Meet… Ray Stowers
When I set up Stowers Bespoke my aim was, and still is, a simple one: to provide our customers with unrivalled service and the finest quality clothing - made using traditional Savile Row tailoring skills.
In itself, Stowers Bespoke is a young business, but the expertise that makes it what it is, is deeply rooted. Having started my career with a master tailor in Grays, Essex, I was offered a position at the highly respected Savile Row firm of Gieves & Hawkes. Twenty-five years later I had honed my skills, developed a passion for creative detail, taken the mantle of Head of Bespoke Tailoring and become a firm part of the Savile Row community. It was time to create my own business and, in 2007, Stowers Bespoke was born.
I encouraged Brian Jeffrey, one of the finest tailors I know, to join me. Working out of Liberty in Regent Street, we offered customers a bespoke tailoring service tempered with British flair and a modern, fashion, or classic edge. It worked very well, but I just had to come home to the Row. In 2008, another excellent tailor, Brian Pusey, joined our team and we secured our current premises at 13 Savile Row. Do come and see us: we’d love to meet you, learn about what you want from your clothes, and suggest how we might help bring your ideas to fruition.
There are companies on Savile Row that aren’t hand-crafting exquisite garments using traditional skills and fine materials, nor are they making them in England. To use terms that match their approach, they’re able to knock-out suits in foreign factories and fob them off as “Savile Row” because they have an address that allows them to put Savile Row on the label. It makes our blood boil! Customers who deserve better are being misled, often paying large sums for inferior, badly fitting suits that won’t last a season. Alternatively, these mediocre suits are sold at knockdown prices that undervalue the time-honoured craftsmanship of bona fide Savile Row tailors.