The values they’ve retained mean that their shirts
have remained largely unchanged since their inception, in terms of
quality and finishing. “All of our shirts have loose lined collars,
rather than the fused linings that you would find on many other
shirts,” Quin says. “This is not only more difficult to produce but
also gives the shirt a more comfortable feel when worn. The
stitching is executed with a single needle with 16-18 stitches per
inch, and all of our buttons are made from a mother of pearl shell
and sewn on with a fused wrap so the buttons will never come off. A
Turnbull & Asser shirt has its own personality that can only be
appreciated once worn. They are simply the best.”
All of Turnbull & Asser’s shirts are hand-made in
England, an increasingly rare achievement. It is made possible by
the brand’s Gloucester factory and the skilled workers who inhabit
it, many of whom have proudly worked there for decades. The factory
operation is impressive: it has the capacity to produce 70,000
shirts per year. Yet it feels far from industrial, which can
perhaps be explained by the amount of handiwork that each shirt
requires and the absence of noisy, overpowering machinery. Light
streams in through the multiple car-length windows, and workers are
passionate and revel in their craft, which likely explains why many
of them remain so loyal.
Bette Elton and Kathleen Cope are twins who have
worked together at the Gloucester factory for 53 years; today they
are factory floor manager and senior supervisor respectively, and
it’s fair to say they’ve seen it all. Bette tells The Rake
how shirt styles have transformed over the decades: “In the sixties
the collars were exceedingly bigger, or even roll-necks were
popular. The most recent changes have been to the body shapes. We
now do a range of different fits, or different collars, cuff or
pocket designs, and the range and quality of fabrics has increased
greatly.” It’s not just the shirts that have altered, either. Bette
says: “The sewing machinery has changed over the years, from a very
basic Singer, to today, where they have automatic thread trimming
[for accurate cutting of thread at the end of a sewing cycle], foot
controls, and the needle will automatically stay down to give a
good turning point. All products are sewn using single-needle
machines. However, we do now pre-press some components for speed
and accuracy, such as the side gussets, sleeve gauntlets and front
plackets.”
Turnbull & Asser do more than make shirts,
though, and their expansive ready-to-wear collection is thriving
under the helm of their Head of Design,
Dean
Gomilsek-Cole. Playing on the eccentric roots
of the brand, Dean’s seasonal collections often take inspiration
from a specific era related to T&A’s past, yet every detail is
updated and made relevant for the man of today in what is perhaps
the ideal fusion of past and present. When starting work on a new
season’s collection, Dean more often than not begins in the brand’s
shirt archives. “It is an important starting point, as we often
look at a specific decade as inspiration, so I can dip into the
patterns and colours we were using at that time,” he tells The
Rake. “The important factor is to make sure we don’t just
plagiarise the previous designs, but improve them with new
techniques and contemporary yarn innovations to make them relevant
to the 21st century customer, while still maintaining a bloodline
to the traditional one.”
The ready-to-wear collections span items as varied as
silk dressing gowns, velvet smoking jackets, silk-patterned braces,
umbrellas and more, yet despite this diversity, the shirt will
remain at the core of the brand. Dean says: “Our 130-year heritage
is a foundation for the future of the brand, and, just like the
foundation of a building, it must be maintained or everything that
is built upon it could collapse. We create some amazing products
within our collections, but every piece is designed around our core
of shirts, and outfits are built from this starting point. I
remember, during my first weeks with the brand, being reminded
that, ‘the suit is a frame, it is the shirt that is the
artwork’.”
The shirt is an often-overlooked aspect of the modern
man’s wardrobe, yet its importance is equal to if not greater than
the suit that so often masks it. Turnbull & Asser has endured
through two world wars, six British monarchs, and now Brexit,
precisely because it has never lost sight of this fact, which
displays a kind of brand integrity that is becoming increasingly
rare in the saturated landscape of the luxury menswear market.
Originally published in Issue 52, June 2017. Click here to
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