One of the most frequent questions I get asked on the site is where I would recommend for getting suits altered - or knitwear repaired, or shoes resoled. I’ve been meaning to create a single page with all these recommendations for a while, so I ca...

This article was originally written back in 2014. Back then I had tried seven bespoke shoemakers, and nothing in Japan. Seven years later, the number has more than doubled, and the spread is wider - also encompassing some semi-bespoke and some remo...

Artisan of the Year 2019: Gaziano & Girling The Artisan of the Year category in our annual awards is an opportunity for me to personally recognise a bespoke maker, outside of the usual cycle of reviews and product launches. It is, in effect,...

As I'm sure many of you already know, Lodger was bought by Tony Lutwyche a couple of weeks ago and the name of the company has been changed to Lutwyche & Lodger. Lodger shoes will carry on as is, but the store will now also stock Tony's ready-to-...

Tan shoes make such a lovely complement to grey flannel, don't they? And we know why the socks are green.  But of course the most beautiful thing here is the lines of the shoe. The tight waist that causes the sole to virtually disappear in the mi...

There is a bewildering number of shoemakers in Japan, somewhere between 35 and 40 depending on how you count. Although many have people working for them, they are all essentially sole operators. One person founded the house, is in charge, and there i...

  OK, so. Friend and photographer Jamie Ferguson has been locked up indoors for weeks, as we all have. And he’s gone a bit stir crazy. We had started talking a while ago about shoots we could do remotely. Perhaps looking at a ...

While up in Northampton last week, I stopped in to see Gaziano & Girling’s new workshop. And Tony was kind enough to show me round. There aren’t many shoe makers in England that combine a bespoke and ready-made business in the way that G&G now do...

 As mentioned back in October, I recently had a pair of bespoke Chelsea boots made by Tim Little – the owner of Grenson shoes, who also runs a smaller label under his own name.I was interested in Tim’s bespoke offering primarily for the cost. At...

Stivaleria Savoia is an old Milanese bespoke bootmaker (stivaleria means bootmaker, and the company was founded by craftsmen who made for the Savoia, or Savoy, cavalry). The designs are classic and practical, and unlikely to set any Instagram feeds...

    Hidetaka Fukaya, also known by his nickname Il Micio, is as much artist as artisan. Shoemakers tend to divide into two groups: those that are primarily driven by the artistic side of their work and those that are motivated principally by the...

When was the last time there was a shop opening on Savile Row to get excited about? One making to the same standard as the great tailors already there? Exactly. Reason enough to shout about the new Gaziano & Girling shop, which had an informal o...

Thank you.Thank you so much on my behalf, and more importantly on behalf of the four artisans - who trusted me, and by extension you, to come over to London and do something they'd never done before, in a location they'd never seen before. Because ...

*Michael now has a basic website with contact details at www.mnbespoke.com* There are precious few dry cleaners out there that understand bespoke tailoring. They are likely to clean suits in bulk, with everything going into the vat together and no a...

The Shirtmakers Symposium last Wednesday went so well: great location, great speakers, great discussion. We decided this time to have everyone seated, and it made a real difference I think. There was far more focus on the talk, and less chatting....

A couple of weeks ago, when our little Indian summer here in the UK came to an end, I started the process of switching my wardrobe around for colder weather.  I keep winter sweaters, roll necks, coats and heavy tweeds stored in the attic, and slowly...

This was so lovely. The opportunity to see readers in person for the first time in two years, and such great products to show them.  Before the party kicked off, I made sure to try on all of the Bryceland’s products I hadn’t seen or tried  befo...

*Note: The brown of this jacket is perhaps a little browner and lighter than the pictures suggest. A picture of the skin itself has been added at the bottom of this piece to demonstrate. Thanks* During the recent pop-up shop on Savile Row, the most a...

Rag Parade in Sheffield sells quite a lot of ‘modern’ vintage clothing (let’s call it 1980 onwards, for the sake of argument) as well as more standard militaria and workwear from earlier decades.  I was interested to know what the appeal was.?...

When I first had a bespoke suit made at Anderson & Sheppard, 12 years ago, the head cutter John Hitchcock made a paper pattern for me.  This pattern is one of the fundamentals of what makes bespoke, bespoke. Or rather, it’s the fact that the p...

This jacket from Sartoria Pirozzi doesn’t really need a normal review.  The point of it was to cover the tailor again because they are now coming to London frequently, having taken a share of a space in Shepherd Market.  And it was to check the q...

Having tried so many tailors and shoemakers, I am often asked to compare them. With bespoke shoes, the most common question is which maker achieved the best fit. However, the fit often doesn’t vary that much, and most importantly (perhaps depressin...

 A few months ago, I got to know Tim Little – the owner of the Grenson factory in Northampton and of his own eponymous shoe brand (pictured above, on the left). Not only has Tim been a modernising influence in Northampton ever since he took over ...

The older I get, the more I wear well-made clothes, and (most importantly) the more I think about clothes, the simpler I seem to dress. I am rarely without my navy grenadine tie. I now have Crispaire trousers in three different shades of grey. Every...

The hatch-grain loafers I commissioned with Gaziano & Girling back in 2012 have consistently been among my favourite shoes - both for me and for readers. The mid-brown colour is tremendously versatile (everything from cream to mid-grey trousers...