Manchester, “summer” 2014. Urgent need dictated the purchase of a new pair of trousers, and House of Fraser was near our hotel. I don’t like jeans (all denim and rivets), and I don’t really like chinos (too much crinkly double stitching on the seams and often so rigid that you look like you’re wearing lengths of drainpipe), and on the British High Street that doesn’t leave a gent much choice. After what was looking like another fruitless trawl round the menswear department, an assistant hared off upstairs to bring down some trousers he knew were languishing up there (“that might fit sir rather better”). He came back with a pair of rather nice flannels (this was a Manchester summer after all) which did indeed fit, and as two-year old remnants were offered at a not-to-refuse price. Thus happened my first encounter with Chester Barrie.

Very satisfactory they proved to be, so I was delighted some months later, to notice that an outlet shop was opening in a shopping ‘village’ just a few miles from my home, of which more later.

Chester Barrie is a long-established tailor whose flagship store opened on Savile Row in 1937. Simon Ackerman, its owner, had had experience of American gents’ tailoring, and sought to create an early global brand. Sir Winston Churchill, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra were customers.

The brand has a complicated corporate history similar to many others, but the important thing here is its emergence in recent years as a strong exponent of modern British tailoring. While Sprezzatura loves all things Italian, it is still something of a sadness that the home industry doesn’t offer more to please my eye. For me, traditional British tailoring is just too formal, stiff and class-redolent. It may work if you are a member of a city law firm or bank, but I have no wish to wear the badges of those particular cliques, with all the chauvinistic clubbiness that it too easily implies.

What’s more, the clash of multiple primaries, loud patterns, checks, stripes and pastels that one often sees at the ‘country’ end of the look too, to me suggests nothing more than a blatant disregard for the simple rules of aesthetics – or else incipient blindness. There is something in that guidance about never wearing more than two colours at once, and matching the belt and shoes. Perhaps it doesn’t matter when you’re shooting grouse.

So Chester Barrie is a very welcome presence on the market, and I think can give the Italians a good run for their money, in both the styling and the presentation of their collections. The clothes are sharp, modern and yet clearly British. That said, they make an Anglo-Italian blend a distinct possibility, and this is especially useful in the trouser department where Italian imports may look great but clearly aren’t cut with northern European body shapes in mind.

The fabrics in use are of superb quality (often, I note, Italian in origin) and the manufacturing equally good (also done in Italy on their premium line) – which strikes me as a little ironic for a Savile Row company, but I’m not complaining. I don’t intend to review specific items here, but recommend a click to the website for a more comprehensive view.

And those outlets: they are important. This is certainly not cheap clothing, the prices in a regular outlet easily rivalling those of Milan and Rome – but a little research will reveal that House of Fraser regularly offers a limited range of C.B. clothing with some good mark-downs. The C.B. website offers its own seasonal sales too – and the three outlets in Braintree, York and Gloucester offer good service and some items at prices so reduced as to make the High Street chains seriously blush. Well worth the cost of a tank of petrol to make a visit to one of them, if needs be.

It is good, at long last, to see a British clothier grasping the market for modern, forward-looking clothing with a Brexit-defying edge, and not letting go.

http://www.chesterbarrie.co.uk/

https://www.chesterbarrie.co.uk/store-locator