Two things in life everyman wants: An Aston Martin and a Savile Row suit to complete the look.

Now imagine the picture, you get a call from the kind gents making those automobiles and they offer you one at a quarter of the price that Even Mr Bond would pay, surely you would bite their right arm off?

Well over the past 12 months we have been toiling away under a shroud of secrecy, deployed a series of smoke screens and mirrors to fend of the inquisitive.

And although we have failed to convince those chaps to offer the car at a discount we have worked to create a new level of suit that’s hits the stipulations of a true “West-end”suit and also at one quarter of the price.

The suits contains over 5000 hand stitches, a fully floating canvass which helps create a sharper looking suit but also a more comfortable one. Below are the guidelines for of a Savile Row suit and the standards we have tried to achieve with this suit.

1)   Inlays to allow 3” adjustements to the main body seams

2)   All linings to be felled by hand

3)   Hand prick-stitched vent and front edge

4)   Slanting breast pocket with hand stitched border

5)   Top collar hand draw-stitched onto the facing

6)   Hand stitched front buttonholes and left lapel buttonhole with sewn flower loop. Inlay under collar

7)   Cuff with opening slit and hand stitched buttonholes

8)   Armhole lining eased and hand felled

9)   Front and cuff buttons sewn by hand with cross stitch

10)   Hand top-stitching on the front pockets

11)   Linen used to reinforce pockets and gorge

12)   Sleeves to be set in by hand

13)   Hand cut and shaped shoulder pads and canvass

14)   Hand canvassing on jacket foreparts

The hand-stitched suit is available from our shop and fitting days and will soon be launched online.

Tucked away between Cornhill and Lombard Street, the home of the Cad & The Dandy shop, is Castle Court and an incredible maze of little alleys.

At number 3 Castle Court is the George and Vulture, a fine old inn frequented by City workers yet virtually unknown to tourists. The Tavern boasts a history dating back in time to the 12th century. Chaucer is said to have frequented the place and Dick Whittington used to call in for a vessel when he got cheesed off with council meetings. In fact celebrities from all walks of early London life are supposed to have popped in for a swift one, but if we believe the claims of most of the City of London public houses then Johnson was rarely sober and Dickens never had time to go home.  However, the George and Vulture can in all honesty claim to have played host to Dickens who stayed there for a period.

Opposite our shop, fixed to a wall inside the tavern are two boundary markers defining the dividing line between the parishes of St Michael’s, Cornhill and St Edmund the King, Lombard Street. They originate from pre-Great fire days when City churches were so close together that there needed to be some physical means of ascertaining the limits of each parish. The boundary of the two parishes runs right through the bar of the George and Vulture.

Originally, the tavern was merely named the George but when the big blaze of 1666 swept through these alleys it devoured everything in its path and left the George as a shell of charred embers. A wine merchant of George Yard, whose sign was a tethered live vulture, lost his home and his livelihood, and after the tavern was rebuilt he negotiated with the landlord for part use of the George. Unhappy with the idea of having a live bird squawking around the door he agreed to change the name of his house to the George and Vulture.

The rear of Simpson’s Tavern is opposite to the George and Vulture on the north side of the Court, dating from the mid 1700s it is another lunch time dining spot not to be missed. Much like the George and Vulture it really is like stepping back 100 years in time.

At the top of the Court is the Jamaica wine bar which was the original London coffee house and was the location for the founding of Lloyds of London. Wood panelled walls make this a great destination for an after work drink or indeed a pre-suit fitting one.

In the heart of The City tucked between Cornhill and Lombard Street lie some of London’s oldest alleyways and now Cad & The Dandy’s City shop. A tailors for over 150 years, our shop now continues the long tradition of tailoring at the site. Fortunately the shop also sits alongside some of London’s finest establishments, including The Jamaica Wine Bar and George and Vulture. The likes of Chaucer, Whittington and Dickens have frequented the area so pop in to see us any weekday and if we’re not about you’ll now where to find us!

Directions to the shop here.

It’s quite amazing how many of those who purchase high end cameras, additional lenses and expensive accessories, investing not a single minute of their time into practice or examination of composition, then exhibit surprise that their shots are ‘not quite what they hoped they’d be.’ And for those who purchase sets of Global knives, a Kitchenaid and Mauviel pans and scratch their heads in bewilderment when their home made concoctions are little more than slop. One’s equipment is only as good as one’s ability; a mediocre artist with high end tools can only hope for a higher quality of mediocrity.

The same also goes for expensively purchased suits. No matter how avant-garde the design, how finely tailored, how perfectly accessorised; if you don’t wear your suits properly, it all goes to waste. I walked down the Strand recently and caught sight of an odd looking man in a beautiful chalk stripe suit. It was the right cut, the right shape and appeared to be well finished but he had loaded his poor pockets with what were probably important business accessories but may as well have been Bedfordshire bricks. The pockets could no doubt withstand the incredible weight and stress but what was really upsetting was that the whole aesthetic of the suit, the line, had been interrupted by these hideous and entirely avoidable cysts.

Considering the number of pockets that are sewn into suits, it can be rather tempting to drop into them items normally carried in briefcases and back pockets. A well tailored suit won’t fall apart if you do so but it would be so grossly altered in silhouette that the qualities for which it should be noticed would be concealed. I know someone who cares little about suits but still manages to purchase, off the peg, at decent English outfitters. Unfortunately, as he cares little about them, he cares little for them; his jacket becomes a mobile office with multiple Blackberries, pens, MP3 players and wallets bulging from his pockets. Consequently, the suit is utterly altered. It is no longer smart and presentable but merely a garment of depressing utility.

The suit we all know and love was not designed for this briefcase-free age of mobile telephony and portable music. It is of fine craft and fine lines and demands respect.

The other gear grinding issue with those who wear suits is that they often wear them as if they were manufactured by The North Face. In recent showers I noticed gentlemen scuttling around without raincoats or umbrellas, soaking their suits in London’s autumn rain. In my experience, suits are considerably worsened by exposure to rain. Naturally, suits are not, and nor should they be, items requiring precious protection but they are certainly not all-weather items. The worsted suit is no Barbour. A gentleman should wear a raincoat and carry a decent stick umbrella. No matter the suit, walking without these items in the rain makes you look like a vagrant.