The Style & Sound of Edward Sexton

Who is Edward Sexton? In short, and in my opinion, Edward Sexton is a redoubtable trailblazer tailor who along with his late partner Tommy Nutter, revolutionized not only Savile Row but much of the movements that happened in both elegant men’s and women’s tailoring during the 60’s-70’s.

No longer of Savile Row he sees his clients by appointment only out of his studio in Beauchamp Place, a fashionable shopping street in the Knightsbridge district of London.

Whilst sieving through the annals of Savile Row history during my downtime on a recent trip to the Philippines, I kept circling and underlining inspirational comments, glib remarks and cool turns of phrase that Edward Sexton used in his social commentary. I’d love to interview the man personally one day so if you’re out there Edward and you’re reading this, have your people call my people and we’ll do lunch.

In the mean time I thought I’d corral all my favourites in a mini listicle for your amusement.

·     I knew to develop oneself and to express yourself and to make the styles to create the work you wanted, you had to go outside. So I started moonlighting.

·     To make the same style day in day out, is wonderful but to keep the edge you need to challenge yourself all the time.

·     When we had a window display all the old guys freaked out, they said ‘give them 6 months’. (And they’ll be out of business).

·     What made us was the quality and the style and Tommy wearing it socially and we attracted a lot of ink.

·     My philosophy is that a client should wear the garment, the garment should never wear the client.

·     Romancing IS accessories. You can make the most beautiful suit and put it on somebody but unless it accessorized correctly it won’t work. And some people need a lot of accessorizing.

·     Ringo was different again he didn’t say a lot until it was finished and we realised he wanted a double breasted instead of a single breasted.

·     I like sophisticated elegant clothing it’s what I stand for. That’s what I do for a living it’s what I’ve done all my life and I don’t suppose I’ll be changing.