It’s difficult to know where Thom Whiddett and Luke Sweeney end and Thom Sweeney begins – the sartorial persona that encompasses the pair’s tailoring ethos, as well as the name of their eponymous brand, established in 2007. At times, it feels more like you’re talking to some kind of twin-headed beast that’s telepathically connected, moving in perfect lockstep as it navigates fashion’s ever-evolving terrain.
It’s a fact that becomes evident during my second made-to-measure fitting at the tailor’s Mayfair townhouse. “I think we might need a little more padding in this right shoulder here,” Whiddett says, as he steps out momentarily in search of the requisite material to bolster my sloping silhouette. I follow him from behind the curtain and am greeted by Sweeney, who is returning from a meeting. “Oh, this looks great. Excellent choice on the material,” he appraises. “I think we’ll just need to build out that right shoulder, and you’ll be all set.” My laughter is a dead giveaway that he has mirrored his co-founder’s view and he rolls his eyes in mock-surprise.
“It’s mad, actually. I’ll give you an example: we can be in Italy with our outerwear workshop, and I’ll be on a call, so Thom gets going with the showcase without me. I’ll walk back in ten minutes later, I’ll pull up a piece and say, ‘I’m not sure about this’ or ‘I love that’, and we’ll be perfectly aligned,” Sweeney says as I shake my head in disbelief. “Some people think it’s a setup, but we just have the same vision and the same eye. We still respectfully disagree from time to time, but we always back each other. We’ve worked together for the best part of 25 years now. I see Thom more than I see my family, but it’s a really lovely partnership.”
When you look at what the tailoring duo has created over nearly two decades of blood, sweat and shears, it seems almost improbable that two relative unknowns could revitalise Britain’s staid tailoring landscape and bring a fresh audience to the wonders of made-to-measure and bespoke suiting, but it’s this symbiosis that has enabled them to achieve exactly that.
There was no five-year plan; it was just ‘make a beautiful suit and get it on the guy’
Blending traditional craftsmanship inspired by the old masters of Savile Row, just one street away from their Old Burlington St base, with the softer fluidity of Italian suit construction, Thom Sweeney has come to epitomise what contemporary British tailoring is all about – breaking outmoded sartorial rules in favour of comfort and expression while looking damn good in the process. With new outposts opening in Los Angeles, Miami and New York’s Madison Avenue in the last 12 months, as well as a planned expansion to come at its existing Mayfair store, there is perhaps no more important brand when it comes to thrusting British tailoring back into the global style conversation.
The pair met as cutters at Timothy Everest, itself a leader of the New Bespoke Movement in the 1990s. Under the tutelage of Everest and the legendary Savile Row cutter George Crossman, they earned their stripes in the fields of cutting, fabric curation, client relations, and measuring.
As Whiddett explains: “There are loads of funny stories about George Crossman I could tell you, but I’ll never forget how he would shout out a client’s figuration during measuring, like me mentioning your sloped shoulder. He’d say something like ‘SPB’ and the client would ask, ‘Oh, what does that mean?’ And then I’d be left to explain that it’s a ‘slight potbelly’.”
It’s easy to forget in a field that is understandably dominated by hand craftsmanship that it’s the social interaction between tailor and client, the crucial conversation that happens long before the first cut has been made, that is one of the greatest skills of all. Few relationships are as intimate, so intrinsic to the success of the fitting process itself, and few were as deft in its dark arts as Crossman himself. “He was just a no-bullshit kind of guy who told you exactly what he thought. He obviously taught me everything I knew at the time about cutting, but also how you are with the client, building that relationship, putting them at ease; he was just really good.”
When Timothy Everest moved in a new direction, Whiddett and Sweeney sensed it was time to go out on their own – naturally, this critical decision took place over a pint. With precious more than a book of clients, a keen set of eyes, and the arrogance of youth, the pair made their first steps.
“I think back to when we started Thom Sweeney, there was no five-year plan. There was no one-year plan. We had a couple of customers who are still customers today, and it was just ‘Make a beautiful suit, get it on the guy, and let him wear it.’ It was that kind of mentality. There was no forward thinking really. But very quickly we realised that there was a slightly younger guy at heart who didn’t want to go to Savile Row, and wanted an alternative. We were lucky enough to be that alternative at the right time,” Sweeney explains.
He handed over a cheque and went, ‘There you go, that should get you started.’
It was an inauspicious start, though. They took on a six-by-six room in Stratford Place, “a rickety old basement, with water coming through the walls”, directly opposite the main entrance to Bond Street station. They had one mirror, one cutting table, and one jacket maker – heck, if they had a pocketful of dreams, they’d need to make a pair of trousers for them first.
Which brings us onto the brand’s very first commission, a blue pinstripe suit with the serial number ‘TS01’ adorning its label. In the end, it was the generosity of a client who kept the lights on for those formative early months: “One guy wrote a cheque for five suits and an overcoat, and did the full amount in one payment. He handed it over and went, ‘There you go, that should get you started.’ He’s always had something on order since that day,” Whiddett says.
Thom Sweeney's new Miami store
Typical of the brand, it features a fully stocked bar for patrons
Much has changed in the 18 years since that moment, not least that the duo are no longer twenty-something upstarts, but one thing has remained the same: the fitting experience. Inspired in part by Crossman’s disarming approach mixed with the contemporary clubhouse-style surrounds of each Thom Sweeney boutique, the process of being measured for a suit is a much more welcoming experience than the stiff formality of Savile Row.
