As the dashing E Tautz founder enjoys his new-found celebrity status, our first Archive piece looks back to 2009 (just as Patrick Grant was reviving the 147-year-old brand), with this article about its identity by Moving Brands.
Last April my esteemed colleague Hywel Davies covered Moving Brands’ work on the Norton & Sons shop in Savile Row. One year on I’m stepping through the doors to speak to the proprietor, Patrick Grant, about the launch of E. Tautz (pronounced to rhyme with sports), once again using Mat Heinl and his team at Moving Brands to ‘move’ his brand. Heinl beautifully sums up the difference between Norton & Sons and E. Tautz: “Norton & Sons is the kind of place you go for bulletproof tweed whereas E. Tautz will be a more normal buying experience.”
Edward Tautz founded E. Tautz in 1867, cutting suits for “The Englishman at large,” European royalty and the sporting and military elite. His success was based on tailoring that was innovative in style and material. His invention of waterproof tweed was just one of his gifts to the world of tailoring and, from thereon, damp aristocracy the world over.
One hundred and forty-six years later Patrick Grant has breathed new life into the brand. It’s hard to keep track of who has amalgamated with whom on Savile Row. Tailors work in several houses at once and many of the houses have unified and diversified over the course of the street’s life. Grant has ownership of not just Norton & Sons and E. Tautz but Hammond and J. Hoare as well.
His roving tailor’s eye is slightly unsettling at first: Grant is a man who can cut a suit just by looking at you. He mentally dresses you as you walk in the room but the formality ends there; he talks fondly of brands like Aquascutum, Pringle, Burberry and the preponderance of Hibernian football fans sporting deerstalkers in the late 1980s. His enthusiasm for high-quality tailoring and the history of the brands that he has inherited is contagious. This enthusiasm has certainly rubbed off on Heinl, who speaks with almost the same verve as his client, not just about the product but also the ideology behind the whole business of “a wardrobe for a life less ordinary”.
A wardrobe of clothes should be as carefully constructed as a collection of art The idea of building a wardrobe for life is something that is at the heart of high-quality tailoring, explains Grant. “A wardrobe of clothes should be as carefully constructed as a collection of art,” he says as he reminisces about a recently deceased patron who had, since 1945, built a wardrobe that spanned his changing lifestyle. “It was possible, by looking at this gentleman’s orders, to see the story of his life.”
He also describes most clothing as “landfill waiting to happen” (which made the toes on my Primark socks curl in shame). The Tautz man is clearly a man who follows his own path and the “Follow!” directive has been picked up on the monogram for the new design identity.
For those of a technical disposition, Heinl explains the work: “We created a lockup between the monogram and the wordmark which is set in Gill. It is clean and modern-feeling, with a hint of utility, which reflects E. Tautz’s heritage as a military outfitter. Colour and material are very important in the identity. We mixed muted, natural blacks, greys and copper with a very rich, bright yellow. The yellow is hugely identifiable and unusual and features in many of the design expressions (mood book, business cards and hang tags). We were determined to use high-quality, authentic materials in everything we created – heavy uncoated stocks, natural buckram, copper foil and, of course, parcel string.”
The creative process seems to have been an enjoyable one for both parties. Asking if there were any differences of opinion, both sides admit to a stalemate regarding the dot after the ‘E’ in the name. Grant explains: “The debate raged for days, it was the only thing we really disagreed on. Mat wanted a dash and I wanted a dot.” In the end Grant held a dinner party, invited his guests to vote on it and won.
E. Tautz has certainly been given the best of starts by Moving Brands. However, this comes with no small help from Mr E. Tautz and his original designers over 100 years ago. Heinl says that they were wary about making sure that they didn’t create a pastiche. Ultimately, though, the brand leans heavily on its past, which is unavoidable in the circumstances and not a problem as that is its greatest asset. Having a client who was so involved in the creative process and who had considerable working knowledge of rejuvenating brands (Grant wrote a paper on the subject, focusing on Burberry, while at Oxford) must have been a bonus, not to mention the benefits of having a client whose idea of fun is trawling through seventy years of Country Life magazine and visiting military museums in deepest, darkest Shaftesbury to find the correct picture references.
Asked about his vision for the future of the brand and how far he is willing to go down the Burberry route, Grant points out that the quality of tailoring will not be compromised. E. Tautz will give customers more opportunity to buy Savile Row-standard clothes without the necessity of physically being on site, one of the demands of a new generation that is not prepared to travel halfway around the planet for a fitting but still falls into the bracket of people who lead a life less ordinary.
“I would hope that in ten years’ time it will be available in ten to fifteen countries. There are some great independent shops around. However, I’m more interested in the making rather than the retail side. Some of our neighbours are the other way round, of course,” he says, casting an eye across the road to a well-known but rather more off-the-peg Savile Row establishment.
Making rather than just retailing is perhaps where the success of E. Tautz will lie. This new brand identity reflects a luxurious homespun charm and work ethic that, with the right person at the helm, should become a timeless statement of quality. Follow!
movingbrands.com
etautz.com
This article first appeared in Grafik 172, April 2009