INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE DYER
PAOLO HEWITT: How did you get into the tailoring business?
GEORGE DYER: I loved dressing up as a kid. This was the Sixties. My dad was a trouser maker and he made my school clothes. My mum used to take me to the school shop and I would always choose something the other kids wouldn't have. For example, I'd buy a blazer that was bigger than my size so I could put a vent in the back, that kind of thing. I always liked unusual things. Through your clothes you were trying to make a statement and although I don't want to call myself a rebel, I wasn't conforming.
I left school round my 17 th birthday, which was round about '71 or 72. The old man said to me, alright boy, you have left school now the one thing I am going to tell you to do is go out there and find a trade because I don't want any criminals in my house. He thought that if you didn't have a trade you would go into crime. We had an upbringing which was strict so you listened to your parents. I loved clothes but I also loved music but my dad wouldn't let me get into the music scene because he used to be a musician and play guitar in nightclubs and stuff and when you're a musician you're around drugs and drink and he didn't want me to get into that, so he said anything but. So I took up tailoring.
PH: What was your first job?
GD: I managed to get an apprenticeship with a company in Fleet Street. It was called Dombey and Sons. They put a broom in my hand and told me where the kettle was and told to get on with it. After a while, they saw I could take instructions so two months down the road I was asked if I wanted to go tot tailoring college and learn the trade Which I did. I went to the London College Of Fashion and Clothing Technology in the Barbican. It was a three-year course. What I learnt there was craft tailoring which was everything pertaining to sewing, different stitches, how to make pockets. Then you had to learn padded construction, textiles, fabrics, all aspects plus you had to have an ability to design something. I got out of there with a City and Guilds degree.
PH: Was Dombey a big company?
G: Huge. They
had 38 shops in and around London. In fact, there was a guy called Dickie Wright
who was the manager of the Southend shop and his son was Steve Wright, the DJ.
PH: What style were you into at this point?
GD: Well, at school it had been the Fred Perrys, the Ben Sherman's, the
loafers, the Sta-prest, but now it was the big blown out afro and wide trousers, more of a
soul boy thing. I leant more towards the soul music and the jazz whereas a lot
of my boys were roots or Rasta boys. But I was a soul boy because I liked
clothes and the soul boys liked to dress up as well. So I finished my
apprenticeship and stayed on with the company for twelve, thirteen years. I
worked in a number of their shops Seven Sisters, Jamaica Road, Walworth Road,
Peckham, Berwick Street. In those days everyone wore a made to measure suit.
These were the times when people couldn't go into a bar saloon without wearing a
suit so there was a big demand for made to measure. The gangsters were about
then, the Krays, the Richardsons, and young people would copy them. People used
to wear ties and look smart.
PH: What was it like working in these shops?
GD: There were some right characters. I used to work in Brixton and there was an old experienced cutter working there who liked to be called Dick. He used to come in with 40 Bensons every day and smoke them one after the other. One in, one out, one in, one out. I said to him can't you give that up? It's going to kill you. He said, Mate, if I give them up that's when it will kill me!
PH: Why did you leave?
GD: Got made redundant. The sons took over and made changes at which point my old colleague Jimmy Nash who had worked in a shop called Sydney Fox as a boy, was approached and asked if he wanted to take over. Within a week the owner had died and I went to work for Jimmy. He was great, Jimmy. He was another one. He had this saying. He used to say boy, remember, there will always be fat men and cripples! You heard stuff like that all the time. I worked with him for about another twelve or thirteen years in which time he changed the name of the shop to James Anthony. There was always faces coming in like TV presenters and stuff because a lot of celebrities lived in the area, Camberwell Grove round there.
PH: Wasn't it about this time that the tailoring business took a bit of a nosedive?
GD: It started when the designer jeans and cords and that lot came in. When Armani, Boss, Conran and Smith and all these people came about, the old boys wouldn't buy them because they were too used to made to measure suits not off the peg numbers. But once they've gone .
PH: So you did 13 years with James Anthony?
GD: It was there and at Dombey and Son that I learnt the trade and I have got a lot to thank them for.
PH: When did you start your own shop?
GD: By
the late 80s, business had declined at James Anthony and I could feel that my
partner Jimmy could at any point say to me sorry mate can't afford to keep you
on. So before that happened I got involved with two friends of mine who were
involved in the theatre side of tailoring. I had met them at college and kept in
touch so I approached them. Long story short, we found some premises, bought the
lease and worked at my father's house making theatre garments. Unfortunately it
ended up in tears but suffice to say I gained a lot of experience out of that.
When I pulled the plug I got some money which was paid to me over a period of a
year which is how long it took me to get everything together to open up my own
shop which I did in 1995.
PH: When you started out what were you offering that people couldn't get anywhere else?
GD: Although suits aren't as popular as before there is still a market. When I started the shop people told me that tailoring was finished and ten years later here I am. What do I offer people? I have a skill which I want to keep alive and there is a direction which I want to go in. That direction is to make Mod fashionable suits, suits that a Mod can access from L550 onwards.
PH: When you say a Mod suit what kind of design
are you thinking about?
GD: I think every generation should make his mark. Yes, I can give you the essence but I'd like the customer to also make his own thing and put his stamp on it. In that way, the history of Mod can continue. It shouldn't just stop in the 60s, the Mod style should develop and this is one way of ensuring that. The Mod suits I make are not 100 per cent accurate to the Sixties but do have the essence of them.
PH: You're adding your own twists to the classic design?
GD: Not just me, the customer as well. I want the input to come from both parts. When I make a suit for anybody I like to think that it is us who are creating that suit, that it is us who are making the masterpiece. And it can work in many ways. You can come in with a picture or a sketch and we can work it from there. Or you can buy material from me or bring in your own material. Doesn't matter. It's a partnership.
PH: Okay, final question. What's the greatest Mod
record ever made?
GD: As' by Stevie Wonder.