Savile Row: the essence of English chic in a men’s suit

Savile Row, close to Piccadilly Circus, is a little street of small brick or sandstone buildings. Like Regent Street, this street is famous all over the world as the centre of gentlemen’s style, a paradise for 3-piece suits, tailor-made shirts, British Bespoke (3 fittings minimum) and cuff links. Around 40 tailors are based here plus, since very recently, a shoe shop. The window displays feature corduroy, linen and tweed. Savile Row is synonymous with elegance and excellence.

A few years ago, just as the idea that women could wear clothes traditionally designed for men began to make headway in the conservative workshops of Savile Row, a woman opened a shop there for the first time. Like all her colleagues, Kathryn Sargent receives customers by appointment and, after a long process, will fit you out with everything you need to follow in the footsteps of Beau Brummell, the father of English dandyism. Although she is quick to leap to the defence of tweed woven in the United Kingdom, she has been quietly revolutionising the district, citing transgressive pop figures like David Bowie alongside the more starchy Prince of Wales as her sources of inspiration.

This autumn, the former Austrian model Werner Schreyer embodies the IKKS spirit. The actor with steely eyes and chiselled features is living proof that nothing sets off an elegant look quite like a well-fitted men’s shirt. Neither too tight or too loose, the sleeves need to be just the right length to give an aristocratic touch to jeans or chinos. Choose your print, from plain elegance to a very British, slightly eccentric look.