Eric Musgrave is a pal, the previous editor of Drapers and the writer of the ebook Sharp Fits. He not too long ago moved to the north of England and has been attending to know lots of the makers and producers there and throughout the border into Scotland. So I requested him to jot down about one historic clothing store I do know we wanted to cowl – Stewart Christie.
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By Eric Musgrave.
Scotland’s oldest bespoke tailor, Stewart Christie in Edinburgh, has achieved a formidable renaissance previously 10 years.
Again then the enterprise was acquired by long-standing pals, Victoria “Vixy” Rae and Daniel Fearn, who shared a imaginative and prescient to revive a dusty, considerably uncared for tailoring establishment at 61-63 Queen Road within the Scottish capital.
Their path to operating it was not direct. I first met Edinburgh-born Vixy about 25 years in the past when she was operating her personal skate-wear outlets in Edinburgh and Glasgow, whereas additionally appearing as an agent for French streetwear labels. Dan used to run concessions for British menswear model Crombie, ending up at its Edinburgh flagship.
The pair, now of their early 50s, labored collectively at Edinburgh clothes retailer Walker Slater earlier than changing into enterprise companions to accumulate Stewart Christie.
Unusually for a bespoke tailor, their enterprise is well-financed. The corporate’s long-standing chairman-investor is oil entrepreneur Professor James McCallum. And in early 2024 the three welcomed as a director a long-standing buyer, Alexander McCall Smith, the well-known writer of The No 1 Women’ Detective Company sequence.
Having met Sandy (as McCall Smith is understood to his pals) I can verify he’s each educated and genuinely interested by menswear and textiles.
Based mostly on a line on a headed notepaper within the store’s archive, Vixy dates the origins of Stewart Christie again to 1720, however there may be anecdotal proof its roots is perhaps with a agency known as Taylor & Turnbull, which originated in 1638. Historic Edinburgh tailoring corporations together with Purves, Fraser & Anderson, Marshall & Aitken, J Christie and J Stewart are within the firm’s sprawling household tree.
John Williamson, who based The Tailor and Cutter commerce publication in 1866, was skilled at Christie in Edinburgh. It’s not nicely remembered right this moment however he began the publication as a pamphlet to assist enhance the lot of journeymen tailors.
“Once we took on Stewart Christie round 10 years in the past we had our personal imaginative and prescient of how the corporate ought to evolve. However in a short time we discovered that what already existed needed to be celebrated and restored, not modified for the sake of change,” says Vixy.
The tailoring is bespoke, however solely round 10% is worsted fits. “We make extra Scottish tweed for capturing,” Vixy provides. “Specialties embrace doublets for highland put on and many hunt tailcoats. We make for the Church of Scotland, The Holyrood Excessive Constables, and night tailcoats and capturing jackets for the Royal Firm of Archers.”
Dan provides: “We’ve got seen a noticeable enhance in demand for bespoke Scottish Highland put on. We’ve got our personal kiltmaker, Isaac Hawkins (above), in-house to supply choices on styling and pleating, usually with inspiration from Victorian or Georgian kinds. And we pleasure ourselves on being among the many few bespoke tailors in a position to handmake velvet doublets to put on with a kilt.”
In addition to comparatively well-known kinds corresponding to open doublet, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Sherrifmuir, Stewart Christie has traditionally developed particular person doublet kinds which have been worn for generations by specific Scottish noble households.
The workroom is overseen by head cutter Terry McClelland (above), who has been on the agency for nearly 30 years. Having taught himself the fundamentals of tailoring, Terry was taken on by the agency when he confirmed he might make a garment and subsequently discovered extra on the job.
At present, Terry likes a barely longer jacket with a fuller drape, extra traditional than vogue. He likes to shrink his personal chest canvas and has developed his minimize to be softer on the shoulder.
I can verify his ability having had made a really good-looking overcoat in a W Invoice brown and pale examine, in autumn 2019 (beneath). It’s a 13oz fabric, which I particularly needed for a lighter-weight coat that I might put on as an alternative of, not over, a jacket. It really works very nicely with a rollneck beneath on a colder day or a shirt, tie and positive cardigan on a hotter one.
My coat was complemented by some glorious trousers in a pale blue Abraham Moon fabric that has the look of a Harris Tweed, and a double-breasted waistcoat in the identical Moon high quality however a rust color. I put on the trousers so much, the waistcoat much less in order it isn’t the precise model for somebody like me who sits at a keyboard for lengthy durations.
Garment costs are good in comparison with these in London. A two-piece bespoke go well with begins at £2500, a three-piece at £3600 and a kilt at £1250. (Machine-made kilts are from £850.)
The agency is certainly one of just a few providing high-quality bespoke in Scotland. This web site wrote about countrywear tailor Campbells of Beauly in Inverness-shire not too long ago. In Perth, conventional house of the historic Black Watch regiment, Shilling & Fitz is a specialist in navy tailoring. In Fortress Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway, Andrew Livingston is a fourth-generation bespoke tailor who labored intently for a few years with the late Edward Sexton.
And in Leith, near Edinburgh, is Highland-wear specialist Kinloch Anderson, which makes King Charles’s kilts. A latest arrival in Edinburgh, a couple of minutes’ stroll from Stewart Christie, is the northern department of Kathryn Sargent, overseen by Alistair Nimmo.
Complementing Stewart Christie’s tailoring is sort of a little bit of ready-to-wear clothes. Due to Dan and Vixy’s expertise, the store looks like instance of how a standard clothing store (as distinct from only a menswear store) must be. The inside is essentially unchanged for the reason that pair purchased it – it’s simply better-lit, cleaner, tidier, and higher organised with new traditional merchandise.
At the moment round 60% of the ready-to-wear inventory (primarily from British producers) carries the Stewart Christie label, though manufacturers like Dent’s, Gurteen, Magee, Joseph Cheaney and William Lockie fulfil particular necessities.
“Many older clients respect the very fact they’ll nonetheless get a wide selection of specialist gadgets from us, corresponding to bow ties, cravats, hats and caps, braces, sock garters and cummerbunds,” says Dan.
There’s a smaller womenswear store subsequent door, at no.61, which provides made-to-measure kinds designed by Vixy. And final 12 months Stewart Christie acquired the Glenlyon Tweed Mill in Perthshire, the standard house of Haggart of Aberfeldy nation tweeds. An fascinating one, and maybe topic for an article sooner or later on this a part of Scotland.
Vixy Rae is the writer of The Secret Life Of Tartan: How A Fabric Formed A Nation (Black and White Publishing 2019) and The Artwork Of Tweed: From Weaver To Wearer (Black and White Publishing 2020).