In the Mayfair store, there’s a handmade snooker table lined in navy blue baize, and a top-floor bar dedicated to the memory of South African hotelier Sol Kerzner, Sweeney’s father-in-law and a business mentor to the pair before his passing in 2020. It’s like entering a secret sartorial society known only by the discerning few.
Central to Thom Sweeney’s appeal is its distinctive house cut, which strikes a balance between British formality and Italian ease. The jacket features a softly structured shoulder – often roped for definition – paired with a slightly elongated silhouette that flatters the wearer without appearing too rigid. The chest is subtly draped for natural movement, while the waist is neatly suppressed to create a clean, tailored line. Trousers are typically cut with a medium rise and a straight-to-gently-tapered leg, offering a timeless yet contemporary profile.
“With our house cut, I suppose what we were doing at the beginning was a new interpretation. It still has that high armhole, the great shape that you get on Savile Row, but just mixing in a little bit of Italian construction, a little bit of fluidity, and I think nowadays we just sit in our own lane,” Whiddett explains.
Bespoke is the true expression of craftsmanship, like fine art or a piece of furniture
“The story behind a lot of tailoring houses is it’s one-way traffic: they have their house cut and that’s that. But we put ourselves a bit more in the lifestyle of what our client might be wearing this for, what looks good, and what you need for that occasion. I think that’s what separates us.”
I ask Whiddett about the differences between a made-to-measure suit and the bespoke process, terms that have been deliberately conflated by certain lesser brands but that are crucially different in several ways: “Bespoke is the true expression of craftsmanship, like fine art or a unique piece of furniture. Each piece is totally individual so you could have five bespoke grey suits in the same fabric, but each one when it comes back will be inherently different in some way because it’s done by hand, which is quite special.”
It requires a team of artisans to create a bespoke suit from scratch, which takes place in the underground cutting room beneath Thom Sweeney’s Mayfair townhouse. There’s the cutter, the coat maker who makes the jacket, the trouser maker, there’s a separate finisher for things like button holes and edge stitching, and then the presser is a specialised role as well as it’s a crucial final step. Each garment is cut and stitched by hand, typically requiring three fittings and as much as 80 hours of labour, using techniques that have existed for centuries. Time, skill, and exclusivity are what you are paying for.
Thom Sweeney's London store on Old Burlington Street
The simplest distinction with a made-to-measure suit is it loses much of this handcrafted element and is instead machine cut in Thom Sweeney’s specialist factories in Italy. My own suit that Whiddett is measuring me for, a brown-flecked charcoal double-breasted two-piece, will be made in this construction method, and he uses it by way of example: “So for your order, we’ve chosen the fabrics and taken your measures. What happens next is it gets cut digitally, so all of your measurements are put into our ready-to-wear block, and then we start changing shoulder angle and lengths. That will go through as a one-off through our Italian workshop, where the ready-to-wear is done, with a little more hand finishing and work in the latter stages. In simple terms, you’re measured by hand, our interpretation has gone into it, but the machine is cutting it.”
For the average consumer, made-to-measure is the best of both worlds: the personal fit of bespoke tailoring, combined with the efficiency of a ready-made block. The library of more than 2,000 fabric swatches on Thom Sweeney’s shelves are all available to you, from British worsteds to soft Italian linens and cashmeres, while embellishments like the number of pleats on the pants, to trouser cuff or not, belt holes or side fastens, and how high waisted you wish to go, are decisions you will have to make. It’s only if you wish to really go off-piste or desire the upper echelons of craftsmanship that bespoke is best.
At the heart of Thom Sweeney’s burgeoning success is a simplicity, a logical train of thought, that strikes me as surprisingly rare. The ‘make it nice, ask questions later’ approach that runs through its bespoke service right the way down to its ready-to-wear.
It surfaces while chatting to Sweeney about the brand’s decision to move into ready-to-wear: “It was quite frowned upon that a tailoring house would offer a ready-to-wear collection. We just thought it was so strange. Maybe our age and how simple we kept things helped us, but we never thought too hard about it.”
I feel like we’ve got enough of a name now and enough of a formula to push forward. If we’re ever going to do it, the time is now
“Thom and I were styling our customers subconsciously because we were wearing slightly softer jackets with knitwear and a crew neck ourselves, and so we were sending our guys elsewhere to complete the look. We were a little bit nervous that it would take away the kudos of bespoke or made-to-measure, but in the end, it gave us the opportunity to see our clients more regularly. It just all made sense to us.”
It’s a simple enough notion, but far from easy to pull off – a phrase that perhaps encapsulates the admirable story of Thom Sweeney’s rise to prominence.
Sweeney nods when I ask him if he has ever stopped to appreciate how far they’ve come and the exciting growth of the brand. “Do you know what? Thom and I were catching up the other day, and we both realised that now is really the first time that we’ve ever felt sort of ready. It’s been 18 years of real graft, and it’s still a lot of hard work, but I feel like we’ve got enough of a name now and enough of a formula to push forward. If we’re ever going to do it, the time is now.”
Luke Sweeney and Thom Whiddett, founders of Thom Sweeney
And then he signs off with a line that will never cease to make me smile.
“Listen. We’re only passing through, so we might as well give it a crack.”
Made-to-measure and bespoke appointments are available at Thom Sweeney’s Mayfair townhouse. For more, thomsweeney.com
