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'Bespoke' suits can now be a cut below best
Rashid Razaq, Evening Standard18 Jun 2008
Tailors on Savile Row have lost a legal battle over their right to use the word "bespoke" to refer exclusively to hand-made suits.
The Advertising Standards Authority ruling means mass market retailers will be able to use the traditional craftsman's term to sell machine-cut creations at a fraction of the normal cost.
A bastion of English tailoring dating back more than two centuries, the Mayfair street has been patronised by the likes of Beau Brummel, Lord Nelson, Napoleon III, Winston Churchill and Prince Charles.
According to tradition the word bespoke originates from when customers would "speak" for a particular length of fabric.
Shops must offer a choice of more than 2,000 fabrics - with at least 50 hours of hand-stitching and several fittings going into a Savile Row bespoke to justify the £5,000-plus price tag. But gentleman's tailors such as Henry Poole & Co and Davies and Son now face competition from modern upstarts selling "bespoke" suits for as little as £495.
Menswear retailers Sartoriani was referred to the ASA because it was advertising bargain bespoke suits as "uniquely made according to your personal measurements and specification".
The tailors argued the suits were not bespoke as, after an initial fitting in London where customers chose the style, the fabric is sent to Germany, where it is mostly cut and sewn by machine.
Sartoriani said customers were not being deceived into thinking they were getting a suit made to Savile Row standards.
The ASA upheld the company's claim that "bespoke" had moved on from meaning a fully handmade suit to simply a garment cut to a customer's measurements.
The retailer, based at 10 Savile Row, called the decision a victory for individuality and for "affordable luxury". The Savile Row Bespoke Association has criticised the ASA ruling, likening "bespoke" to the legally protected term "Champagne".
Chairman Mark Henderson, chief executive of Gieves & Hawkes, said: "I don't accept the man on the street understands the difference. You are looking at the difference between a fine painting and a print."
