Richard James (Q9029)
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bespoke Savile Row tailors and contemporary menswear company
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Richard James |
bespoke Savile Row tailors and contemporary menswear company |
Statements
Where for Fall Richard James’s Toby Lamb looked to retro transatlantic travel for inspiration, he has now jetted east to China as a source-point for Spring. But his references weren’t overt, bar some chinoiserie patterning on ties and jacket silks, or inlays on intarsia sweaters. Rather, there was an easy, nostalgic lightness apparent—the sort of thing, maybe, a dapper guy might wear on a gambling getaway to Macau.Lamb’s task and balance for Richard James is to be both appealing to the firm’s established Savile Row clientele and accessible to newcomers. This collection skewed a little bit more in favor of the former—see a double-breasted, peak-lapel blazer in salmon pink, another in pale gold. There were also shirts with extended collars. But, more contemporary tastes will likely be drawn to Lamb’s alternatives: Clean and sharp mid-thigh shorts, an army-jade-hued bomber jacket, and knitted polos should do the trick. It can be tough to show anything that really feels new in the Savile Row sphere, but Lamb does a mostly solid job of keeping things fresh within the rubric.
23 June 2018
The onetime-supersonic airway between London and New York, courtesy of the now-out-of-service Concorde jet, served as a vortex to kick-start Toby Lamb’s Fall collection for the Savile Row mainstay Richard James. From there, the story continued, imagining an “evening of egregious excess” at the Upper East Side townhouse that once belonged to Gunter Sachs.While this backstory may sound over-the-top by instinct, Lamb erred on the subtler side of luxury in his lineup’s realization. Among the strongest pieces, see: softly tailored double-breasted blazers; generously flowing trousers with high rises; mustard yellow velvets (great on a bomber blouson); and intarsia geometric inlays in retro colors on a jumper that recalled airline logos of the era, against a more plain, heathery oatmeal base.The label is looking to draw in younger buyers, and hinted at collaborations that are in the works. And, in fact, millennial heartthrob Zayn Malik wore a dusty-pink Richard James suit to the Grammy Awards last week. Fall appears to stay more in line with the company’s established and older clientele, which is fitting, given that they were around when the Concorde was still flying and will likely further appreciate the jet-set jazziness apparent throughout. (This writer is an aviation nerd, and would’ve done anything to fly the plane. But, just before its retirement from service in 2003, tickets were prohibitively priced around $10,000.)
1 February 2018
For Spring, Richard James—a Savile Row fixture since it first opened in 1992—showed a collection initially inspired by Ellsworth Kelly’s simplistically abstract, yet thought-provokingAtlanticpainting from 1956. The label’s design and brand director, Toby Lamb, expanded upon that base to channel a mid-century (but modernized) rendering of summertime on Long Island, where and when Kelly and other culture vultures of the era would spend time during the season.What resulted was a solid lineup, with a natty-preppy color scheme of pistachios, coffees, ivories, and dusty pinks, and, “in a kind of new area,” some luxe casual wear like striped sailing shirts made of looped-back jersey cotton. “That’s definitely an East Coast thing,” said Lamb.There’s generally a hint of the flamboyant, or at least the eccentric, in Richard James’s seasonal collections—that was fulfilled today with Kelly-esque geometries hand-embroidered on jumpers or screened on scarves. The best two pieces—it was a tie—were a bomber jacket of green Ottoman cotton with a raglan sleeve treatment that gave it an immediate ’50s-meets-2017 desirability, and a cotton-linen “toweling effect” blazer so featherweight that if you held it to the window, light poured through. Unlined and unpretentious—while still keeping quite dapper—it would fit right in at a cocktail party in Oyster Bay.
11 June 2017
We said this last season, but whoever doesRichard James’s show notes is brilliant. With an introductory description like “Spring 2017 snaps the brim of its toquilla straw hat, and speeds across the shimmering, sun-slapped cyan sweep of the Straits of Florida to hedonistic ’50s Havana,” who wouldn’t be fascinated, or at least curious? This writer was ready to wear whatever James was offering under that hedonistic premise, and the results delivered.The tailor’s Cuban fascination sprang from a gentleman named Michael “Dandy Kim” Caborn-Waterfield, who fled London’s Chelsea—with a collection of Savile Row suits—for Havana in 1958. “Sartorial schtick” became commonplace in Caborn-Waterfield’s Caribbean wardrobe, and that zest continues in James’s Spring collection. There were purply seersucker fabrics cut into natty peaked-lapel and double-breasted blazers, oxfords with vintage automobile-like fins printed in Deco-pop pinks and blues, riotously patterned ties and pocket-squares, and excellent cashmere sweaters with neon intarsia flourishes. Linen and linen cotton blends were the main focus in rakish blousons and double-breasted suit jackets paired with high-waisted pants—all crafted with the intention of keeping “cool and beautifully crisp.” A cotton Guayabera jacket in hazy, palest sky blue drove the tropical point home. Havana is on fashion’s mind at the moment; Richard James did a nice job of bringing the zeitgeist home to Savile Row.Viva Cuba, and God Save the Dandy.
