Chester Barrie
| Private | |
| Industry | Retailer |
| Founded | 1935 |
| Founder | Simon Ackerman |
| Headquarters | Savile Row, London, United Kingdom |
| Products | Clothing, Fashion |
| Parent | Prominent Europe |
| Website | ChesterBarrie.co.uk |
Chester Barrie is a semi-bespoke gentleman's tailor located at No19 Savile Row, London.
Founded in 1935 by expatriate English tailor Simon Ackerman, and presently owned by Prominent Europe. The company provides ready-to-wear clothes, as well as made-to-measure tailoring.
At the turn of the 20th century, Englishman Simon Ackerman left England for New York City. Having built up a high-priced, quality tailoring business in and around New York, in 1935 he decided that he wanted to import quality British-made suits for the US market.
Returning to London in 1935 he founded Chester Barrie, opening a factory in Crewe in Cheshire - midpoint between cloth mills of Huddersfield and the Port of Liverpool. His aim was to create ready-to-wear tailoring, that was of the same quality and had the same attention to detail as the bespoke tailors of Savile Row but without the wait and high cost. Suits for export had the button holes un-finished, where by sending them back to the United States unfinished thus avoided the import duty.
The factory was opened in Chestnut Grove under the name Chester Barrie, based on combining:
In 1937, the business opened a store on Savile Row. The following year Ackerman returned to the United States, placing his son Myron in charge of the British business.
The business's growth continued until late 1939 and the start of World War II when the factory's production turned to the war effort, eventually picking up a contract to produce officers' uniforms for the US Army in Europe, after the United States entered the war post the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Post-war, business picked up, and in 1949 the factory moved into no longer needed sections of the Rolls-Royce Crewe factory, which itself had been constructed pre-war as a shadow factory to mass-produce the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The new capacity allowed the firm to expand, including supplying its product to Harrods after Myron sent his own sales people in initially to promote the product.
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Wikipedia