1968
The shop opens
Arthur Hartwell and Margaret Lowe take the lease on Thistle Street.
How it began
Arthur Hartwell was a cutter on Savile Row who missed the North. Margaret Lowe ran the best workroom in Glasgow. In 1968 they took a lease on a shop in Thistle Street with a workroom upstairs and a cutting table that is still there.
Their first customer was a judge who wanted a suit that would not crease under a gown.
How we work now
Six tailors and two apprentices make about two hundred suits a year, every one from its own pattern.
The patterns of every customer since 1968 are kept in long drawers in the back room. A son can come in and find his father's.
