Patrick Grant is a man on a mission: namely, to show the world that Savile Row has a future as rich as its history. He bought Norton & Sons in 2005, after working for much of the previous decade in blue chip technology, and then studying British heritage brands as part of an MBA at Oxford University. Since he took the helm at Norton he has striven to update the company’s faultless craftsmanship and expertise with such modern—and necessary—accoutrements as consistent branding, an online presence and, in E Tautz, a collection of less formal, ready-to-wear clothes that amply demonstrates what can be done with the tailors’ astonishing range of UK-made tweeds. Next week, he’s asking the general public to submit their thoughts on men’s style via the medium of handmade postcards, the best of which will be posted on the new E Tautz site. But we thought we’d give him a taste of his own medicine, and tapped him for a few sartorial pearls of wisdom. 

Dressing is something that a lot of men really don’t get enjoyment out of, but it’s actually quite fun. It’s a moment in your day to sit and quietly reflect, and if you’re a busy man it might be the last quiet moment you get all day. I always like to try and wear some pattern. If I’m wearing a simple suit I like to wear a patterned shirt, and if I’m wearing a patterned suit I’ll be wearing a plainer shirt. Some people do tons and tons of pattern, and if you’re good at that I think it can look amazing. These things take skill to pull off, but that’s the fun of it.

One of the big things in the E Tautz collections is this idea of wardrobe building: how you should build a wardrobe of clothes that is not necessarily fashionable, but steeped in your own sense of style, your own sense of taste, and is something you build over years into a collection of clothes that you can wear for almost every possible occasion. We go through and build a wardrobe for a customer that starts with some simple pieces and some separate bits, and we add to it all the time. The way that we cut our pieces is not excessively fashionable, but it has a definite English style and a simplicity to it, which means you can dress it in different ways to make it work for different seasons. 

There are a lot of well-dressed men in London, but they don’t tend to be the ones that are photographed at red carpet events. Go back to the days of Stewart Granger and Cary Grant. They were all at the heart of Hollywood and they were having their clothes made here. They got great advice from their tailors and used beautiful cloths. Nowadays famous men rely heavily on stylists, who rely on big brands that are pushing an agenda. There’s very little of that man in what he’s wearing. He might say whether he likes it or not, but if a stylist doesn’t bring him something interesting, he’s not going to have anything interesting to wear!

The great thing about England in the summer is that there’s this unwritten rule that being slightly crumpled is fine. Linen is great and everybody knows it crinkles, so nobody expects that crisp, military tailoring. Sometimes you need to wear a jacket, so we’ve made these really light pieces you can wear on a really hot day. They’re completely unlined, completely unconstructed jackets, made from firmer cloths that will stand up a little bit on their own, but they’re still light. It’s just like wearing two shirts––it’s that comfortable. 

Adverts for luxury brands 150 years ago were everything they could say about the brand in as much space as they were willing to pay for. My question is: why do people not write copy on luxury goods adverts any more? I asked a lot of people about this and nobody could give me a good answer. You’ve got people like David Ogilvy [the legendary advertising guru, author of Confessions of an Advertising Man]. He did the same copy-driven adverts for every brand that he looked after for 30 years, and was incredibly successful. There are well-tested theories that the more words you write, the more people read it.