Consuming Interest

LESLIE ADRIAN THE tailors of Savile Row, I understand, are looking for a new word to describe their Clothes. They no longer care to use the tradi- tional term 'bespoke' because the big multiple firms are using the term to describe the made-to- Measure suits they sell for little more than the Cost of suits which are off the peg.

The potential customer is given the same kind Of sales talk; he selects his cloth and lining from a roll; and he is carefully measured. But he is not always getting an individually made suit— Often it is mass-produced. The prefabricated gar- inent is merely adapted to his individual measure- Ments. One appears to have complete freedom of choice, but' most firms working at this level have a standard range. Try to depart from the stock selection—ask for a cuff, or an unusual lining, and You will be strongly dissuaded by the salesman.

There is no technical reason why this tailoring should not be called 'bespoke,' which my dic- tionary describes 'as goods made to order; but I can see Savile Row's point. In the same way, there is no reason why off-the-peg fashion clothes bought by women and altered by local stores should not be described as `couture'—which, ac- cording to my French dictionary, merely means needlework. Yet no one in the 'rag trade' would dare to use this word to define anything but the original creations of Messrs. Hartnell, Amies and the rest of the Incorporated Society of London Nshion Designers.

Today, a Savile Row suit costs from £40 up- Wards. Many of the multiple firms are offering Made-to-measure two-piece suits for as little as £10. The difference is too great to be accounted for by the quality of the cloth, cut and finish; and I have been trying to find where the main difference between a hand-made suit and the best of the community, were ordered to carry identity cards. To these had to be affixed a photograph of the bearer in uniform; but before this photo- graph could be taken the sitter's uniform had to be divested of 'any badges or other insignia dis- closing the Arm of the Service, Regiment, Corps, Department, formation or unit' to which he belonged.

Possibly Mr. Ian Fleming could tell us how much a Russian Assistant Military Attaché would pay a keen Communist for purloining an identity card belonging to Major J. P. T. Snooks of Muckton Hall, Loamshire (a) if in the accompanying photograph the cap-badge of the Loamshire Regiment could be distinguished, or (b) if it couldn't.

I should be the last to disparage the military importance of Major Snooks, or of the Territorial battalion of the Loamshires, or of the Territorial Army as a whole; but I should not seriously expect the Assistant Military Attache to go much higher than a packet of cigarettes for either exhibit.

He might bid a shade more for the width of the Atlantic Ocean. You never know.

mass-produced garment lies.: According to Mr. Garry Clancy, general secretary of the National Federation of Merchant Tailors, it is in the manipulation of the material. In the craftsman- made suit the cloth is not only cut to the figure, it is moulded. The front of the jacket is shrunk on the shoulders : the back pieces are carefully stretched. By comparison mass-produced suits appear flat. 'If a man comes into a room wearing even the most expensive mass-produced suit, a tailor can tell at a glance that it has been bought off the peg.'

It is because of this malleability that good woollen worsted is still the favourite suit material, in spite of, the many claims of the newer syn- thetics. Some of the American 'bespoke' tailors in the top price range are said to be using them successfully, but Savile Row is unconvinced. Mr. Clancy maintains that a three-year-old suit in good worsted will look better than one of the same age in a man-made fibre.

Even with suits which cost £25 before the war costing £40 to £50 now, there is no depression in Savile Row and the little streets of tailors ad- joining it. A Savile Row suit is still the mark of material success in the Western world. Exports continue to grow; recently the National Federa- tion came to an agreement with the French customs to facilitate suits leaving this country for fittings.

Since the Edwardian look, nothing revolu- tionary has been planned by the Savile Row stylists. I had imagined this might be because they were anxious to avoid in future any style the Teddy Boys might copy. But no; Mr. Clancy looks tolerantly on them : 'They are learning to buy clothes carefully; there is an effort to look well-groomed. Some day they will appreciate good clothes; some will even be able to afford Savile Row.'

Savile Row has never quite been able to get round the difficulty that to be really fashionably dressed is to be unfashionable. Still, for anybody who likes to know what Savile Row thinks he ought to be wearing today, the trend is for cloths. with a slight sheen. The cut—according to Mr. John Taylor, the editor of the Tailor and Cutter —emphasises the long-legged look. Jackets are shorter, waistcoats plain and cut straight across the waistline, trousers slim and tapered. A man may not be ten feet tall, but he can be made to look as if he were.

GIN AND TONIC

From the letters I have received on the subject of my 'Gin and Tonic' article a fortnight ago, / would like to quote from the only two which were critical : one from Mr. R. L. Scoones, the Director of the National Trade Development Association:. the other from a Charrington's licensee of over thirty-five years' standing, Major Alfred J. Klein.

Mr. Scoones's letter is mainly concerned with the virtues of brewer ownership, which was not what I was complaining about; but he makes the point : `No one would expect to buy at a shoe shop or a cake shop owned by a manufacturer shoes or cakes made by rival firms.' There is obviously no parallel : even if the principle of tied houses is conceded for the sake of argument, it is all the more desirable they should not be tied to specific makes of whisky, say, or brandy, or soft drinks of any kind.

It is possibly reasonable that we should go to a Younger's (Meux's, Charrington's or what- ever) pub for the beer; but the thing is getting ridiculous if we have to work out which pub to choose in order to get a certain brand of whisky.

A good workaday rule. I would say, is:to stick to the pub which, even if it ties you to one brand of draught beer, gives the widest possible range of bottled liquors. Any pub which tries to restrict your choice is a bad pub.

Major Klein disagrees. 'As for the customer being always right,' he says, 'I strongly decry this. Why should the customer come first? The licensee is not a fawning ignoramus—he is quite fre- quently better educated and has more knowledge of public and civic duties and of the commodity he sells.' This is, to my mind, a pernicious argu- ment; but even if it were not, it would be irrelevant. I am all for the licensee having a say in the decision what drinks his customers will favour. The trouble begins when the licensee is not given that say : when he is ordered by his bosses to push the sales of some liquor which they have bought a share in—or, as more often happens, when he is given pecuniary inducement to push them by a higher percentage rake-off.

'As to public relations.' Major Klein concludes, 'they are rather like public bar relations—you must be friendly, truthful and prompt.' Agreed. But is it truthful to pretend, as some licensees have been pretending, that they have not got Schweppes tonic because of 'delays in delivery,* when in fact the delays are due simply to a reluctance to order the stuff—because the brewers who own the pub want to push their own rivai brand of tonic water?