Sixties tailoring brand Tommy Nutter, worn by the likes of Mick Jagger, could be re-born with the help of Chinese billionaires who have just bought Gieves & Hawkes.
The Fung family is in talks to buy a majority stake in the Savile Row brand which made Mick Jagger’s suit for his wedding to Bianca. The brand is owned by Alan Lewis, Conservative Party vice chairman for business, who is selling it through his men’s suit brand Crombie.
It is thought the deal will see the brand re-launched, 20 years after the eponymous tailor’s death. During Tommy Nutter’s heyday of the Sixties and Seventies regular customers included Elton John and John Lennon. He became the first tailor to successfully combine Savile Row traditions with the cutting-edge fashion of swinging London.
Fung family-controlled companies have been snapping up European designer brands as demand continues to grow in the Far East. Hong Kong-listed Trinity, controlled by the Fung family, this month announced plans to buy royal tailor Gieves & Hawkes for more than £32 million. Trinity already owns Kent & Curwen and Cerruti 1881. A private investment arm of the families of Victor Fung and William Fung owns Savile Row tailor Hardy Amies and French fashion brand Sonia Rykiel. Fung-controlled Li & Fung, the clothing supply business, counts Marks and Spencer and Walmart among its clients.
Nutter opened his first shop in 1969, joining forces with master cutter Edward Sexton, and backed by Cilla Black and Beatles executive Peter Brown. He died aged 49 in 1992.
