Heritage hotel
NOTHING speaks more of classic British glamour than the Savoy Hotel, which reopens this weekend after three years’ closure and a £220m refurbishment. Founded on the Strand by opera impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte in 1889, it was the country’s first truly luxury hotel, and attracted the glitz and style to match. In the first half of the 20th century it drew royalty, film stars, aristocrats and world leaders, including Coward, Bogart, Bernhardt and Chaplin.
Appropriately, the reopening comes at a time when traditional fashions imbued with a sense of heritage redolent of the hotel’s glory days are on trend. The heyday of the Savoy was also the heyday of Savile Row, which has lately been getting back its groove. The style icon of the day was the Duke of Windsor, who popularised the classic plaid pattern that would become known as the Prince of Wales check. Worn double-breasted, it’s a suit look that’s perfect for sauntering into the reborn Savoy, and perhaps heading for a cocktail in the gold leaf-lined booths of the Beaufort Bar, or for afternoon tea under the stained-glass cupola of the ineffably grand Thames Foyer. Mix it with some two-tone, wing-tip brogues, a fedora-style hat and a retro-cool Piaget watch (the Swiss company has just opened a flagship store on New Bond Street) and you have the perfect mixture of class, history and panache with which to make a splash in London’s most famous centre of fashionable exclusivity.
1. Double breasted Prince of Wales check suit by Huntsman, from £3,995 for two piece bespoke suit. www.h-huntsman.com
2. 110th Anniversary charcoal check by Austin Reed, £500, www.austinreed.co.uk
3. Red polka dot silk scarf by Aspinal of London, £35, www.aspinaloflondon.com
4. Altiplano watch in white gold by Piaget, £13,200, www.piaget.com
5. Sloane brogues by Loake Shoemakers, £170, www.loake.co.uk
6. Atlantic felt hat by Lock & Co, £150, www.lockhatter.co.uk