House of Nutter
The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
A wildly entertaining biography of the British fashion designer who set the trends for rock royalty from the Beatles to Mick Jagger to Elton John.
Tommy Nutter was a visionary tailor in the bespoke tradition who dressed everybody from Lord Montagu of Beaulieu to Twiggy, who outfitteds three of the Beatles for the cover of Abbey Road (George Harrison preferred jeans), who put Mick Jagger in a white suit for his wedding to Bianca and who dressed Elton John for years, using the singer as his muse for his signature outrageous style. Nutter was alluring for his ambiguity -- a chameleon who could rub shoulders with Princess Margaret and then dance with the drag queens at Last Resort -- and his clothes were the physical expression of a sharp, audacious wit.
House of Nutter charts Tommy Nutter’s dramatic career that spanned barely 23 years, ending in 1992 with his untimely death. It is a history of London during an era of economic and cultural upheaval, a celebration of the methods and traditions of Savile Row; and an elegy for what was lost during the worst days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
With archival access to photos, letters and interviews from Tommy Nutter's sole living relative, his brother, David, Lance Richardson takes us behind the '70s glamour to explore the public face and private life of one of Britain's most respected yet rule-breaking bespoke clothiers and the celebrities he dressed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Richardson transports readers to the colorful days of postwar London in this dual portrait of brothers Tommy and David Nutter, the former a legendary fashion designer who died of AIDS in 1992, the latter a rock music photographer. Born and raised in north London, Tommy began his career in bespoke tailoring as a teenager in 1960 before opening his own shop, Nutters of Savile Row, in 1969. Tommy's relationship with Beatles manager Brian Epstein's assistant put David in the right place at the right time to photograph the wedding of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which essentially launched David's career. He goes on to photograph Mick Jagger, tour with Elton John, and befriend Michael Jackson. Richardson provides a fascinating look into the process of Savile Row tailoring in the 1960s, a history lesson on the fashion influences of King Edward VII (and the later "Teddy Boys" of the 1950s), and a glimpse of underground queer subculture of the 1950s where the Nutters found a community. His descriptions of Tommy's designs are eloquent and vivid (Tommy's suits are called "neo-Edwardian dandyism"), and are accompanied by 170 photographs that capture the fashion spirit of the age, many of them taken by brother David. Richardson's affection for his subjects is touching and establishes a tone of admiration, and while this results in occasionally glossing over the Nutters' faults (there are bewilderingly brief references to Tommy's "episodes of operatic drama"), his enthusiasm is contagious.
