In the traditionally male-dominated world of Savile Row tailoring, Kathryn Sargent has made the journey from apprentice to having her name above the door of her own bespoke brand – and is the world’s first female Master Tailor.
Kathryn grew up in Yorkshire and studied for a fashion degree in London, specialising in menswear, with work experience at a Savile Row tailor during her final year. “I was really into tailoring – I used to dress in jackets and suits myself and I wanted to learn how to make garments like that.”
Her final collection – in Harris Tweed – won her an award from the British Wool Marketing Board during Graduate Fashion Week in 1996, and on graduating she landed an apprenticeship at Gieves & Hawkes at its famous No.1 Savile Row address.
"The tailors I did work experience with suggested I go with a larger company to learn as much as possible,” she says. “Before I even graduated, I expressed an interest in doing an apprenticeship there, because I just fell in love with the craftsmanship of Savile Row tailoring. I was used to buying suits from charity shops, taking them apart and altering them myself, but I’d never seen suits like they had on those mannequins. There was such a mystique about it, so I was very much romanced by the idea of it.”
Kathryn worked in the bespoke department at Gieves & Hawkes for 15 years, specialising in pattern cutting and fitting, and was made Head Cutter in 2009, the first time there had ever been a female Head Cutter in any of the Savile Row houses.
“I grew up in that building,” she says. “Not just in years but also in confidence and skill. Having gone from a university setting to a workplace with different age groups and backgrounds was quite a contrast. There were a lot of people to learn from and to get help and support from, who took you under their wing.”
But after a couple of years as Head Cutter, Kathryn made the bold step to set up her own business in order to offer tailoring for women alongside men, having noticed a growing demand for bespoke garments among her female friends who were “accelerating in their careers but struggling with what to wear”.
“I went on a part-time business start-up course at Central Saint Martins,” she says. “It was very basic. I downloaded a business plan template from the internet and worked through it. I looked at what I needed to live on and how I could make it work. I didn’t have this big ambition for it. I had the best time at Gieves & Hawkes, but I’d got to the point in my life where I needed to do something fresh and new.”
Having been established as a brand for 12 years, a new Kathryn Sargent atelier has recently opened in Edinburgh, overseen by her former apprentice, Alistair Nimmo. “It’s a lovely way to grow my business and do something new,” she says. “There’s a lot you have to learn to get to this point, all the aspects of running a business – not just cutting a suit and fitting it, but also thinking about branding and marketing and the whole package. Plus employing people and sharing my knowledge, training them myself, just as I have been trained. I really love doing that.”
Kathryn now sits on the board of the Savile Row Bespoke Association, which has helped to establish a more formal apprenticeship system with its own industry-recognised qualifications. “It’s lovely to have a voice in the industry. When I joined there weren’t so many of us around, but now there are lots of young women in the industry learning the craft.”
> Photography by Sam Walton
