Savile Row Tailors Lose Bespoke Claim

Savile Row tailors have lost a complaint made to the Advertising Standards Authority about the use of the word "bespoke".

The complaint centered around Sartoriani in Old Bond Street who advertised bespoke suits, but employed the use of machines to cut the cloth once measurements had been taken.

The ASA has rejected the claim that suits have to be entirely hand made without the use of the a pre-existing pattern to warrant the description "bespoke". Their findings concluded:

We considered that both fully bespoke and made-to-measure suits were "made to order" in that they were made to the customer's precise measurements and specifications, unlike off-the-peg suits. We considered that customers would expect a bespoke suit to be tailored to their measurements and specifications. We considered that the majority of people, however, would not expect that suit to be fully hand-made with the pattern cut from scratch. We concluded that the use of the word "bespoke" to describe the advertised suits was unlikely to mislead.

Read more
Telegraph: Savile Row tailors lose fight to preserve the term 'bespoke'
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