Savile Row tailoring

Savile Row tailoring is primarily men's bespoke tailoring that takes place on Savile Row and neighbouring streets in Mayfair, Central London. Historically, it catered almost exclusively to male clients, with bespoke tailoring for women emerging only in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. While a few Savile Row houses now offer bespoke tailoring for women, the street’s reputation was established through menswear.

Although Savile Row is frequently used as a shorthand for British bespoke tailoring as a whole, the Row's tradition is more precisely understood as one branch of London's tailoring heritage — the West End style, centred on Mayfair. A distinct parallel tradition also developed in the City of London, serving the financial community of the Square Mile through tailors such as MacAngus and Wainwright and Alexander Boyd. Norton & Sons, for example, was established in 1821 explicitly as tailors to the gentlemen of the City of London, operating from Lombard Street before relocating to Savile Row in the 1860s.

In 1846, Henry Poole, credited as being the "Founder of Savile Row", opened an entrance to his tailoring premises at No. 32 Savile Row. The term bespoke is understood to have originated in Savile Row when cloth for a suit was said to "be spoken for" by individual customers. The short street has been termed the "golden mile of tailoring", where customers have included Charles III, Winston Churchill, Lord Nelson, Napoleon III, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Laurence Olivier and Duke Ellington.

In 1969, Nutters of Savile Row modernised the style and approach of the traditional tailors – a modernisation that continued in the 1990s with the arrival of designers including: Richard James, Ozwald Boateng and Timothy Everest. With increasing rents, the number of tailoring businesses on Savile Row had declined to 19 by 2006. There were also criticisms from Giorgio Armani of falling behind the times. However, since the mid-2000s Savile Row has been enjoying a resurgence. A local online directory in October 2014 listed 44 tailoring and clothing businesses on or near Savile Row.