Where the design process really sets itself apart is with its relationship with Anderson & Sheppard’s bespoke
cutting room. “We don’t do the design in a traditional way,” says Rowland. “‘I went off to Bhutan and I saw this
amazing… whatever, and was inspired’ – we don’t do that, because that’s not really how men shop. Guys coming here
are not looking for that. We do things that we think fit well into our customer’s lifestyle.” Every tailored garment
begins life as a pattern cut by the bespoke cutting team, before being graded and then passed on to the specialist
workshops, which has allowed Anderson & Sheppard to retain its unique shapes and silhouettes when moving to
larger-scale production.
Trousers were the initial focus, but the range now encompasses everything from outerwear to loungewear to swimwear,
and everything in between. Although all of its clothing is strikingly of a piece, many of the garments were
developed initially to help customers find the things their wardrobe was missing. For Rowland, the trick to
developing them was, once again, to listen. “We don’t have the same problem as a lot of big brands in that there’s
no separation between the workroom and the shop floor,” she says of the design relationship. “In a lot of places the
communication comes down to the shop floor but it’s not so easy for the shop floor, who is actually talking to the
customer to say, well this worked, or that didn’t work, or we need these things. Here it’s a constant
dialogue.”
It’s a process best exemplified by the brand’s relationship with someone who knew a thing or two about dialogue - the
late, brilliant author A.A. Gill. One of Anderson & Sheppard’s most stalwart – and demanding – devotees, Gill
was involved with “pretty much everything”, product-wise says Rowland. “That work jacket, we really went backwards
and forwards with him on.” Charlies continues: “It was great, because he would wear things, like the travel jacket,
for a week and then take it off and say, 'this works, that doesn’t work, this pocket is too high' and so on. So it
was great to have someone bash it around.” Gill had a unique ability to rethink or re-contextualise the pieces they
created, says Charles, recalling a particularly memorable deployment of the linen pyjamas. “Adrian took them to Rome
and wore them in Rome for a weekend with a T-shirt with the pyjama top open when it was boiling hot. Everyone kept
saying, ‘Oh that’s a great jacket, where did you get it?’ He just came to things from a different angle. Sometimes
you would agree with him, and sometimes he was just difficult for the sake of being difficult. But he was such an
original mind, and brave about how he put things together or what he could do with things.” Several more pieces
inspired by his ideas are in development, though Rowland says they’re not ready to talk about them just yet.
The work jacket that they developed with Gill has been one of the range’s greatest success stories. Like most of the
products, it’s not strictly seasonal, instead having been designed for a purpose, in this case providing an
easy-wearing yet elegant weekend layer. “That will be on a nineteen-year-old or a guy in his seventies,” says
Rowland, “as a jean jacket alternative, as a lightweight travel jacket, even as a boating jacket with a pair of
shorts. It fits into a lot of different activities depending on how you style it.” The travel jacket – a robust,
thirteen-pocket take on a field jacket that still carries the brand’s easy-wearing handwriting – is another success
story. “I think particularly what’s good about that field jacket is it’s got a really solid construction. It’s
pretty hefty. Our thing is that we know a lot of guys just don’t like carrying luggage. They’re travelling a lot,
they’ve got a day here or there. With this you can screw it up, it’s tough enough to do that, and stick it in the
overhead locker and you know that nothing is going to fall out. It’s replacing a bag essentially.”
As with the rest of the range, from polos, to fine knits and elegant trousers, there’s a sense
that the jacket has evolved towards some sort of platonically idealised form of menswear – all frippery and
embellishment cut away to leave a pure and singular construct. “I hate embellishment. It’s like when you get mint
leaves on a plate of strawberries,” says Charles. “You think, well what’s the mint for? There’s very little design
in it here, and it’s never designed for the sake of it. Where form and function meet, that’s when something
works.”
Anderson & Sheppard's travel jacket is rendered in corduroy for autumn/winter. Photograph by James Munro.