12 June 2016
Richard Jameshas a mean copywriter. Read this abridged opening stanza from his Fall presentation notes: “The collection sounds its horn hard, hoists the red ensign, and puts its exotic cargo under a silver gray sky at London’s docks in 1935.” It was enough to conjure a pretty vivid (and cacophonous) imaginative vignette while waiting for showtime. (I kept thinking about the boarding scenes inTitanic, admittedly 20 years earlier and not in London, but full of seafaring English grandeur nonetheless.)It was often compelling to see the execution of Savile Row dandyism meeting early maritime industrialist touchpoints; a Prince of Wales–checked suit, for example, reflected that steely London mist in palette and a nautical (daresay, naughty-cal) lean through its widened lapel and double-breasted blazer. Another yellow gray jacket, also double-breasted but boxier and not part of a suit, captured the “cool cachet” of ocean-going when worn over a basic polo shirt. There were some question marks, though. The frequent use of teal, a hard color if ever one existed, steered the catwalk at times into fussy waters. Ditto for a semi-ombré turtleneck jumper woven in over-saturated Union Jack tints. However, if you’re a James loyalist, you’re a color loyalist in tandem, as the brand has never been shy of a strong hue.What functioned most impressively here (and, somewhat ironically, what also felt the most contemporary) was an adherence to the deeply English roots of the collection’s nexus. A melton jacket with a narrow double-closure of buttons (its rusty threading certainly recalled the shipyard) and a cinnamon, high-sleeved trench satisfyingly fitted the focus.
10 January 2016
"We like an eccentric Englishman abroad," said Toby Lamb, who designed this collection because Richard James himself is still on sabbatical. Lamb explained his choice of the poet and surrealist Edward James as the main inspiration for the brand's Spring offering: In particular it was his wacky creation Las Pozas—a series of concrete structures built between 1949 and 1984 in the jungle of Mexico's Sierra Madre—that had piqued the interest of the design team. Cue loads of emerald green (the collection was called My Green Trauma) and full-floral suits—meaning suit, shirt, tie,andloafers in the same somewhat sense-assaulting pattern. If Richard James is known as the go-to brand for colorful tailoring, this was an unapologetic embrace of that reputation.Jungle flowers, plumed parrots, and the weird concrete staircases leading into thin air that Edward James built resurfaced on many pieces, while a suede jacket came in a piercing red or petrol blue. These were clothes ready to induce a heart attack. And yet there was something oddly unmodern about it all. The team had put more tailoring on the catwalk than usual this time, and even though the label is just a few years into its 20s, it sometimes veers into mature-man-in-search-of-the-fountain-of-youth territory. In a menswear landscape bouncing from the ultra-slim to the extra-wide, Richard James' middle-of-the-road shapes come across as a bit safe, and expressions of daring seem relegated to color only. It would be interesting to see such expert craftsmanship apply itself to introducing some novel ideas here, without giving up the brand's identity.
14 June 2015
Richard James is on a yearlong sabbatical, as potential greeters learned after the show, and it made this Andean-themed Fall collection, put together by the design team, feel like a kind of postcard. Nonetheless, the backstory about the engineers who built the Transandine Railway in the 19th century had little obvious impact on the clothes, unless those men headed up the mountain in the least practical outfits conceivable. Exhibit A: a pair of velvet slippers embroidered with Incan deities.The show opened, somewhat literally, with a knitted and tasseled poncho, plus a brown hat with a ribbon sporting the rainbow palette of the Andes. Such color bursts were added almost at random to sleeves, buttonholes, and pockets, often in an unfinished state, which was a nice touch. But it was when the image of a British gentleman clashed with the energy jolts of the Andean culture that the collection worked best, as the clothes seemed to relate less to heroics on the precipice and more to the style secrets of the Incas. That was visible in a dyed shearling as well as a red gilet worn over a bouclé double-breasted jacket. There were also patterned, brightly colored shirts that peeked out from underneath a beige suit or a blue-gray jacket. The most contemporary look was achieved when the Incan heritage was abstracted onto a knit sweater and worn quite simply underneath a double-breasted gray coat. Menswear designers often treat any kind of functionality with the seriousness of the meaning of life, so it felt refreshing to see an attempt to just make great-looking clothes.
