LONDON (AFP) — Savile Row tailors, for centuries associated with hand-made suits for English gentlemen, have lost their exclusive right to the term "bespoke" after a ruling by the advertising watchdog Wednesday.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had received a complaint about a newspaper advertisement offering a discounted "bespoke suit" to mark the opening of retailer Sartoriani's new store in London's Old Bond Street.
Old Bond Street is near Savile Row, the bastion of traditional tailors whose custom-made suits are still cut and stitched in workshops above or below the shops themselves and sell for thousands of pounds.
The outfitters, whose suits have clothed princes and prime ministers, have increasingly complained that they feel under threat from the arrival in the area of high street retailers offering cheaper, off-the-peg suits.
The complainant objected to Sartoriani's use of the term "bespoke" because it implied they were made entirely by hand, but he believed the advertised suits were machine-cut abroad to a standard pattern and later adjusted.
Rejecting the complaint, ASA said it took on board Sartoriani's arguments that the definition of "bespoke" could refer to "made to order" or "made to measure" and the price would not confuse customers with a Savile Row suit.
"We considered that both fully bespoke and made-to-measure suits were 'made to order' in that they were made to the customer's precise measurements and specifications, unlike off-the-peg suits," ASA said in its adjudication.
"We considered that customers would expect bespoke suit to be tailored to their measurements and specifications.
"We considered that the majority of people, however, would not expect that suit to be fully hand-made with the pattern cut from scratch. We concluded that the world 'bespoke' to describe the advertised suits was unlikely to mislead."
The Savile Row Bespoke industry society has mounted a campaign to protect its traditional craftsmanship, arguing that choosing a suit hand-made "liberates a man from the tyranny of fashion" and is an "act of empowerment".
The word "bespoke" was coined in the 17th century. When a customer chose a measure of cloth, it was said to have "been spoken for".
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