The Londoner: Savile Row keeps things classy with bespoke PJs

In today's Diary: How London's smartest street is adapting to coronavirus / John Sweeney versus the T-Rex of Scientology / Bernardine Evaristo hits out at British publishing's race record / One MP makes a cheeky queue comparison
New avenues: William Skinner
Bloomberg via Getty Images
3 June 2020

Even during a pandemic there’s still a call for a touch of class from Savile Row, as London’s smartest street adapts to coronavirus (with a little help from bespoke pyjamas).

“We do off-the-peg dressing gowns and we also do bespoke pyjamas,” says William Skinner, managing director of Dege & Skinner, a firm which made the frock coat worn by Prince Harry at his wedding to Meghan Markle.

It’s not just working from home attire that’s whetting the appetites of Savile Row customers — Skinner says there’s been “heavy demand” for Marylebone Cricket Club attire. “When we asked a customer,” Skinner tells us, “he said that he was dreaming of being able to watch a cricket game once sport is allowed to resume and made the purchase in anticipation of that moment.”

While most of us adapt to working in our (non-bespoke) pyjamas, Skinner also explains that a number of clients have been ordering suits. “They’re obviously thinking to the future and that business networking interaction will continue even if people are mostly working from home.”

Turning up to a Zoom meeting in a Savile Row suit? Then again, you won’t need trousers so it could be half price.

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Journalist John Sweeney famously clashed with the litigious and secretive Church of Scientology in his 2007 documentary, and recalls on the Blank podcast how his producer Sarah saw it. She asked him whether he’d seen Jurassic Park: “I said, ‘Yes, I have Sarah,’ ‘Right, then you know that bit with the tethered goat and the T Rex comes for it? Well John, you’re the tethered goat.’”

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Critique: Bernardine Evaristo (Photo: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Dave Benett/Getty Images

Booker prize winner Bernardine Evaristo has hit out at British publishing’s attitude to race. “If ‘all lives matter’,” Evaristo tweeted, “then why so few black British novels published?” She suggested around 10 in the last five years, adding: “Nor do we want stereotypes … We are all things and everything ... #BlackLivesMatterUK”. How will the industry respond?

SW1A​

MPs Amber Rudd and Emily Thornberry, together with presenters Jo Coburn, Camilla Tominey, Anushka Asthana and Laura Kuenssberg, appear on Politics Live
REUTERS

JO COBURN and Andrew Neil will be returning to Politics Live today with Coburn in the studio and Neil tuning in from the South of France. The panel happens to feature more women than men, so producers are anticipating a return of the furious criticism they get with majority women panels. Back to “normal” in more ways than one.

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AMID chaotic scenes in Parliament yesterday, one official wiped the green benches and was heard saying: “It feels criminal to be disinfecting historic furniture.” As crimes go, there are probably worse.

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ONE MP got in touch from yesterday’s “ludicrous” voting line, which stretched for half a mile. “It’s like queuing up at Blackpool for the Big Dipper,” the wag told us. “But enough about Boris Johnson’s love life...”

Amfo thanks radio fans for solidarity after passionate speech on racism

BBC Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo thanked her followers for “the solidarity that has been shown from my radio show” yesterday, after she made a passionate speech following worldwide protests against racism. Amfo said she felt “that people want our culture, but they do not want us”. Last night she added that her day had been “bittersweet, cathartic and bit overwhelming”. Cara Delevingne joined the protests which have erupted in America since George Floyd’s death. In London, Amanda Holden cut a striking figure before going her Heart Radio show this morning.

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