London Tailor Dege & Skinner: Military Cut on Savile Row

Dege & Skinner cuts every bespoke garment at 10 Savile Row, London W1S 3PF, with the workroom directly beneath the shop floor. The house was founded in 1865, the shop opens Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm and Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and its FAQ promises about 12 weeks from first measure to delivery. If your search for a tailor near me is really a search for military-grade cutting in the West End, this is the address to call.

The firm traces its line to Jacob Dege, a German journeyman tailor who set up in London in 1865. In 1900 Arthur Dege and William Skinner formed Arthur Dege & Skinner, and in 1947 Tim Skinner acquired J. Dege & Sons. Michael Skinner, a master cutter who joined in 1953, is still chairman and turned 90 in 2025. William Skinner, the fifth generation, has been managing director since 2001, and the business took back the Dege & Skinner name in 2000.

Uniforms are the thread through that history. The house ran branches at Aldershot and Catterick during the Second World War, bought the military tailors Rogers, John Jones in 1967, and made the Blues and Royals frock coat Prince Harry wore at his 2018 wedding. For the 2023 Coronation it made Prince Louis's uniform and the page boys' uniforms. It holds royal warrants including one from Queen Elizabeth II, and a 2024 warrant from King Charles III.

Beyond lounge suits, the bespoke list reads like a dressing room for ceremonies and field sports: overcoats, riding and hunting coats, opera capes, smoking jackets, bespoke shirts and full uniforms. The house says each two-piece suit takes 55 hours of work and a three-piece 60 to 80 hours. For the 160th anniversary it commissioned four basket-weave cloths, and Homo Faber counts around 20 artisans in the workshop, which moved into the basement under the shop in 2012.

The signature order for a first visit is a suit cut with the structure the house learned from uniforms: a clean chest, a defined waist and a jacket that stays put on horseback or on a parade square. Ask your cutter to show you a riding coat or a hacking jacket in progress, because that is where the house style is easiest to read. The opera cape is a wonderful object, but skip it as a first commission unless you already own the dinner suit beneath it.

The first meeting can happen in the shop, at your home or office, or at one of the trunk shows the house runs abroad; Dege & Skinner says it ran the first overseas trunk show of any bespoke tailor, in the United States in 1964. Each client is assigned one cutter who stays with the account.

The process starts with 35 measurements and moves through a baste fitting, where the coat is held together with loose white stitches, and then a forward fitting that brings it close to finished. The FAQ says garments are built with inlays that can be let out by up to 4 inches, which matters if you expect your shape to change. Wear the shoes and the shirt you intend to pair with the suit, because both change how the trouser and cuff fall.

The FAQ states that bespoke pricing is available on request, so there is no public figure to quote for a made-from-scratch suit. The ready-to-wear rail is priced on the website: single-breasted two-piece suits at £1,500 and a double-breasted blazer at £995, with alterations to ready-to-wear charged on top. Officer cadets at Sandhurst receive 25 percent off civilian clothes, a small detail that says a lot about who walks through the door every autumn.

Homo Faber sums up the clientele as lords, soldiers and gentlemen, and the house's own pages back that up: Household Cavalry and Royal Lancers officers, members of the Royal Company of Archers, Lord Vestey as Master of the Horse, and trunk-show clients from the United States, the Gulf and Asia. Michael Jackson even wore one of its military coats on stage. Expect a quiet room where conversation turns to braid, buttons and regimental colours as easily as to cloth weights.

Weekday mornings after 9am are the calmest time for a first conversation, before lunchtime traffic fills Savile Row and long before the Saturday 5pm close. If the 12-week bespoke timeline does not fit your date, look at the £1,500 ready-to-wear suit and have the house alter it, then book the bespoke commission for the next occasion. Do not arrive unannounced expecting a full consultation; call ahead, name the occasion, and the house will match you with a cutter.

Parisian Gentleman called the Dege & Skinner window the most beautiful store window on the Row, so stop on the pavement opposite before going in. Afterwards, walk south to Burlington Arcade at 51 Piccadilly, the Regency covered passage that runs alongside the Royal Academy of Arts at Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD. For tea or a cocktail, sketch at 9 Conduit Street is two minutes away on foot, close enough to discuss lapel widths while the fitting is fresh in your mind.

Address: 10 Savile Row, London W1S 3PF. Nearest stations: Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus are both roughly a ten-minute walk. Hours: Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 5pm, closed on bank holidays. Bespoke suits take about 12 weeks with a baste and a forward fitting, and bespoke pricing is given on request. Ready-to-wear: two-piece suit £1,500, double-breasted blazer £995. Book an appointment before you travel.