The Tailor's Tales: Timothy Everest
The British bespoke suitmaker behind the costumes for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy tells how vintage cinema has inspired his work
As told to Estella Shardlow on Wednesday 14th September, 2011
Everest is one of the brightest lights in the new generation of bespoke tailors bringing the fine heritage of Savile Row to a contemporary audience. Since opening his own atelier in Spitalfields, east London 20 years ago, he's made suits for everyone from the Kaiser Chiefs to David Beckham, not to mention dressing the casts of Mission Impossible and Atonement. Now he's turned curator, collaborating with the Fashion and Textile Museum on a new exhibition about the original rebel on the Row, Tommy Nutter, who first introduced a young Everest to the craft of tailoring.
When I moved to London to work at Nutters of Savile Row I thought that I was terribly worldly - I actually I lived on the west coast of Wales but used to drive up to the city at weekends to go partying. Then I came to Savile Row and realised I was very naive, the others at Nutter’s used to pull my leg about it. It was an incredibly interesting environment with people like John Galliano on placement from St Martin’s, so we were running round with quite a racy crowd.
Tommy was sort of my university, he explained a lot to me about different art and design movements and so on. He was also incredibly generous. I would poke my head up every so often and leave a sketch there for him, and from that I ended up designing for Elton John’s world tour when I was just 20 or 21.
We’ve all looked back at the past and reinterpreted it for the future as designers, looking at vintage to create a ‘look’. Growing up in the 80s that Armani deconstructed Matinee Idol look was starting to take off and I use to collect a lot of 40s clothing - I was a lot smaller then and used to wear the clothes four sizes too big.
Tommy was always a big collector of things. He especially liked Art Deco and collected Clarice Cliff pottery and had a lot of colourful Art Deco mirrors. Tommy’s collecting definitely inspired him. He was always off on the markets at weekends and he would come back with trinkets, I remember one day he came back with a dozen different vintage handkerchiefs. You can see that 20s and 30s influence in his designs, in a lot of his jackets where he dropped the length, it was a 70s interpretation of that era.
When I started my business I was very interested in the 60s aesthetic because I’d come out of that Armani-esque, Continental draping phase and I wanted to do slim silhouettes again. I was interested in more colour and what tailors like Dougie Hayward had done. I was always a great admirer of Comme des Garcons too. I sort of grew up with them as they started to take off and I think their approach to tailoring is inspirational. Classic films like The Italian Job and The Thomas Crown Affair, which I’d watched in my late teens, were also a big influence.
He would always mix things up and break the rules; if red and green were never to be seen we’d try and do those things, whereas a lot of people attempt by numbers and need everything to match. In the late 60s when most people were wearing a slim cut dark suit with slicked back hair, Tommy was feather cutting his hair himself and cutting huge lapels with huge trousers, so it was totally opposite to convention.
His approach was to look at something very traditional in a totally different way, like the historical idea of an English gentleman: he might do a correct suit, but the sock, the tie or the cufflink doesn’t quite go, and yet the whole look works. It’s that English eccentricity. You do some of your best work when you narrow the goal posts and look at the detail.
As Cilla Black said the other night, Tommy probably wouldn’t have spoken at his own exhibition opening. He was actually a very modest person. It was infectious because, although at some points he was seen as very much a celebrity, it never went to his head. He could put people at their ease and give them confidence to try something different.
My favourite piece in the exhibition is probably the Ringo Starr double tweed jacket, in a lovely Prince of Wales check with a short collar, patch pockets and the classic Tommy Nutter convex shoulder. Also the Elton John black and white tail suit I designed for Wembley. At the time I thought it was fabulous, even if it now looks a little dated, it was just really wild to draw something and the next minute Elton is wearing it on a massive sell-out tour.
Bespoke tailoring is about interpreting personalities. It frustrates me when people asked, ‘So what’s your look?’ I have things that I like, but bespoke is about individuality for differently aged people with different sized bodies and different day jobs.
A classic example is one client who I’d seen turn up on his old motorbike, wearing a leather jacket and looking like a young Marlon Brando from On the Waterfront. A bit of a rocker. He had to go into a studio to raise a million pounds and he said ‘they’re never going to take me seriously’. I noticed he was into Rock ‘n’ Roll so I decided to create a sort of 'Teddy boy meets Edwardian gunslinger' look! So what we did was use some very traditional fabrics, like pinstripe and herringbone, and put him in a formal shirt and tie, but we cut the jacket a bit longer and he wore a very big belt buckle with silver and turquoise from India and I advised him to wear some motorcycle boots too. When he sat down he looked like a businessmen then he got up they noticed there was something else about him. It was about showing respect for the formality of the situation but not giving up the fact that he would much rather go round in a biker’s jacket and a pair of jeans. It was about making it work for him.
I used to be a stylist for a while, so I’m very particular about what accessories people wear, even down to fragrance. A lot of people forget that it’s all part of the package. The detail’s very important; whether it’s the way you fold your handkerchief or tie your laces.
There’s a renewed interest in bespoke tailoring in the generation coming along now as more people actually want to invest in really good pieces now rather than just buying ‘stuff’. Stemming from this post-2008 ‘make do and mend’ concept there’s a great, renewed interest in individuality and craft. My vision for the last decade was that more people would have things made. It was more difficult when we started but more relevant now.
If you’d asked me in October 2008 if I thought we’d sell any bespoke tailoring in the last year I’d have admitted it looked very worrying. However, the consumer buying less but buying better actually worked well for us, just as it worked well for Tommy in the early 80s. People need to understand why they should invest say £3000, the price of a small second hand car, in a suit. When they recognise the value they will buy, even when things are very difficult.
I think Savile Row is fantastic and there’s been a great renaissance over the last 20 years. That’s why something like the Tommy Nutter exhibition is relevant because the clothes look relevant now and we can see elements of that in clothing today so hopefully it’ll stimulate the next generation. I think it’s very vital that people work together on the Row to promote it as one and also have their own point of difference. It’s important that they collectively pull together and promote all things British and tailoring.
