The 100Hands brand is going to be bringing a taste of Indian craftsmanship to Savile Row.
The luxury shirtmaker, which is based in Amsterdam but has its atelier in Punjab, India, will open a shop at 36 Savile Row this fall. This marks one of the first non-British companies to open on the famed street, according to Varvara Maslova, who founded 100Hands with her husband Akshat Jain in 2014.
Jain’s family has been in the textile business in India for more than 160 years. Both he and Maslova were in the corporate finance business when they met and decided to ditch their careers in finance and create a bespoke shirt brand. They built a state-of-the-art factory in India and today, that factory employs 435 people who create a collection of hand-tailored shirts for men.
The company creates some of the highest-quality handmade shirts in the market and was even singled out as one of the Best Shirtmakers in the World by The Financial Times last year. It has become known for its superfine, three-ply fabrics, hand-rolled bottom hems and hand-embroidered buttonholes in its shirts. The company was named as a nod to the 50 people it takes to make each shirt, each of which take between 16 and 36 hours to produce.
A look from 100Hands.
Jonathan Daniel Pryce
Over the years, 100Hands has added a selection of ready-to-wear to complement its bespoke offering and has also expanded into men’s jackets.
The collection is not cheap — an essential white shirt is $395, a linen chambray shirt retails for $510 and a navy wool poplin is $570. A navy wool traveler jacket and a cashmere sweater-jacket, both in Loro Piana fabrics, retail for $1,658 and $3,202 respectively.
In addition to its own e-commerce site, the 100Hands collection is also sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Harrods, Mr Porter and other luxury men’s retailers.
But the Savile Row shop will mark 100Hands’ first entry into the retail business. The store will be 650 square feet and is being designed by the Indian design lab Studio Lotus. Maslova said all the furniture in the space will be bespoke and created by artisans in India.
Special lighting such as that used in museums will be added to the store to best display the assortment, and artisan studio Paiwand is making screens from leftover fabrics from the company’s factory in India that will be erected at the rear of the store to display the clothing, she said.
“This is our first store so we wanted it to be more interactive,” she said.
The company is hoping to open the store sometime in October.
Varvara Maslova and Akshat Jain
Jonathan Daniel Pryce
Savile Row, in London’s Mayfair district, has become known as the birthplace of bespoke men’s tailoring. Its roots date to the 1730s when it was developed as part of the Burlington Estate and was named after Lady Dorothy Savile, wife of the third earl of Burlington. It became known for its tailoring expertise in the 19th century and has been home to legendary custom tailors including Henry Poole & Co, Anderson & Sheppard and Huntsman as well as younger entrants such as Richard James.
