Dashing Tweeds

Posted on 2016/12/13 18:12:18 (December 2016).

[Friday 25th November 2016]
I took the day off work today, partly because I was a bit hungover following the previous evening's excesses, but also because I wanted to run various "errands" - if that's the right word - in St. James's, and since the office move from Victoria to King's Cross it has seemed just that bit too far away to get there and back in a lunchtime. Plus I always seem to end up being busy with other things at weekends.

I started by going to Dashing Tweeds, just off Savile Row, to be measured up for a new tweed suit. I think I've done rather well out of Walker Slater, having bought a total of 3 tweed suits from them. They're very reasonably priced, and I'm very fond of the suits I have from them, but I've got to the point now where I've run out of things to buy from them - the remaining suits they have are either just a bit too similar to what I have already or not quite to my taste. They don't seem to have updated the range for a while either. So it seemed like time to look a bit further afield. I have occasionally considered going back to Savile Row proper, where of course the world would be my oyster in terms of selection of cloth (and "my" tailor - Norton and Sons - has a particularly good range of tweeds) but the combination of the price and the lead time always puts me off. Having to wait 3 months requires more forward planning than I possess given the seasonality of tweed. Plus to add to all of that I wanted something really unique, and perhaps - gasp - even a bit of a break from the more traditional colour palette of tweeds.

So Dashing Tweeds seemed just the ticket. They weave all their own tweeds, to their own unique (and sometime very bold and unusual) designs. They then offer a made to measure service for suits, which, not being fully bespoke, and not being quite on Savile Row proper, comes in a lot cheaper (about a quarter of the price), but still hopefully results in a unique garment which fits well. I had a lovely time leafing through their swatch books, and in the end chose one of their more restrained tweeds, which happened to also be the one the owner was wearing, in a sort of grey / blue colour. It should be ready in January.

After that, I went to get my hair cut at Briggs, and as ever enjoyed a lovely chat with Philip, who is now 93 years old. I then rounded off my early afternoon foray to St. James's with a visit to D. R. Harris to stock up on toiletries etc.

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