Abercrombie & fitch has made an application to westminster council to open a children’s store at number 3 savile row, in the 200-year-old heartland of english bespoke tailoring. With its flagship store currently situated at burlington gardens, the american retailer – which manufactures casual wear (including hoodies) for youths – is determined to plant its off-shoot brand abercrombie kids around the corner “in plain, spoilt-brat view” of london’s most significant sartorial landmark. Number 3 is currently empty, but once housed the beatles apple offices and was the location of their final concert on the rooftop. Savile row is one of the few streets anywhere in the country to remain exclusively devoted to a single trade and we think the tradition of bespoke tailoring deserves to remain where it began 200 years ago. As well as boasting the manufacture of some of the best bespoke tailoring in the world, the row is an important tourist attraction, whose value will be entirely lost if chain stores selling overpriced t-shirts are allowed to open up there. There is also the issue of abercrombie & fitch’s habit of pumping foul-smelling cheap cologne out of its doors to entice gullible tourists in: this will affect not only the look of savile row but the smell.
tailors on savile row area are formally objecting to westminster council on the grounds of this retail development being hideously out of character with the row. David coleridge of h. Huntsman & sons said, “the arrival of abercrombie & fitch at the end of savile row would dramatically change not just the tone but the safety of the street. ”
we urge you to sign our petition, which we will present to westminster council in the hope that they will come to their senses and revoke abercrombie & fitch’s application.
There are currently 1843 signatures for this petition: