Tailoring has never existed in isolation. Look closely at any decade and the shape of a jacket, the width of a trouser or the way a suit is worn tells you something about the culture surrounding it.
Music changes proportions. Film creates icons. Artists challenge ideas of taste. Television takes styles that once belonged to small subcultures and introduces them to millions of people.
The result is that tailoring becomes a record of its time.
For us, this relationship between clothing and culture has always been an important source of inspiration. When developing both our Ready-to-Wear and Made-to-Order collections, we rarely look at tailoring alone. We are just as interested in the person wearing it, the music they might have listened to, the films they watched, the interiors they inhabited and the wider attitude of the period.
The 1970s, 80s and 90s are particularly rich reference points because each decade produced a completely different interpretation of what tailoring could be.
The 1970s: Individuality Takes Over
The 1970s were a period when traditional ideas about menswear began to loosen.
The conservative suit had dominated much of the postwar period, but by the beginning of the decade a new generation wanted clothing that felt more individual. Tailoring became softer, more expressive and, at times, more flamboyant.
Trousers widened. Lapels grew. Jackets became longer. Shirts were worn with larger collars and more buttons undone. Velvet, corduroy, suede and richly textured wools entered wardrobes alongside traditional worsted cloth.
Music was central to this transformation.
Rock, soul, funk, disco and the emerging punk movement each created their own interpretation of tailoring. David Bowie could take the language of a traditional suit and make it feel alien and theatrical. Bryan Ferry approached tailoring with a different kind of elegance, mixing old-world eveningwear with the attitude of contemporary music.
Elsewhere, musicians wore tailoring casually, combining jackets with denim, knitwear and open-neck shirts. The suit was no longer simply a uniform for work. It became something that could communicate identity.
Film offered another version of the decade.
Think of Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby, the understated Italian American tailoring ofΒ The Godfather films, or the relaxed wardrobe surrounding the Hollywood of the period. These clothes were often elegant without feeling pristine.
That distinction continues to influence the way we think about tailoring.
We are drawn to garments that feel as though they have already developed a relationship with the wearer. Soft shoulders, fuller trousers, textured cloth and jackets that work just as naturally with denim as matching trousers all owe something to the ease of the 1970s.
The 1980s: Tailoring Gets Bigger
If the 1970s were about individuality, the 1980s were about presence.
Everything became stronger.
Shoulders broadened. Jackets grew more architectural. Double-breasted tailoring returned with confidence. Trousers were fuller and often higher waisted. The suit once again became a symbol of authority, but it was very different from the restrained business clothing of previous generations.
Culture amplified the silhouette.
In music, artists moved between sharp tailoring and complete extravagance. New Wave and New Romantic musicians treated suits as part of their visual identity, while hip-hop began taking traditional ideas of luxury and status and reinterpreting them for a completely different audience.
Art was becoming equally bold. The worlds surrounding Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and the downtown New York scene blurred the distinction between formal clothing, streetwear and creative expression. A suit could be worn with a T-shirt, trainers or paint on the sleeve and somehow become more interesting because of it.
Television brought another interpretation into people's homes.
Miami Vice transformed the idea of the suit by removing much of its formality. Pastel tailoring, relaxed jackets, T-shirts and loafers created an image of tailoring suited to heat and nightlife rather than offices and boardrooms.
At the other end of the spectrum, Wall Street helped establish the oversized double-breasted suit as a symbol of corporate ambition.
The two looks could hardly have been more different, yet both demonstrated the same thing: tailoring had become a way of constructing an identity.
It is something we continue to reference today. A stronger shoulder, a fuller double-breasted jacket or a generously cut trouser can immediately change the attitude of a garment.
The key is borrowing the confidence of the decade without recreating it literally.
The 1990s: Everything Relaxes
The 1990s changed the mood again.
After the excess of the previous decade, menswear became quieter. Tailoring softened, colours became more restrained and the relationship between formal and casual clothing became increasingly blurred.
Film is perhaps the clearest record of this shift.
There is the relaxed Italian American tailoring ofΒ Goodfellas, the beautifully controlled wardrobes of The Talented Mr. Ripley at the end of the decade, and the minimalism that ran through European and American cinema.
Then there was television.
Friends is an unexpectedly useful menswear reference. Look beyond the familiarity of the programme and you find oversized tailoring, pleated trousers, suede jackets, knit polos, loafers and relaxed shirting that would look entirely at home in contemporary collections.
The same can be said of Seinfeld. Its proportions now feel remarkably current: fuller trousers, generous outerwear and clothes that sit naturally rather than hugging the body.
Music pushed things further.
Britpop mixed tailoring with sportswear and military references. Hip-hop embraced increasingly oversized proportions. Grunge rejected obvious formality altogether, but its influence encouraged clothing to become looser, softer and less precious.
The interesting result was not the disappearance of tailoring. It was its liberation.
