The Beatles and The
Rolling Stones have been household names since they burst onto the
international music scene in the 60’s. The Beatles were seen as leaders and the
Stones did their best to imitate, or outdo them but never really managed to
achieve either. They had little in common, but shared the same Savile Row
tailor Tommy Nutter, who like the Beatles was in a league of his own, allied
with another famous name to be, Edward Sexton,
they took Savile Row by storm. Tommy shunned the ultra conservative,
somewhat stuffy atmosphere, inherent of Savile Row for centuries and set about
changing its face forever.
In 1966Tommy
Nutter and Edward Sexton met as sales boy and cutter respectively at Donaldson,
Williams & Ward in The Burlington Arcade. They went on to form the most
creative partnership in Savile Row's history. Their legacy is carried forth by
Timothy Everest and Richard James, both apprentices to Tommy Nutter. And the
remaining partner Edward Sexton.
In 1969 Nutters
of Savile Row opened on Valentine's Day and unleashed the Tommy Nutter/Edward
Sexton style on swinging London.
Backed by Cilla Black and The Beatles' record company Apple's executive Peter
Brown, Nutters of Savile Row dressed the entire social spectrum from the Duke
of Bedford and Lord Montague to Mick and Bianca Jagger and The Beatles.
You may remember the groundbreaking album “Sergeant Peppers Lonely
Hearts Club Band" it shook the music industry to its very foundation, nothing
like it had ever been done. It was the first concept album ever and introduced
a totally new style of popular rock and roll. No one has been able to produce
anything that matches the combined effect it had on music, hairstyle, graphic
art style and clothing style. On the cover the “Fab Four" don colourful suits,
which became known as the military style and developed by Tommy Nutter. The
style has been revived many times over, more recently in 2005- 2006.
Nutters were the first shop on Savile Row to pioneer 'open
windows' and wild displays executed by Simon Doonan, which must have been a
slap in the face for traditionalists at the time.
Tommy Nutter died in 1992. As a fitting epitaph, one of
Nutter's final commissions was the outlandish purple suit Jack Nicholson wore
playing The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman Returns. That same year Richard James, the first of the 'New Generation'
tailors, opened a shop on Savile Row. James introduced Saturday opening (a
revolution on Savile Row) and a fashionable edge not seen since The House of
Nutter's glory days.
His demise marked the end of an era and the beginning of
another, lead by Richard James, Ozwald Boateng and Timothy Everest, labelled as
architects and leading practitioners of the new bespoke movement Savile Row. With
all due respect, Tommy Nutter is a very difficult act to follow. He was the
original architect of the new bespoke movement. Using the Beatles and the
Rolling Stones as vehicles he catapulted his style creations onto the international
arena with unabashed zestful ease.
Credit must also go to non Savile Row participants of a
later era. Vivian Westwood rocked the fashion world as much as punk rock did. Punk
bands adopted her styles forming a similar coalition to that of the Beatles and
Tommy Nutter. |
