Carlo Brandelli rejoins Kilgour with plans to update Savile Row's style

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Published: 9:56am, 21 Apr 2014

"Would you like to come back and finish what you started?" was the question Carlo Brandelli was asked last year by the new Hong Kong owners of Savile Row tailor Kilgour. What Brandelli had started, rather controversially before he resigned in 2009, was shaking up the Row by creating a modernised, pared-back version of a suit.

"I have always been quite progressive in Savile Row, and I think that is what it needs," says Brandelli, a statement that sounds safe enough, until he adds: "French couture houses have been progressive for 30 years, but I don't think Savile Row has moved forward."

Brandelli, whose latest line for Kilgour has just launched on MrPorter.com thinks the tailors are stuck in a heritage rut. Recalling the conversation with the owners, No. 14 Savile Row, a subsidiary of Fung Capital (of Li & Fung), he says they told him: "We think what you were doing, which is taking Savile Row in a more contemporary direction but keeping the craft at the heart, is the correct way forward."

The tailor is sitting in George, a private member's club in London's Mayfair, wearing one of his seminal designs, a one-button fly-fronted suit with a turtleneck sweater.

Along with shaking up the idea of bespoke, and bringing his distinctive style back to Savile Row, Brandelli decided to announce his return with a short video illustrating his design philosophy on photographer Nick Knight's SHOWstudio.com website.

He also launched his comeback ready-to-wear collection globally on MrPorter.com This is all part of his progressive thinking, and has instilled Kilgour with the air of an international brand.

"Savile Row should be elegant, quiet and discreet, not showy," says Brandelli. "The men attracted to brands like Kilgour think and contemplate. So what we do is about intelligence and thought."