A tailored jacket no longer needed matching trousers. Formal trousers could be worn with trainers. A suit could be deliberately oversized. Traditional menswear pieces became ingredients rather than rules.
That idea remains fundamental to the way many men dress today.
Taking Inspiration Rather Than Recreating
Looking backwards can easily become costume.
For us, the more interesting approach is to understand why something worked in the first place.
We might look at a 1970s photograph and notice the relationship between a wider lapel and a softer shoulder. An 1980s jacket might inspire the proportion of a double-breasted style without requiring the extreme shoulder padding of the original. A pair of 1990s trousers might influence the rise, pleats and width of a contemporary trouser.
The reference is there, but it does not need to be obvious.
This thinking feeds naturally into both our Ready to Wear and Made to Order collections.
Within RTW, cultural references can influence the overall silhouette of a season: the width of a trouser, the length of a jacket, the choice of cloth or the way pieces are styled together.
Made to Order allows us to explore those references on a more personal level.
One customer might be drawn to the relaxed glamour of 1970s tailoring and choose a wider lapel, soft construction and textured cloth. Another might prefer the authority of an 1980s double-breasted jacket. Someone else may want the understated looseness of the 1990s, expressed through fuller trousers and a more relaxed jacket.
None of them need to look as though they are dressed for a particular decade.
The objective is to take the character of those periods and translate it into clothes that make sense now.
The Importance of Looking Beyond Fashion
Some of the most interesting references for clothing come from outside fashion entirely.
An album cover can suggest a colour combination. A film can change the way you think about proportion. A painting might influence a fabric palette. A photograph of a musician leaving a recording studio can sometimes provide more inspiration than an entire runway collection.
That is because clothing becomes more interesting when it is seen in context.
The suit worn perfectly in a fashion photograph tells us one thing. The same suit worn late at night by a musician, creased through the elbows and with the tie removed, tells us something entirely different.
It has acquired personality.
This is ultimately what keeps us returning to the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Not because we want to reproduce those decades, but because they remind us that tailoring is never simply about tailoring.
It is about the culture around it.
Music, art, film and television give clothes context. They show us how tailoring can be worn, misused, personalised and made relevant to a new generation.
The strongest references survive because they can be interpreted again and again.
A wider trouser. A stronger shoulder. A softer jacket. A generous lapel.
The details may come from the past, but the clothes should always belong to the person wearing them now.
How Culture Shapes Tailoring
Tailoring has never existed in isolation. Look closely at any decade and the shape of a jacket, the width of a trouser or the way a suit is worn tells you something about the culture surrounding it.
Music changes proportions. Film creates icons. Artists challenge ideas of taste. Television takes styles that once belonged to small subcultures and introduces them to millions of people.
The result is that tailoring becomes a record of its time.
For us, this relationship between clothing and culture has always been an important source of inspiration. When developing both our Ready-to-Wear and Made-to-Order collections, we rarely look at tailoring alone. We are just as interested in the person wearing it, the music they might have listened to, the films they watched, the interiors they inhabited and the wider attitude of the period.
The 1970s, 80s and 90s are particularly rich reference points because each decade produced a completely different interpretation of what tailoring could be.
The 1970s: Individuality Takes Over
The 1970s were a period when traditional ideas about menswear began to loosen.
The conservative suit had dominated much of the postwar period, but by the beginning of the decade a new generation wanted clothing that felt more individual. Tailoring became softer, more expressive and, at times, more flamboyant.
Trousers widened. Lapels grew. Jackets became longer. Shirts were worn with larger collars and more buttons undone. Velvet, corduroy, suede and richly textured wools entered wardrobes alongside traditional worsted cloth.
Music was central to this transformation.
Rock, soul, funk, disco and the emerging punk movement each created their own interpretation of tailoring. David Bowie could take the language of a traditional suit and make it feel alien and theatrical. Bryan Ferry approached tailoring with a different kind of elegance, mixing old-world eveningwear with the attitude of contemporary music.
Elsewhere, musicians wore tailoring casually, combining jackets with denim, knitwear and open-neck shirts. The suit was no longer simply a uniform for work. It became something that could communicate identity.
Film offered another version of the decade.
Think of Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby, the understated Italian American tailoring ofΒ The Godfather films, or the relaxed wardrobe surrounding the Hollywood of the period. These clothes were often elegant without feeling pristine.
That distinction continues to influence the way we think about tailoring.
We are drawn to garments that feel as though they have already developed a relationship with the wearer. Soft shoulders, fuller trousers, textured cloth and jackets that work just as naturally with denim as matching trousers all owe something to the ease of the 1970s.
The 1980s: Tailoring Gets Bigger
If the 1970s were about individuality, the 1980s were about presence.
Everything became stronger.
