“A suit is about so much more than dressing a person. It’s about romance.”

Tailor-Made

Edward Sexton, who died this week, gave bespoke suits the right amount of flair—and just might have saved Savile Row

By Tom Chamberlin

I learned of the death of Edward Sexton, the iconoclastic auteur of suiting, at age 80 through a WhatsApp message. The delivery method felt all wrong. The death of Queen Elizabeth II prompted national mourning—didn’t Sexton merit at least a bit of that sentiment?

Without Sexton, one could argue that there might be no Alexander McQueen, no Alessandro Michele–era Gucci, no adult-era Harry Styles. His inversion of the Savile Row norms in the late 60s put a hundred noses out of joint, but he drew a hundred thousand others to that august street in Mayfair, ready to spend thousands of pounds for a perfect fit.