Demand for luxury suits has staged a recovery in the West End of London with Savile Row tailor Richard Anderson saying his business has seen a 12% year on year uplift in bespoke orders over recent months.

Anderson, who was previously Head Cutter at Huntsman, opened his own establishment on the famous tailoring street in 2001. And now he’s “the only independent tailor on Savile Row whose name is above the door and who actually cuts the suits himself on-site”.

He believes that as more people head back into the office (and many of the high-risk, high-reward businesses whose staff can afford luxury suits now demand in-person attendance), they want to “dress smarter and are looking at their suits more critically”.

He told us that this is true for the UK and specifically London clients, as well as those customers coming into London from markets known for their love of British tailoring, such as the US and the Middle East. 

As well as that rise in bespoke orders, the desire to take a smarter approach to dressing has seen made-to-measure orders rising 50% and ready-to-wear sales spiking 25%. Made-to-measure and bespoke differ by the latter starting with a tailor drawing a paper pattern by hand that’s completely unique to the customer, based on precise measurements. Made-to-measure uses an existing pattern to which the tailor makes modifications from the customer’s suit size and measurements.

Those order and sales numbers are very encouraging for Savile Row generally, a luxury destination that rebounded quite slowly from the pandemic with it having had the twin problems of fewer people working in London offices and fewer international tourists visiting the city.

But the company hasn’t simply been sitting back and waiting for customers to return with Anderson’s daughter Molly having joined a few years ago and spearheading its various expansion strategies.

Having been taught to cut and design under her father, she’s now designing for the women’s bespoke business and also spearheading brand trips to major US cities to meet one to one with customers.