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Fitting at 3 a.m. English tailor-made suits carry no labels, and the firms themselves seldom, if ever, advertise, prefer to prosper by word of mouth. The remark, "My London tailor's in town," quietly passed along among friends, seems to work wonders. J. C. Wells Ltd. sent its first traveling man to the U.S. in 1927 on a "prestige visit," was surprised when he came back with 100 orders; this year Wells's man, A.S. Richardson, brought back 1,000 orders, an increase of 200 over five years ago. Henry Poole & Co. has American family accounts going back to the 1880s (one of the partners survived the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania); today 40% of Poole's total orders are from the U.S.
Not only are American businessmen good credit risks ("Some even pay twice by mistake," marveled one Briton), but they are also overwhelmingly hospitable. "They kill us with kindness," protested one tailor, who finds himself invited out for dinner and away for weekends. In London, he might be invited in for a drink at most, and that only if he delivered a suit personally. In return, the Englishmen go all out to satisfy their customers. Traveling Partner Frederick Lintott of H. Huntsman & Sons, which specializes in hunting pinks and riding clothes, recalls vividly being awakened at 3 a.m. in his Biltmore suite in Manhattan by a Southern belle who wanted a hacking jacket fitted. Mr. Lintott sleepily obliged. "She was well escorted," he adds primly.
Magic Ingredient. Kilgour, French & Stanbury, whose clients include Novelist Patrick Dennis, David Merrick and CBS Chairman William Paley, thought nothing of fitting two vicuna overcoats for a 20th Century-Fox executive in the VIP lounge of the London Airport while he was between planes. Boston Symphony Orchestra Conductor Erich Leinsdorf remembers that "whenever I played at Festival Hall, Stanbury would go there and study my motions so he could improve my full-dress suit."
The only problem after an American has received his handmade Savile Row suit is how to care for it. U.S. cleaners, say the British tailors, machine-press suits on a standard form that tends to stamp out whatever shape was tailored in. But Huntsman, for one, has an answer for even that. Once a year or so, its customers send their suits back to London and Huntsman will have them wet-cleaned and pressed by hand, thus returning the suit to its original texture and shape. Huntsman's magic ingredient? Scotch river water.