Savile Row tailor joins pandemic effort

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When COVID-19 lockdown measures hit the United Kingdom in late March, veteran suit-maker Campbell Carey thought it would be some time before the nation's most talented tailors would return to their workshops on London's iconic Savile Row.

Yet Carey and his colleagues are now as busy as ever, temporarily pausing production on 6,000-pound ($7,450) bespoke suits and using their shears and needles instead to craft medical scrubs for health workers fighting the novel coronavirus outbreak.

"We heard about the real shortage of personal protective equipment and quite desperate stories of people in the National Health Service having to go home and wash their scrubs and wear them to work the next day still damp," said Carey, who is head cutter and creative director at bespoke tailoring house Huntsman.

Carey joined forces with James Sleater, director of fellow Savile Row firm Cad & The Dandy, to begin the initiative last month. So far, around 55 tailors have produced over 1,000 pairs of scrubs for the NHS, and orders are beginning to come in from abroad.

"We have had lots of people approach us, from as far afield as Germany and Switzerland," Carey said. "They are bringing back retired medical staff and then you have got the young student nurses and doctors who have been told, right, into the deep end. So that's where the shortage has come from, and I think it makes a real difference to be able to offer brand new scrubs."

Carey, who has worked on Savile Row for 21 years, says it has been good fun applying traditional bespoke tailoring techniques to more functional garments.

"These things are going through really high-temperature laundry, and will be worn and worked in. It's not like these people are peacocking in cashmere," he said. "These garments are going to get a kicking."

Carey says that while the tailors are working quickly, they refuse to cut corners and will only sign off on quality products that will last as long as the cotton they are made from.

'All about little details'

"Our tailors are perfectionists and when they are putting things together it's all about the little details," he said. "The seat seam of the trouser has to be double stitched, the side pockets on the trouser have to be reinforced. The two pockets on the front have to be double stitched, so they hold and stay put. They are really built to last."

Each of the Huntsman scrubs comes complete with a hand-stitched linen label bearing the branding of the 171-year-old company, which has made clothing for world leaders, including Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, and film stars through the decades, from Clark Gable to Hugh Grant.

The firm's Asia cutter Rob Bailey frequently travels to China to meet with clients that often pay upwards of 10,000 pounds for a bespoke suit.

"I've worked at Savile Row firms for two decades, and always regarded Huntsman as the jewel in the crown," Carey added. "You can spot a Huntsman suit anywhere in the world－you can see someone walking down Park Avenue in a suit, and know, without question, if they are wearing one of ours."

And would you be able to pick out Huntsman scrubs in a crowded hospital ward?

"I'm sure you could, and I hope you could with the work the team has put in," Carey said.