Savile Row is preparing for the Charles bounce. The Prince of Wales may have been in the public eye for all of his 74 years, but his coming coronation is expected to bring boom times for British tailoring. After all, Charles has long been a regular on ‘best dressed’ lists. His preferred look — draped, wide-lapelled double-breasted suits without pocket-flaps, thank you — may be nothing to scare the guardsmen’s horses, but it is a signature of consistency and, as one might expect from the King, class.
“It’s important to us to have someone who wears his clothes so beautifully,” says Anda Rowland, the owner of Anderson & Sheppard, the royal warrant holders who remain, alongside Gieves & Hawkes, Charles’s go-to tailors. “This is less about being some dandy as presenting well, as understanding the need for a working wardrobe. He has shown how to wear, say, a blue suit in multiple ways without looking repetitive, given the endless photos taken of him and occasions he must attend. It shows how ‘classic’ can go a long way when you’re very strong with accessories, if you have taste. That global image of the English gentleman is still in large part a product of the King and the royal family.”
It’s hard to appreciate how important the men of the royal household once were to setting the nation’s dress standards.
Here, after all, is a man who is known to change maybe five times a day — as the occasion demands —
