BBC News - Boutique business: can a men's clothes shop thrive?

[Undertow]

I thought you ladies and gents would appreciate this little article. If you're in the UK, you might even know a little bit about this shop.

Boutique business: can a men's clothes shop thrive?

"We realised there was a lack of menswear on the street so we focused on obtaining menswear brands. We want people to come to Chiltern Street and probably get something they can't get anywhere else in London or potentially anywhere else in the UK," Mr Scott adds."

 

[HoundstoothLuke]

At those prices? Best of luck to him, but unfortunately I won't be able to be a patron.

 

[Undertow]

Anyone familiar with this shop, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe this man does custom work, correct? At least that's what I gathered from the article.

I believe those prices are high for retail menswear, but not unusual for bespoke. Suits at £650 and "some shirts" at £120, would convert to USD at $1043 and $192 respectively. Again, that is high for retail, but I've seen this for bespoke - especially in today's miserable economy.

It sounded like he dealt in vintage menswear as well (NOS perhaps?). I would suspect those articles would not be as astronomically priced, or at least I would hope not.

 

[Edward]

I bought his last pair of own-brand, 50s-cut khakis in the Covent Garden shop before it closed. They had some nice stuff, though most of it was far too Sixties Mod for my taste. Expensive, certainly: they had the Grenfell take on a Harrington for GBP250. To be fair, though, the designer brands they were carrying were in that sort of price bracket, and they were to the best of my knowledge reasonably competitive as against the same brands and items elsewhere. I'd say their claim to near-exclusivity in the UK is quite possibly fair, at least in relation to specific branded items, as opposed to equivalent items by other brands.

They did have some beautiful Forties trousers, NOS, when I was in. Didn't catch a price, though, as I would have needed two pairs to get them round me.

 

[W-D Forties]

How funny! I worked in Chiltern St for a while in a ladies shoe shop (I trained as a shoemaker originally) In the 90's. It was a very quiet and quite odd little streeet then. The shop (I think it's still there) sold classic ladies shoes in very large and narrow sizes - from a UK 9AAA to a 12. The clientelle ranged from the Royal to the Transvestite.

Lovely shoes, the larger of which doubled up as canoes for weekend use.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Not quite. The article says: "Mr Simons has also decided to have some items, such as button-down shirts, jackets and coats, made specially to sell under his own name". A brand, not bespoke.

£650 sounds about right for a high end brand OTR suit. And the shirt price sounds about right for a high end brand shirt. I wonder what these "hard to find brands from the USA" are?

Anyone familiar with this shop, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe this man does custom work, correct? At least that's what I gathered from the article.

I believe those prices are high for retail menswear, but not unusual for bespoke. Suits at £650 and "some shirts" at £120, would convert to USD at $1043 and $192 respectively. Again, that is high for retail, but I've seen this for bespoke - especially in today's miserable economy.

It sounded like he dealt in vintage menswear as well (NOS perhaps?). I would suspect those articles would not be as astronomically priced, or at least I would hope not.

 

[Undertow]

Not quite. The article says: "Mr Simons has also decided to have some items, such as button-down shirts, jackets and coats, made specially to sell under his own name". A brand, not bespoke.

£650 sounds about right for a high end brand OTR suit. And the shirt price sounds about right for a high end brand shirt. I wonder what these "hard to find brands from the USA" are?

Aha! I knew I should have read back over that!

 

[Fletch]

I think a men's clothes shop can thrive in a very rarefied market. It would benefit that shop today to be serious about e-commerce. That's very hard for a lot of traditional, quality-minded retail people. However, it can be and is being done.

 

[Edward]

Yes, their web presence is a bit limited. Maybe that will change, given that they are still in the early days of the new shop and no doubt have a squillion things to do.

 

[Undertow]

lol "a squillion things to do."

That made me think of a squid riding a pig.