2016, the council began efforts to protect the street's tailoring heritage under the Savile Row SPA, a Special Policy Area. Several buildings are also listed on the National Heritage List for England. No. 1 is Grade II, and Nos. 11 and 14 are Grade II*.

  Ownership of the estate changed hands in 2014. Norway's Oil Fund, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, acquired a 57.8% interest in the Pollen Estate from The Church Commissioners. The holding includes properties across Mayfair, Savile Row among them.

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