Friday 7 January 2011

Are you being served???

 At the weekend a good friend of mine asked me if I would lend a hand this week when he went to find a wedding suit and I jumped at the chance to help my chum out. He had seen a suit online from a powerhouse of English tailoring and wanted my eagle eye view on it. So we rocked up to the flagship store (I am not going to say who it is as this review is bad) and entered its lovely fine building on Regent's street. We made our way to the sale suit section and had a look. A few suit's took his eye as the online one was not there and after being in the store for about a good quarter of an hour we were finally approached. Now I am not a snob in fact I would say I am the opposite but the appearance of the sales women who came over was rather shocking (think Dorothy Perkins circa 1999 and you get the picture) she straight away told us that we would struggle to find anything now the sale was nearly over which is exactly what my pal wanted to hear with his wedding fast approaching.
I ended up slipping the jacket on him and showing him where it could be tweaked to get the best fit whilst the salesperson slouched on the counter looking bored and uninterested. What has happened to the service in these "high end" stores? The store was deathly quite and they could of taken full advantage of our situation (in need of a full outfit for a wedding) but just didn't have the staff our the know how to do so. Mr Humphrey would have been very disappointed!


We left the store deflated to say the least only then to find out it was pouring down outside and not a brolly between us. We headed for the only street in London that could live up to my high expectations: Savile Row. Now me and my pal had a budget of about a bag of sand for the full outfit which was going to be a bit of a stretch but I had faith in the sartorial Lord (in my head it's Tommy Nutter and Beau Brummell sat together having a bit of a love off. Not that Beau paid for anything of course.)
Wandering along my favourite place on earth nothing really took our eye until we hit upon Gary Anderson. I haven't really spent much time in Gary Anderson but as soon as we stepped through the door I got that nice feeling of "every things going to be alright now".

The chap in there came over  straight away asked us the usual questions and before we knew it my buddy was trying on a navy two piece, shirt and tie to match. The suit was just a little to dark in my opinion so we opted for a petrol blue number next and we were thrilled. Down from £999 to £700 and it fitted the bill perfectly with a sky blue shirt and navy knitted tie he looked more than the part . The nice chappie (who's name I did not get but I will trust me) was more than delight to be served by and a good time was had by all. Bravo indeed.