Shoulders broadened. Jackets grew more architectural. Double-breasted tailoring returned with confidence. Trousers were fuller and often higher waisted. The suit once again became a symbol of authority, but it was very different from the restrained business clothing of previous generations.
Culture amplified the silhouette.
In music, artists moved between sharp tailoring and complete extravagance. New Wave and New Romantic musicians treated suits as part of their visual identity, while hip-hop began taking traditional ideas of luxury and status and reinterpreting them for a completely different audience.
Art was becoming equally bold. The worlds surrounding Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and the downtown New York scene blurred the distinction between formal clothing, streetwear and creative expression. A suit could be worn with a T-shirt, trainers or paint on the sleeve and somehow become more interesting because of it.
Television brought another interpretation into people's homes.
Miami Vice transformed the idea of the suit by removing much of its formality. Pastel tailoring, relaxed jackets, T-shirts and loafers created an image of tailoring suited to heat and nightlife rather than offices and boardrooms.
At the other end of the spectrum, Wall Street helped establish the oversized double-breasted suit as a symbol of corporate ambition.
The two looks could hardly have been more different, yet both demonstrated the same thing: tailoring had become a way of constructing an identity.
It is something we continue to reference today. A stronger shoulder, a fuller double-breasted jacket or a generously cut trouser can immediately change the attitude of a garment.
The key is borrowing the confidence of the decade without recreating it literally.
The 1990s: Everything Relaxes
The 1990s changed the mood again.
After the excess of the previous decade, menswear became quieter. Tailoring softened, colours became more restrained and the relationship between formal and casual clothing became increasingly blurred.
Film is perhaps the clearest record of this shift.
There is the relaxed Italian American tailoring ofΒ Goodfellas, the beautifully controlled wardrobes of The Talented Mr. Ripley at the end of the decade, and the minimalism that ran through European and American cinema.
Then there was television.
Friends is an unexpectedly useful menswear reference. Look beyond the familiarity of the programme and you find oversized tailoring, pleated trousers, suede jackets, knit polos, loafers and relaxed shirting that would look entirely at home in contemporary collections.
The same can be said of Seinfeld. Its proportions now feel remarkably current: fuller trousers, generous outerwear and clothes that sit naturally rather than hugging the body.
Music pushed things further.
Britpop mixed tailoring with sportswear and military references. Hip-hop embraced increasingly oversized proportions. Grunge rejected obvious formality altogether, but its influence encouraged clothing to become looser, softer and less precious.
The interesting result was not the disappearance of tailoring. It was its liberation.
A tailored jacket no longer needed matching trousers. Formal trousers could be worn with trainers. A suit could be deliberately oversized. Traditional menswear pieces became ingredients rather than rules.
That idea remains fundamental to the way many men dress today.
Taking Inspiration Rather Than Recreating
Looking backwards can easily become costume.
For us, the more interesting approach is to understand why something worked in the first place.
We might look at a 1970s photograph and notice the relationship between a wider lapel and a softer shoulder. An 1980s jacket might inspire the proportion of a double-breasted style without requiring the extreme shoulder padding of the original. A pair of 1990s trousers might influence the rise, pleats and width of a contemporary trouser.
The reference is there, but it does not need to be obvious.
This thinking feeds naturally into both our Ready to Wear and Made to Order collections.
Within RTW, cultural references can influence the overall silhouette of a season: the width of a trouser, the length of a jacket, the choice of cloth or the way pieces are styled together.
Made to Order allows us to explore those references on a more personal level.
One customer might be drawn to the relaxed glamour of 1970s tailoring and choose a wider lapel, soft construction and textured cloth. Another might prefer the authority of an 1980s double-breasted jacket. Someone else may want the understated looseness of the 1990s, expressed through fuller trousers and a more relaxed jacket.
None of them need to look as though they are dressed for a particular decade.
The objective is to take the character of those periods and translate it into clothes that make sense now.
The Importance of Looking Beyond Fashion
Some of the most interesting references for clothing come from outside fashion entirely.
An album cover can suggest a colour combination. A film can change the way you think about proportion. A painting might influence a fabric palette. A photograph of a musician leaving a recording studio can sometimes provide more inspiration than an entire runway collection.
That is because clothing becomes more interesting when it is seen in context.
The suit worn perfectly in a fashion photograph tells us one thing. The same suit worn late at night by a musician, creased through the elbows and with the tie removed, tells us something entirely different.
It has acquired personality.
This is ultimately what keeps us returning to the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Not because we want to reproduce those decades, but because they remind us that tailoring is never simply about tailoring.
It is about the culture around it.
Music, art, film and television give clothes context. They show us how tailoring can be worn, misused, personalised and made relevant to a new generation.
The strongest references survive because they can be interpreted again and again.
A wider trouser. A stronger shoulder. A softer jacket. A generous lapel.
The details may come from the past, but the clothes should always belong to the person wearing them now.