Tom Gilbey (designer)
| Tom Gilbey | |
|---|---|
Tom Gilbey in 1969
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| Born |
19 May 1938 New Cross, London, England |
| Died | 24 May 2017 (aged 79) |
| Residence | London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Fashion designer |
Tom Gilbey (19 May 1938 – 24 May 2017) was a British fashion designer associated with Savile Row tailoring of the 1960s. His designs have featured in the Fashion Museum, Bath, and are in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Museum of London.
Tom Gilbey was born and grew up in a working class family in New Cross, London. He left school at the age of fifteen.
Gilbey entered the fashion industry in the 1960s.
In an article by Robin Dutt in London Portrait, entitled 'Major Tom', Gilbey recalled that 'the sixties was a decade of intense brilliance and horrific mistakes-in those days everybody was a somebody, and somebody was nobody'
Of his early days as a young designer Gilbey in a BBC documentary entitled Going to Work, The Rag Trade, states…'I started in a small, bespoke workshop in South London, and learned cutting and tailoring…all the practical and technical side'…’from there I attended Shoreditch Clothing college'. Emphasising at a young age, the practicalities of producing an actual garment Gilbey sagaciously advises potential designers…'it's all right doing sketches and things on paper, but you've got to sit down and get your form and get your line, and this is what you've got to convey to a machinist'…
Described as an iconoclast in the book, The Savile Row Story by Richard Walker, Gilbey describes the world into which he entered in 1968; 'It was a gentleman's world, a gentleman's club'. Based in Sackville Street at an address that was once the headquarters of the Masini Brothers, who controlled the seedier West End clubs in the 1920s, Tom explains the link between the number of fittings required for a suit and the underworld: ‘..and in the back, or round the corner, would be something else – in lots of cases that’s where the dozens of fittings came from’. Expanding on this link between tailoring and the underworld, Tom continues: ‘those Chicago gangsters like Al Capone in the tailor’s shop, with all the action out at the back’
Speaking about new entrants to the Savile Row area then, Gilbey commented in The Independent, "You had Tommy Nutter, Rupert Lycett Green, Michael Fish and myself ... Tommy Nutter wasn't a tailor and a cutter. He came from the sales side."
Putting down an early marker as to his design philosophy in the 1967 book by Rodney Bennett-England, entitled Dress Optional; the revolution in menswear, Gilbey says "More people than ever are working, and harder too. They want clothes they can put on and forget about, but clothes that nevertheless look right and help them do the job. Such clothes must have ease of movement, easy-care properties, accent on design simplicity."
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Wikipedia