SUNDAY LIFE MAGAZINE

When someone mentions London’s Savile Row and its tradition of bespoke tailoring, it generally conjures up a man’s world, perhaps with a male client getting his made-to-measure suit fitted by a couple of male tailors. Most of the famous Savile Row brands have very manly names such as Davies and Son, Gieves & Hawkes, and the newly established Cad & The Dandy.

Irish tailors have had a long history with Savile Row, with Rory Duffy being a fifth-generation Savile Row-trained master tailor.

He became the first ever trainee of Savile Row founder Henry Poole & Co to take home the highly coveted Golden Shears in 2009. Shortly after his victory, Rory was approached to train an apprentice of his own, making him one of the youngest masters to an apprentice in Savile Row’s 200-year-plus history.

Former Irish Olympic rower Cormac Folan recently joined Savile Row with a brand of sustainable men’s shirts.

Cormac is the co-founder of Alder & Green, a responsible menswear brand focusing on 100pc organic-cotton men’s shirts. Alder & Green recently opened their flagship store on Lamb’s Conduit Street and launched at John Lewis in August 2022.

What we hadn’t seen, until now, was a female Irish tailor taking the Row. In 2019, Dublin-born Ruby Slevin founded Banshee of Savile Row, the only Savile Row women’s bespoke tailoring house. She chose the name because of its roots in Irish mysticism. The whole brand’s identity is rooted in the heritage tradition of bespoke tailoring — creating garments made to last.

Banshee is a commitment to the tradition of slow fashion cultivated on Savile Row; the belief that an investment in quality rather than quantity is the foundation for the future of clothing.

The brand’s aim is to combine the worlds of tailoring and fashion, and last year that plan came to fruition. Banshee was the first female tailoring company to show at London Fashion Week and became a member of the British Fashion Council in 2022.

Ruby says her grandfather is from Donegal, and she feels a deep connection to that part of Ireland.

“My grandfather, whose family originally came from Donegal, had actually moved to London during the late 1940s as his father had got a job in the Irish embassy managing economic relations between Ireland and England.

“My mother was born in England and then the family moved back to Ireland when my grandfather worked for Irish Mist. So, when she had me, she had a strong desire to make sure I had a connection to my Irish roots.

“That crossover between Ireland and England has existed in my family for a long time, which is probably one of the reasons I appreciate both Irish and English culture and enjoy mixing them together as a major influence in Banshee.

“Even though my family is dispersed around all pockets of the world, when we meet at family gatherings, you can spot us a mile away as we are often all wearing tweed. We would visit Magee up in Donegal town during our visits to Lough Eske and always pick something up. Later on, I discovered Studio Donegal, whose tweed we work with a lot to create our bespoke overcoats. Irish tweed always connects me to Ireland.”

Ruby (38) grew up, along with her two younger sisters, in Donnybrook and went to an Irish-speaking primary school, Scoil Bhride. She credits school with fostering her love of Irish folklore, which inspires her work as a designer today. At home in Dublin, Ruby never learned to sew, even though her grandmother had studied fashion design at Central Saint Martins in London and her father “was always running things up on the sewing machine”.

She says her mother had a keen eye for fashion and was her original muse.

As a little girl, she would watch her mother getting ready to go out and take great delight in the whole ritual. She said she was enthralled by her mother’s ability to style an outfit from a trove of belts, feathers, sequins, shoes, coats, and dresses.

“When I was older, we would get into arguments as she would go to wear something that I had ‘borrowed’ without asking! The velvet opera coat I designed last year is based on an antique opera coat my mother used to wear that she had found in a vintage market in Notting Hill.”

Ruby’s path to Savile Row was indirect. “I was studying economics and sociology at UCD, so fashion wasn’t really on my radar as a career back then.

“When I was travelling after college, I started buying cloth and cutting it up to put outfits together.

“When I came back from Australia in 2011, I joined a sewing class and made my first skirt, and that got me completely hooked. I bought a bit of orange tweed and made a mini skirt from it and I felt so proud to wear it. I still wear dresses my grandmother made in the 1960s, and they still look incredible, as she always used amazing fabrics.”

Ruby went on to enrol in the Grafton Academy of Fashion Design, which is known for its practical, hands-on approach to sewing and offers a great foundation in tailoring.

Her first mentor was her teacher, Colin Atkinson, who recognised her talent for tailoring and her aspirations to work in the field. He encouraged her to study the history of Savile Row with a view to getting an apprenticeship there. She says she was also influenced by the style of Irish art collector, and notable patron of Irish arts, the late Garech Browne.

“He used to wear handwoven Aran jumpers with Savile Row suits, using cloth he had bought in Connemara or Donegal.

“When I was studying fashion design, I thought his way of dressing — having beautiful pieces of clothing like talismans that he cared for and had maintained for decades — was the most stylish way to dress.”