11 January 2015
Maybe it's because of their dismal weather, but the British have always had an affinity to the Sahara. The sandblasted heroes run from Lawrence of Arabia to the 7th Armoured Division, better known as the Desert Rats, a legendary fighting force from World War II and, somewhat incongruously, the inspiration for Richard James' Spring '15 collection.Direct military associations allied with fashion can often make for uncomfortable results, yet this collection, with its accents of cyclamen pink, Harissa red, and azure, seemed destined for an army of lovers rather than fighters. Of course, James is a colorist of some renown, as his brightly clad audience testified, but it was the precision of the cutting that really demonstrated his technical prowess, particularly in knife-sharp gusseted military pockets on shirts and ruthlessly straight back pleats on boxy Harrington jackets.In a collection that was largely executed in linen—perfectly pressed, no less—it seemed these were soldiers getting ready for some time away from the battlefield rather than active service, and it was intriguing to think about how the pristine silhouettes might crumple after a few bouts of combat. James further softened the tone by using embroidery for the first time: It meandered over sleeves and lapels in a riot of cactus flowers (for more conservative types, it will be an optional extra when the collection hits the showroom).The experiment in mixing military with mufti worked best when the practical elements of the BDU (Battle Dress Uniform) were united with more of a safari jacket silhouette. A map print of the Mediterranean told us where we were located, and a charming intarsia of a perky-looking rodent on a cotton cashmere crewneck was an actual rendition of the Desert Rat mascot sketched by the divisional commander's wife after a visit to the Cairo Zoo in 1940. Less successful was the overly literal use of accessories, particularly a fuchsia pith helmet—surely a fashion sniper's target if ever there was one. However, for the confirmed pacifist there was also plenty of easy summer suiting in pale madras checks, soft blues, and bone whites, proving that you don't have to arrive on a troop carrier to experience the colors of North Africa.
15 June 2014
There is a particular breed of Englishman who wins the world with his self-deprecating wit and floppy charm. Richard James is one such, and his personality has infused his Savile Row business to great effect—and success—for more than twenty years. But it's been the very devil of a thing for him to get across on a fashion catwalk, which demands a different degree of focus.That is exactly the reason why James' show today was such a success:focus.It helped, of course, that the clothes on display were dressing such a sharp story. In the fifties, the new Edwardians (or Teds) were the U.K.'s first street-style cult, bridging the sartorial traditions of Savile Row and the rumbles of early rock 'n' roll from across the Atlantic. Today an elongated draped jacket paired with narrow cuffed pants and a couple of Lurex tuxes (complete with string bow ties) were as literal as James allowed himself to get by way of salute. Otherwise, he referenced the outré quality of Ted style with details like the oyster silk shawl collar on a gray flannel jacket, or the decadent flair of a three-piece suit in aubergine velvet.The man for such clothes also had the choice of a blue leather biker jacket, a military jacket in navy or olive moleskin, or a capacious herringbone overcoat, alongside the heathery windowpane-checked suiting that is a James signature. And somehow it all made sense, which has been a bit of a problem for the designer in the past. Maybe it was simply that the incongruity of James' flight of fancy this season made him aware of the need to create a solid, coherent foundation for his tribute to the Teds. Whatever—it worked.
6 January 2014
Sundown was the title Richard James gave his Spring collection. It was clever of his show notes to quote Walt Whitman on the subject: "This is the hour for strange effects in light and shade—enough to make a colorist go delirious." James' USP has always been his way with color, so any inspiration that drove him to delirium would surely yield a collection that would be, as those same notes promised of sundown itself, a "stunning spectacle." Or, if we were to be a little more reasonable in our expectations, it might at least deliver on the promise of "hidden pleasures."Such promise held a vision of the night as indolently, erotically spent as a Bryan Ferry lyric. But James came nowhere close. His was a politely patrician collection, from its single-buttoned, long-skirted jackets and white slacks to its seersucker shorts and sailboat-printed shirts. It was breezily light in its construction, pale to the point of neutrality, except when it came alive as the designer surrendered to the colorist inside: the night of a navy suede jacket coming on to the sunset orange of the trousers it was paired with, the pink-to-lilac ombré-ed polo.What feels like decades ago, James presented a collection at the British Embassy in Paris that was fearlessly, seductively foppish. The Dali-lobster-print shirt lingers in the memory. You can still feel that beast stirring in him—here, there was a sheer, polka-dotted polo and a baby-blue suede blouson. And all the models were wearing espadrilles, some of them extravagantly beaded. This week, there have been echoes of that indolence in the collections of much younger London hotshots, which sets James up as something of a silver daddy for the scene. Maybe if he owned the role, it would help him to loosen up.
16 June 2013