JAKE’S THING

Sartorial

Liam Jefferies meets the made-to-order menswear specialist bringing mid-century Ivy stylings into the 21st century www.jakesldn.com

Tucked away in an East London studio, a menswear revival is taking place. This is the home of Jake’s, a made-to-order company owned and operated by Jake Wigham. After a three-year bout of freelance work for an assortment of Savile Row tailors, Jake set about creating a menswear brand informed by the jazz and Ivy League styles of the 1950s and 60s. Jake’s first shirt model was an Ivy loyalist’s interpretation of the classic button-down collar Oxford shirt, with a traditional six-button front of genuine mother-of-pearl, a five-pleat cuff and a three-finger soft collar roll. His latest is a faithful replica of the iconic Green Chambray shirt worn by Miles Davis on the cover of his seminal album Milestones. Jake sat down for a natter with Liam Jefferies in his Newham workshop.

Tell us how you started off. I left school at 16 and started working with my dad in a cloth mill in Carlisle, where they mill the red and white cotton for Saudi Arabian headscarves. That was my first introduction to work, but I was literally hoovering dust out of looms and stuff like that; it wasn’t glamorous, believe me. My brother went on to do a Foundation Art and Design course in Carlisle, so I followed suit, and then applied to the London College of Fashion. My personal statement was like a John Cooper Clarke style poem, laying out my likes and dislikes about fashion and culture in general, while trying to get a bit of my personality across.

“I’ve used small companies at every stage. I’ve always had that proper ethos in mind, little guys supporting little guys. I think more and more people are making choices about where they’re getting their clothes from and who they’re giving their money to”

That’s one way to stand out. I did end up finishing my degree, and I did focus a

lot on Ivy and Suedehead stuff, always making shirts. Part of the course involved setting up a brand, so I started We Sell Soul and got a roll of labels. I sold a few, not loads, because I didn’t have a lot of time.

When I graduated, I was looking for an apprenticeship in tailoring, which are scarce at the best of times, and the only work I could find was in my hometown with Steed bespoke tailors, where I started off doing hand finishing. Their trouser maker was getting on quite a bit, so I only did a little under a year of apprenticeship before I started working on real jobs. After two years on an apprentice wage I kind of spat the dummy out.

So I set myself up as self-employed for a couple of months up north, and then I made the move down to London to move in with my girlfriend and that’s when I got this workshop in West Silvertown.

How did that go? For about a year I worked freelance as a trouser maker from that workshop, for a few companies on and off the Row, but it was all hand-sewn bespoke trousers. Then Covid hit so I ended up moving back up north into my parents’ house, which was a short walk from the Steed workshop.

I knocked out all of Steed’s trouser jobs and then I made a madras face mask for myself out of some cloth I had, and sent a pic to my mate Nick at John Simons. I ended up cutting and making over 2,000 madras face masks, which kept me going financially through lockdown.

I managed to get a little bit of funding through Newham Council and set up my business, bought my first 100 metres of cloth, got my patterns made, got them all graded and then I started sampling. The ball rolled so quickly that within two months I’d launched a brand. I actually contracted coronavirus just before I was planning to launch, so it did push it back about two weeks.

How important is a sense of community in the world of slow fashion? It’s massive! The people getting in touch with me are saying, “You’re the type of person I want to be getting my clothes from.” Everything from grading the pattern, getting the buttons, getting the buttonholes done, getting the cloth, getting the labels made – I’ve used small companies at every stage. I’ve always had that proper ethos in mind, little guys supporting little guys. I think more and

more people are making choices about where they’re getting their clothes from and who they’re giving their money to.

You could buy a shirt off another company and you don’t know where it’s been made, you don know who’s making it, you don’t know where the money is going. Some people approach a new clothing brand with a bit of trepidation, where they want someone else to have tried it out first, and seeing the people whose opinion you trust, and that’s where Instagram helps a lot.

Where does the Ivy influence come in? At the time of my course, I was really into northern soul and reggae, going out most weekends to allnighters, buying records and a lot of late 60s early 70s vintage clothing. Then gradually as I got older I got more into Ivy sort of stuff, which is a much more adult way of dressing; people aren’t going to second glance it unless they know the references you’re making.

Mod never really appeared to me; it was always a bit too highbrow for me. The reason skinhead appealed is because it is so neat and clean, but it also wasn’t really aspirational. It wasn’t until I got more into Ivy that I thought, “This is where I want to be, this is what I want to do.” You watch French New Wave films and think ‘Wow, look at these guys in their double-breasted Macs!’ Watching Le Samouraï or Bande à part, the style is there on the screen.

Alain Delon has contributed much to men’s style over the years. Have you seen Purple Noon? I watched that for the first time the other day, and the outfit he’s wearing in the first scene! A Brooks Brothers shirt that is absolutely huge, really full, and a pair of white 5-pockets, sockless with loafers and he looks amazing, but also really sinister like his character.

Another evident influence is undoubtedly mid-century jazz? Five years ago I bought The Cover Art of Blue Note Records by Graham Marsh and I started going through it looking at all these sleeves, listening to the records and that’s when I found the sound I really like. I love Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, all that hard-bop era jazz totally appeals to me, when I get really busy working, the

sense of urgency in it really gets your heart racing and makes you work faster.

I’ve never at any point in my life been into electronic music, it’s never appealed to me. I like the sort of rough element to things in life; I don’t like to be too refined. That’s the timeless appeal of Ivy gear, too. If you wear a battered shirt and loafers and chinos, it never really looks too dressed up, it’s stuff you can just chuck on. You put a button down shirt through the wash and, as long as you hang it up properly, you don’t need to iron it. I want people to come to me in ten years and say they’re still wearing their Oxford shirt, even when the collar is wearing down and the cuffs are fraying.

What do you see as wrong with modern menswear? The quality has totally gone out the window, it’s all about units. I’m totally the antithesis of that; I want people seriously to think, “Do I need this shirt, how often will I wear it and how long will it last?” I have a lot of people asking when the trousers and jackets are going to be available, because they’ve seen pictures of me in them, but I’m not going to release those until I know for a fact that they’re really durable and they can be washed properly and worn properly.

What does the future hold for Jake’s? My end plan is that I want to have people come to me like if you went to Brooks Brothers in the 50s and 60s. “Right, I need two white oxfords, a blue oxford, a yellow, a pink, three repp ties in colours that’ll work with all of the shirts, a navy blue blazer, some khakis and a flannel suit.” I’m only trained to make shirts and trousers. I can make an unstructured blazer, but that’s as far as it goes without me doing another three years of training. I just have to find the right balance, where I’m selling enough shirts to keep my head above water but also expanding my skills and knowledge.

I am on the hunt for madras at the minute, but it’d have to be the right one, proper hand loomed and hard wearing. So if it gets to the Summer and you don’t see any madras in my line, it’s because I’ve not found the one I think is good enough quality to have my brand on. n

@sartorialchap