For nearly 250 years Gieves & Hawkes of No. 1 Savile Row has been catering to royalty, the aristocracy and the military’s most exalted officers. That’s not mere hyperbole; the firm outfitted Lord Nelson and The Duke of Wellington as well as ten generations of British royalty, from King George III in 1809 to Princes William and Harry today. One Savile Row: Gieves & Hawkes: The Invention of the English Gentleman, a lavish new book from Flammarion, gives all of Gieves’ rich history and its transformation into a modern bastion of British style the full color treatment. Over 190 illustrations are spread over 240 glorious pages, a fitting tribute to Gieves which just opened a shop in the NYC’s legendary Bergdorf Goodman’s Mens store.
Military uniforms were its original purview, but after World War II Gieves went on to dress the likes of Cary Grant, the Duke of Windsor and Roger Moore as James Bond. The finest fabrics and impeccable proportions came to distinguish the Gieves & Hawkes look and established the beau ideal of how an English gentleman should be dressed. Harold Koda, curator in charge of the the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum in New York provides the foreword for the book, outlining Gieves’ important place in sartorial history. Every man should have a suit made for him at some stage in life. The most fortunate among them will do so at Gieves & Hawkes.
