Dress Like a London Gentleman: Austin Reed Celebrates 110 years of Dressing for Success

Austin Reed has an enviable history on the British tailoring high street. Offering an aspiration blend of heritage, craftsmanship and modernity, its designs have become a byword for style and elegance.

This year Austin Reed, the holder of two Royal Warrants, celebrates its 110th year of dressing for success and has released a limited 110^th Anniversary Collection.

A Little History of Fashion Mixed With Celebs

Back in July 1900, Austin Reed opened his first store on Fenchurch Street in the City of London. Highlights through the years, including concessions on famous passenger liners the Aquitania and the Queens Mary and Elizabeth. Celebrity customers such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Rex Harrison, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Spencer Tracy have throughout the years cemented the brand’s position as an authority in the British tailoring industry.

Austin Reed also made a name for itself with the production of uniforms for servicemen during World War I and subsequently for both male and female soldiers, admirals, generals and air marshals in World War II.

The brand even took on a more covert role dressing special agents and members of various Resistance groups, while Winston Churchill personally asked Austin Reed to design a suit that could be thrown on as sirens sounded the alarm for an air raid, giving rise to the infamous one-piece siren-suit.

Never behind in innovation or moving with the times, Austin Reed took the revolutionary step of introducing a quality, value for money, ready-to-wear suit in 1925, thereby making sophisticated, polished dressing more accessible.

Today

The brand has just released their 110^th Anniversary Collection based on a book that Reed published in 1930. The notepad style edition acted as a checklist for the “men who leave things behind” when packing for a trip. It seems the same problems when packing still plague men today and so here are some top items from the collection to help them travel in style…

Leather Holdall £200

Wallet £45

Tie Holder £50

www.austinreed.co.uk