№ I
A.D. MDCCCVI
Frontispiece

Henry Poole & Co.

Bespoke tailors. Founding house of Savile Row. Forty royal warrants. Two hundred and twenty years of cloth, cut, and continuity.

What follows is the continuous ledger of Henry Poole & Co., taken faithfully from the one hundred and twenty hand-inscribed customer books begun in MDCCCXLVI, restored from water-damage and oil-bomb fall in MCMXL, rebound at The Wyvern Bindery in Clerkenwell, and never out of the family's hand since.

№ II
A.D. MDCCCLX
A short evening jacket

The garment that would later be known, in New York, as a tuxedo.

For His Royal Highness Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Henry cuts a short evening jacket — to be worn at informal Sandringham dinners, in place of the long-tailed evening coat. In MDCCCLXXXVI the Prince invites James Brown Potter of Tuxedo Park, New York, to Sandringham, and recommends he have the jacket made by his tailor at fifteen Savile Row. Potter wears it at the Tuxedo Club. The members copy it. The garment takes the club's name and not the cutter's; the cutter does not mind.

ClientHRH the Prince of Wales ClothBlack silk barathea, satin facing Cut byH. Poole, at the bench Note"For Sandringham. Short. Informal."
№ III
MDCCCXLVI — MMXXVI
The Roll · a selection of hands

From the surviving customer ledgers, two thousand and more — a brief excerpt, in the order their names were inscribed.

  1. № 06,141Charles DickensMDCCCLXIV · grey morning coat
  2. № 07,318HIM Tsar Alexander II of RussiaMDCCCLXVI · indigo broadcloth
  3. № 09,447William F. Cody · "Buffalo Bill"MDCCCLXXXVII · fawn doeskin
  4. № 09,710President Ulysses S. GrantMDCCCLXXVII · charcoal worsted
  5. № 11,884HM King Chulalongkorn of SiamMCMVII · ivory ceremonial
  6. № 12,401Louis Comfort TiffanyMCMXI · velvet smoking jacket
  7. № 13,118Sir Winston S. ChurchillMCMXIX · navy worsted, three-piece
  8. № 13,529HM Emperor Hirohito of JapanMCMXXI · midnight tailcoat
  9. № 14,176Charles de GaulleMCMXLI · officer's khaki, in exile

And, between these, the names of two thousand more — bankers, painters, soldiers, sopranos — each entered in his or her own hand by the cutter of the day.

№ IV
A.D. MCMXL · the Blitz
An oil bomb at thirty-seven

The ledgers, mouldy, water-damaged, and covered in red dust, lay overlooked for several decades.

In the autumn of MCMXL, an oil bomb falls on thirty-seven and thirty-nine Savile Row. The customer ledgers — one hundred and thirty hand-inscribed books, each a thousand pages, the most complete record of bespoke tailoring on earth — survive water, mould, and the slow disintegration of their original leather. They are forgotten in their tin trunks for the better part of forty years.

In the late twentieth century, the Cundey family approach The Wyvern Bindery in Clerkenwell. Each book is taken apart, its pages cleaned by hand, and the whole rebound in calf and gilt. The curator James Sherwood spends five years reading them page by page. He catalogues two thousand celebrated hands.

This site is, in the end, a small portal onto that catalogue.

№ V
A.D. MMXXVI
Colophon

For an introduction, a measurement, or a journey to fifteen Savile Row —

tailors@henrypoole.com

or +44 (0) 20 7734 5985, between Monday and Friday.

MarkHenry Poole & Co.
Address15 Savile Row, London W1S 3PJ
Telephone+44 20 7734 5985
Coordinates51°30′44″N · 0°08′28″W

Composed at fifteen Savile Row, set in Newsreader & IBM Plex Mono. Inscribed in iron-gall on vellum cream. Bound and rebound by The Wyvern Bindery, Clerkenwell. © MDCCCVI — MMXXVI.