Tailor and Master Cutter Richard Anderson is celebrating 25 years of his bespoke business at 13 Savile Row, Mayfair. TheIndustry.fashion reports that when it opened in 2001 with business partner Brian Lishak, it was the first bespoke tailoring business to open on the street in 50 years.
From Huntsman to number 13
Anderson joined Huntsman as an apprentice in 1982 and rose to Head Cutter. He left in 2000, a year after the business was sold to a consortium of 17 investors, saying he did not think it would be looked after in the way he had been trained. He saw room for a brand positioned between the very traditional houses and the newer names, keeping the quality but adding modern flair.
Money was tight at the start. Anderson said he cut in his garage while Lishak rented a desk on New Burlington Street, with four children under six and a large mortgage at home. In his words, "It was foot down and make it work."
RICH's ready-to-wear
The shop below the bespoke premises is now home to RICH's, a standalone ready-to-wear business launched in full in spring 2025. Anderson's workshop is at the back. The label grew out of about 20 years of ready-to-wear under the Richard Anderson name, which began with one single-breasted and one double-breasted blazer. The pieces are made with a factory in Italy.
Ready-to-wear sales have doubled year on year, according to the report, and now make up around 25 to 30 per cent of the business. Plans include a dedicated website, possible wholesale, and perhaps another standalone store elsewhere. A women's ready-to-wear line is hoped for later this year. Prices mentioned include:
- Raincoats: £1,050
- Japanese denim jeans, made on old looms: £565
- Colourful cord trousers: £245
Safari-style jackets, linen for summer and tweed or cotton for autumn and winter, are also proving popular. A made-to-measure service is available too.
Bespoke today
Anderson describes his house cut as based on a riding coat, using the Thornton System of cutting, which dates to the 1880s. He said the armholes are high, the pockets and vents sit slightly higher, and the sleeve head has no rope. The aim is a garment that makes the wearer look a little taller and slimmer.
He said customers are more diverse than when he started in the early 1980s, which was largely aristocratic clients and American businessmen. Around half of the business is export, mostly to the United States, and the team travels there three times a year. Current trends include suits in less formal cloth such as corduroy, worn without a tie.
His daughter Molly joined in 2019, starting front of house before learning cutting during the Covid closures. She now does pattern work and is building her own client list. Anderson said interest in women's bespoke has grown, and the shop now offers suits, coats, jackets, trousers and skirt suits for women.
Anderson's book Making The Cut (2017, Thames & Hudson) is on sale in the shop at £29.95.
Photo: a_marga, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
