Lineage and Tools: the Artifacts of History

By Cameron John Robbins

There is something uniquely beautiful about well-worn but well-maintained old hand tools. The history of work, of care and of creation embodied in them has always touched me deeply. The wooden handles burnished by use; the aged metal, dim all over, except where the finely polished edge has been honed countless times; the well-patinated leather which has been stained, oiled and stained again over years of use. These tools and their scars tell stories of the people who used them, and the works they wrought together.

For instance, after my grandfather died, I was asked to help pack up his carpenter shop, so that the remnants could be distributed among the family. The most profound moment of that day came when I found his old leather work gloves. Years of sweat and work-friction had permanently molded them into the shape of his hands. Putting my hands inside of them felt like touching my Pop-Pop again.

History, like our individual life experiences, is much like a river. It flows in an uninterrupted course where everything is connected, from beginning to end. Old tributaries may dry up, and new ones spring forth to snake their way across the landscape; but the great river rolls on. It is only in books that we arbitrarily divide it up into compartmentalized chunks.

Which brings us to my friend Thom Bennett. Thom is a master tailor who lives in Bristol, England with his dog Dereck, whom he named after a club DJ famous for introducing Bristol to Ska and Reggae music. But Thom isn’t just any bespoke tailor. He’s the great nephew of Per Anderson, the founder of Anderson & Sheppard. As in THE Anderson & Sheppard on Savile Row in London.

Per Anderson founded Anderson & Sheppard in 1906 after emigrating to England from Sweden, where he had begun his tailoring career. For years, Per (or Uncle Gustav, as he was known in the family) ran the firm with his son Edward, AKA Cousin Teddy. Then in 1980 or 1981, Teddy sold the firm under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Why Teddy sold the family business was a secret that he and his generation took to the grave. They only let slip enough to make it clear that there was indeed some kind of secret to keep.

Yet Thom retains memories of those days when Teddy ran the business. As a young five- or six-year-old boy, his Mum would sometimes leave him in cousin Teddy’s care at Anderson & Sheppard, while she did her shopping. There are many vivid sensory memories for Thom which had their birth in that shop. He remembers clearly sitting on the aged knees of Cousin Teddy, while he showed him how to use a needle and thimble. In fact, to this day, every time he presses a garment, the smells of warm woolen fabric and wet canvas takes him right back to those childhood days in that venerable Savile Row establishment.

When it came time to choose a career path, Thom originally wanted to become a bespoke shoemaker. Something about the family secret had caused his mother to discourage him from going into tailoring. However, an inability to master the carving of shoe lasts redirected Thom toward what may have been in his blood all along – creating bespoke gentlemen’s clothing. So, at the age of sixteen, he traveled to Liverpool to begin learning the trade.

The school where Thom studied as a teenager no longer exists. Still, his studies in the pursuit of sartorial perfection continue to this day. After years of plying his trade independently, he spent 2017 in Ireland, studying under master tailor Rory Duffy, formerly of Henry Poole & Co. He also refers constantly to what he calls his Family Bible – a 1905 edition of Thornton’s Sectional System for Gentlemen’s Garments. His copy still has cousin Teddy’s notes written in pencil from when he was learning from it himself in the 1930’s.

However, the list of tools he’s inherited doesn’t stop at his 1905 edition of Thornton’s. His square, measuring stick and a pair of shears have also come down to him from those early days of Anderson & Sheppard. And save for some chipped paint and faded numbers, those tools serve him just as well as they served his great uncle and cousin.

There’re more than physical objects that can be passed down from one generation to another. Knowledge can also be inherited. In the case of Thom and his family, there are two such things that make him very unique. The first is a complicated and antiquated measuring method which enables him to perfectly position the armholes of his jackets and coats the first time.

In most cases, even the best bespoke tailors design their patterns to allow for adjustments to be made with each progressive fitting. Armholes are especially tricky to place correctly, and it’s more or less an assumed industry-standard to allow for such changes along the way. But Thom Bennett has what they call in the tailoring industry the Rock of Eye, or the ability to see the difference between Good and Perfect. By employing that eye and applying this measuring technique, which is largely ignored by the industry as a whole, he is able to design his patterns perfectly from the start.

This is especially tricky and especially important because, in the tradition of Anderson & Sheppard cut suits, Thom’s armholes are also very form-fitting. It harkens back to when many Hollywood stars such as Fred Astaire had their clothes made by Anderson & Sheppard. For such a dynamic dancer with an obsessive attention to detail, Astaire knew the value of being able to move his arms freely without disturbing the perfect drape of the rest of his jacket.

One more arcane technique that Thom employs is the construction of his jackets without the use of chest darts. Using darts; a pleated portion of fabric that creates a natural, three-dimensional shape to a flat design when sewn into a fitted garment; is another industry-standard technique. But Thom says that when the inner canvas structure of a jacket is constructed properly, a pleasing three-dimensional shape can be achieved without using darts. It seems that he may be the only tailor in England to still make his jackets and coats this way.

In terms of style, Thom Bennett has blended several influences. His suits have hints of Florentine cuts, such as those practiced by Liverano e Liverano. Yet being a member of the family, Anderson & Sheppard cuts remain his biggest influence. However, he prefers their earlier style over the one they’d made famous by the 1970’s. While the modern Anderson & Sheppard carries on that later tradition, Thom carries the torch for the older styles that were popular when Uncle Gustav and a young Cousin Teddy were doing the work.

Savile Row, and the venerable bespoke tailoring shops that occupy it, are rightly considered the address for the pinnacle of sartorial excellence. At least that is how it is written in history books. But like real history, this story is more fluid and nuanced. The modern Anderson & Sheppard and their staff of skilled tailors, richly deserves their lofty reputation. But Thom Bennett is an actual member of that sartorially talented family, and he deserves an equally lofty reputation for his skill.

Such is the beauty and nuance of real history that both can be true simultaneously, and neither invalidates the other. And since Thom would be delighted to travel anywhere in the world to personally give his clients the complete ultra-bespoke experience, in a very real way, the quality of Savile Row will come to you.