British menswear's new guard runs from Savile Row to Hackney

Kent & Curwen has sold sporting staples since 1926. Steven Stokey-Daley founded his label, S.S. Daley, in 2020. Between those two dates sits a scene of independent British menswear that has quietly reshaped how men in London, and increasingly abroad, think about tailoring.

On Savile Row itself, the street long synonymous with bespoke suiting, Rav Matharu took a different route. He founded Clothsurgeon there in 2012, pairing the row's tailoring traditions with streetwear cuts, a combination that would have seemed unlikely a generation earlier.

Two labels founded in the same year, 2009, took opposite paths. Joe and Charlie Casely-Hayford established their tailoring house Casely-Hayford in London that year. In Nottingham, David Keyte launched Universal Works, a minimalist workwear label built on utility rather than formality. Same starting line, different destinations.

The following decade brought a cluster of designer-led brands. Nick Wakeman set up Studio Nicholson in London in 2010, pursuing a pared-back aesthetic that has since found an international following. Grace Wales Bonner launched her menswear label Wales Bonner in 2014, the same year Spoke London introduced customisable trousers aimed at men who found off-the-rack fits inadequate.

Bianca Saunders arrived in 2017 with her eponymous London label, followed in 2020 by Stokey-Daley's S.S. Daley, built around sustainable production. Aaron Esh, working out of East London, has more recently built a name on subversive silhouettes, part of a younger cohort still defining its place in the wider scene.

Percival, based in Hackney, sits closer to the everyday end of the spectrum, producing classic staples printed with modern patterns rather than pursuing runway drama. It is a reminder that the strength of British menswear right now lies less in any single aesthetic than in its range: a 1926 sporting brand, a Savile Row bespoke house, and a Hackney label all trading under the same broad banner, each with a customer who knows exactly why they chose it.