After she graduated, Ruby travelled to London to work for a newly established Savile Row company called Cad & the Dandy.

She started out as an apprentice tailor, which became the catalyst for her moving permanently to London and then eventually setting up her own brand.

She had initially thought she might work in tailoring for a year or two and then move to a more traditional role in fashion. She dreamed of a job with another hero of hers, the late Vivienne Westwood, but she became so happy and accepted on the Row, she never left!

“It wasn’t long before I began to notice there was a gap in the market for women’s tailoring. When I started working on the Row, there was nothing for women, and I would struggle to get the cutters to help me with my block. Women were deemed difficult to tailor for, and it was very much a man’s world. In eight years, it’s really encouraging to see so many more women on the street and more women getting tailored clothes made.”

While she may be living and working in the heart of London, her Irish roots run deep.

As part of her London Fashion Week debut, Banshee of Savile Row created a promotional film in which the sprawling gardens of Birr Castle acted as the grand backdrop for her collection. The clothes were entirely made by hand and cut from sustainably sourced cloth. They were styled in Banshee silhouettes: flared trousers, belted waists, soft shoulders, and bold lapels.

Along with Irish tweeds and linens, she uses seersucker, velvet and corduroy. Ruby says that Banshee collections aren’t designed with a season or trend in mind; they are intended to be worn throughout the year.

Ruby caught the attention of Vogue recently — actress Claire Foy wore Banshee for a cover story shoot earlier this year. In a separate feature, Vogue said of the label: “Banshee of Savile Row combines technically brilliant and precise tailoring that transcends seasonal trends. This London-based, Irish-born brand does exquisitely beautiful suits and timeless separates that you can wear pretty much anywhere.”

Each piece can take up to 12 weeks to make.

“We start the process with a private design consultation, where we pick the fabric from one of our swatch books and match the colour to skin tone and existing wardrobe palette. Our clients get to pick their own buttons and silk linings, which is also a lot of fun. We design the shape of the trousers and jacket to be what works best on our clients as all women have unique shapes and sizes and the joy of bespoke is that we can cater to that. We then take measurements, which our master pattern cutters turn into a personal pattern, which is then turned into a baste fitting [the first fitting, with cloth that’s temporarily stitched together with basting thread].

“This baste fitting is crucial to make sure the fit and design are perfect. About six to eight weeks after the baste fitting, we meet for a final fitting in the finished garment. We usually like to do a few small alterations at that point, which are updated into your pattern and mean future suits you order will require less fittings. Each of our jackets and coats have roughly 80 hours of hand-stitching, using Savile Row methods that have been around for hundreds of years, ensuring longevity.”

Tailoring is a labour-intensive process with so many elements to consider before the final garment is created. From choosing the fabric to painstakingly matching up the tweed’s lines when cutting out the pattern. The construction of each piece is a layered and lengthy process with intricate invisible stitching to finish. All this work costs, so you can expect to pay in the region of €300 for a bespoke Banshee shirt, and €3,000 for a three-piece suit.

Ruby consistently includes Irish fabrics in her work. “I always bring either Irish tweed or Irish linen into my collections. We have a huge Irish client base that loves us using Irish materials. They are fabrics I am passionate about and have worked with since my days at the Grafton Academy. I just see beauty, longevity, heritage and history in using these cloths that feel like part of my identity.

“I want to make collections that are a bold return to glamour. The garments were conceived as a way of breaking free, endowing the Banshee woman with power, confidence and an appetite for fun.”​

With a growing client list including actresses Stefanie Martini and Claire Foy and award-winning director Antonia Campbell-Hughes and presenter Angela Scanlon, Ruby has successfully broken into the male-dominated world of tailoring and earned her place among the skilled tailors on Savile Row

So, does she have any advice for any young Irish person who’s more interested in the sharp, crisp finish of a tweed jacket than the flows of a lavish ballgown?

“I would advise anyone who wants to start a brand and become a designer to also back it up with knowledge of business or marketing if you can, as running a business means that designing is only one aspect of the job. Take advice from mentors and people who have been in the business longer than you and who you admire. Be prepared to make mistakes as you go along, learn from them, and always pick yourself up again. And, finally, work hard and enjoy the process. There is nothing as rewarding as seeing your ideas turn into reality.”

It’s exciting times for the brand. Along with a growing client list, Banshee of Savile Row will be showing again this September at London Fashion Week.

Lucky for Irish fans of fine tailoring, Banshee of Savile Row will be opening a store in Dublin in the autumn.

In the meantime, Banshee of Savile Row holds trunk shows in Howbert & Mays on Clare Street Dublin, with the next one coming up at the end of July. Ruby will be attending, bringing a taste of Savile Row to Dublin and meeting new clients for private design consultations.

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