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retailers trying to muscle in on the Savile Row cachet by setting up shop in the neighborhood and advertising what they called “bespoke” garments, when what they were actually selling were clothes being made by machines in offshorefactories—and then shipped back to London. They weren’t necessarily terrible suits, but, the tailors claimed, they most definitely were not Savile Row bespoke.
    They decided the time had come to fight back. Led by Mark Henderson, the deputy chairman of Gieves & Hawkes, a core group of tailors banded together in 2004 to form the Savile Row Bespoke Association. They also hired a PR firm—a remarkable step for people whose purpose had always been to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. They registered the trademark “Savile Row Bespoke” and created a label that set out to do for tailored garments what France’s terroir-designating
Appelation d’Origine Contrôlée
did for wine and cheese. To be worthy of the label, the garment had to meet the association’s strict criteria. Among other things, it would have to be from a shop that offered a choice of more than two thousand fabrics and had an expert cloth consultant on the premises. It also had to be produced with at least fifty hours of handwork and several fittings, made from scratch from an individual pattern created by a master cutter, and sewn by tailors who were based in England.
    To address the skills gap and the aging of the tradesmen, the group launched an apprenticeship scheme designed to get young people to take up the tape measures and shears. They inaugurated a bespoke tailoring course in association with a local college, upon completion of which students could apply for an SRBA-funded apprenticeship on Savile Row. They also appealed to the local government to acknowledge Savile Row as a national treasure worthy of special zoning laws.
    “We’re one hundred yards off Bond Street, which is the most expensive retail space in the world,” Henderson told me. “And we had working tailors in our basements. We had to figure out a way to stop development.” After a lengthy study, the WestminsterCouncil concluded that Savile Row should be designated a Special Policy area, which meant that workshop space would be protected for the use of tailors only.
    An attempt to legally reclaim the word “bespoke” was less successful. A disgruntled customer brought a complaint to the British Advertising Standards Authority against a Swiss-owned company called Sartoriani, which had set up a small office and showroom in the basement at 10 Savile Row. Sartoriani advertised “bespoke” suits, “uniquely made according to your personal measurements and specifications”—at one-fourth the price of a suit from a traditional tailor. While customers were, in fact, having their measurements taken on Savile Row, the garments were being machine-cut and sewn in Germany. (Sartoriani never claimed otherwise.) Not fair, the complaint said—and certainly not “bespoke.” The ASA, however, sided with Sartoriani. To most people, it said, “bespoke” had simply come to mean “made for you.” It didn’t matter whether it was a $5,000 suit made by hand on Savile Row or a $400 suit made by a robot in China.
    “You are looking at the difference between a fine painting and a print,” a disappointed Henderson told a reporter after the ruling.
    The word “bespoke,” at the same time, was well on its way to becoming a buzzword used by all kinds of businesses. Suddenly, there were bespoke salad bars, bespoke investment groups, bespoke bicycles, bespoke walking tours, bespoke cupcakes, bespoke headphones, bespoke headboards, bespoke toilet seats—even something called Bespoke Hair Artisans, which managed to incorporate not one but two trendy words into its name when it opened its doors in Edina, Minnesota.Looking at the popularity of the term, a May 2012
Wall Street Journal
article noted that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office listed