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London's hippest label for
lads
by Guy Babineau
Burberry had better look over the shoulder of its trench coat and watch its back. An unlikely new kid on the block, The Duffer of St. George, is honing in on its territory, albeit with a twist, but nonetheless doing it very, very well indeed. For many creaking decades, Burberry, which was founded in 1856, conjured up strains of the Gershwins’ A Foggy Day (in London Town). The top drawer label recently tossed out the mothballs, had a facelift, got rid of the fog machine, and made plaid more popular than it’s been since the Bay City Rollers, capturing the attention of the fashion world with its sharp new designs for the youth market. But if you really want to turn heads (and raise eyebrows) at Ascot or Wimbledon this year, or locally at clubs like Voda or Shine, you should check out the competition.
The young, dynamic men’s label The Duffer of St. George, sold exclusively in Vancouver at bruce (1038 Alberni St.), has surprised a lot of people by setting up shop on Savile Row. Arguably Britain’s hottest design house for men who appreciate fresh, contemporary urban style, The Duffer of St. George is known for its cheeky, well-tailored take on street fashion. Now it is complementing its dance party duds with a new line of shirts, pants and suits blending trend and tradition, with painstaking attention paid to fine tailoring and details. Casual items include the firm’s signature long- sleeved cotton Ts ($125) in a range of warm browns and sienna, emblazoned with the firm’s logo, a modern version of a ye olde English crest. Their brown suede track pants ($395) are very cool. These share closet space with a range of button down shirts that blend daring fabrics and colours with form-fitting cuts and impeccable stitchery, such as a beautiful cotton shirt in bold, wide blue and brown stripes ($275). Among its range of suits, a trim, mod, grey suit ($1,095) with a vented jacket lined in eggshell blue satin and special details including pocket flaps, and a narrow-leg, low-waist pant, adds brio to more formal occasions.
Burberry has an excellent reputation built on years of experience, but even though both design houses have made crossover moves to arrive at roughly the same place in the spotlight of high-end trend, precocious Duffer is the new scene-stealing kid on the block. And hence just that much more cool, with standards of craftsmanship that challenge Burberry, or any other leading English clothier for that matter.
“The typical Duffer customer would be, like, a London punk-boy who is very style conscious and mixes up street fashion with a more traditional look,” said Campbell McDougall, bruce’s founder and president, during an interview in the spacious, modernist lifestyle emporium. “He might wear a sharp suit, but with trainers and his shirt untucked.”
Duffer is slang for a purveyor of cheap, flashy merchandise. Duffer of St. George started out in 1984, selling vintage clothing in London’s Camden Market. A year later, they opened a shop. They started to reproduce the best vintage pieces, and by the late ’80s, were making clothes for the burgeoning rave scene. In 1992, they opened what is now the flagship of three current stores, the newest, as mentioned, on Savile Row, which opened in 2001. In 1999, Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, publishers of Elle, Metropolitan Home and many others, presented The Duffer of St. George with an award for best menswear retailer of the year. Also in 1999, Duffer received Sky magazine’s fashion award for best menswear label. In 2000, it was nominated for Maxim’s Best British Designer Award. The company was also a nominee for a 2001 British Fashion Awards Street Style Award.
“Vancouver men really get TheDuffer of St. George,” McDougall continued, mentioning that it is selling very well. “Maybe that’s because there are so many ties – people going back and forth between the two cities – and the fact that we’ve got similar weather.”
bruce has been favourably eyed by Nylon, Wallpaper and other slick international publications about urban chic. McDougall, who spends about two months out of the year in Europe on buying trips, found some of his inspiration for bruce at the The Duffer of St. George retail outlets. Besides its own apparel, Duffer stocks a range of clothing from the hottest European designers, but only on a season-by-season basis, for as long as a design firm is cutting edge. They also display and sell contemporary art in their stores, like bruce.
The Duffer of St. George has no plans to set up shop on this side of the Atlantic. They remain focused on the European trade and see no reason to mass produce for the Americas. bruce is one of only a handful of retailers in North America to carry the collection. It’s an excellent fit. Both understand the relationship between fashion and style. Disdaining the assembly line formula of most labels, they keep pace with the new, appreciating that style is a leader, fashion a follower. Men's Tailoring The Man Who Shot Ziggy Stardust Boss Hugo Boss Ken: The Ultimate Male Model Men's Shoes Heatherette The Duffer of St. George The Men of 2003 © Guy Babineau 2003-2004
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