FOX BROTHERS & CO

Sartorial

Chris Sullivan meets Douglas Cordeaux, the doyen of ancient British clothiers Fox Brothers, who hauled the brand up by its bootstraps a decade ago www.foxflannel.com

ox Brothers and Company is a name that

Fhas echoed through the corridors of sartorial excellence for almost 250 years, but relatively recently the business has had a rather invigorating shot in the arm, when the company was bought in 2009 by style monger Douglas Cordeaux and his business partner Deborah Meaden, who have taken Fox Brothers back to its deserved pole position.

The company began as an offshoot of the Were family clothier business (who began producing rather fine serge under Elizabeth I) when in 1768 Thomas Were’s 21-year-old grandson Thomas Fox (1747-1821) joined the company. Mr. Fox became sole proprietor in 1796, introducing the Fox cloth mark and changing the name of the company to Fox Brothers. By this time the company owned five mills and employed nearly 5,000 workers. During WW1, the company earned a government contract to provide 852 miles of khaki coloured wool for

“Jeremy Hackett suggested I should go and take a look at Fox Bros in Wellington in Somerset. The last thing Jeremy said to me was: ‘Whatever you do, don’t buy the mill, as it’s a disaster.’ So I went out and bought the mill with my business partner because, as soon as I walked into the mill, I was enamoured”

“As soon as I walked into the mill, I was enamoured”

“These items are not destined for landfill. They are to be coveted, loved and repaired and worn for a lifetime, then handed down to someone who truly appreciates the craft that went into making them. They are beautiful things to own”

military puttees. Due to the far cheaper yet infinitely substandard cloth production in the third world, the company’s fortunes took a dip in the 1980s, but today produces some of the world’s finest suiting, still using looms over 50 years old.

I met the impeccably turned out Douglas Cordeaux, co-owner and creative director, to discuss what he’d done with the company since 2009. How did you get involved with Fox Bros? Well, that’s a funny story. I worked for Hackett and was having lunch with the owner, Jeremy Hackett. I was talking about finding an English brand that I could turn into a clothing brand. He suggested I should go and take a look at Fox Bros in Wellington, Somerset. I was a little surprised, as I come from Bridgwater in Somerset, which is only 20 miles away, and had never heard of Fox brothers. As we parted company, the last thing Jeremy said to me was: “Whatever you do, don’t buy the mill, as it’s a disaster.”

So I went out and bought the mill with my business partner because, as soon as I walked into the mill, I was enamoured. It was the sound of the mills and the noise of people making stuff in the UK – very traditional English products in this dusty neglected traditional environment – unloved and uncared-for. As a company, they were underperforming and didn’t know they had a quality product or how to market it, but I did.

Did you have a vision of where you wanted to take them? Absolutely. I wanted to turn it from a textile mill into much more of a lifestyle brand. The company had been through so many eras and had been so influential. It will be 250 years old in 2022. The company invented the colour khaki, as well as the world famous flannel, owning the flannel trademark until the 1950s. Fox made the celebrated Prince of Wales check for the Duke of Windsor; Cary Grant always requested Fox brothers flannel and wore a few in Hitchcock’s Notorious. Then we have the most famous suit in the world, as worn by Winston Churchill holding a machine gun in World War II. That suit is made from Fox Brothers chalk stripe cloth, cut and tailored by Henry Poole.

I’ve been with Fox for 12 years now and, about five years in, I received a call from Joe Morgan of tailors Chittleborough and Morgan [12, Savile Row] who said, “I’ve got somebody who wants to meet you, if you’re in the area.” I thought he was going to introduce me to a cloth merchant or someone in the industry – but it was Charlie Watts. Immediately, Charlie expressed his love and admiration for Fox flannel and said, “You used to do this beautiful blue flannel that I loved.” For me this was incredible, but there are so many of these stories. Today we are involved in tailoring and produce a ready-to-wear line called Merchant Fox. We do a lot of collaborations. We did one with Adidas and made these striped patchwork trainers. Until then my teenage son thought we were pretty boring, but that changed his mind.

What differentiates flannel from any other cloth? Flannel is essentially a cloth that has been beaten against a piece of wood for around eight hours. We use very, very fine Merino wool from Australia. This is taken in dry, and after adding a lot of water it’s stitched together on a continuous roll and smashed against a beechwood board, which allows the fibres to burst. And then it is pressed, so that the fibres are pushed flat. This is how we achieve this fabulous melange, this richness. It’s called a ‘blind finish’ as you can’t see any of the weave. Flannel is a truly beautiful cloth.

What constitutes a good suit? For me I think it’s when you really don’t know you’re wearing a suit, as it fits so well. A lot of people get hooked up with a really heavy cloth, but they can be uncomfortable these days. Because I get very hot, most of my suits are not lined on the back and are made from a lighter cloth.

“I’ve got somebody who wants to meet you...”

Who would you nominate as your three bestdressed men? Charlie Watts, Jeremy Hackett and Mr. Yasuto Kamashita in Japan.

Do you subscribe to the Beau Brummell ideology that a well-dressed man shouldn’t walk into a room and stand out? Yes, I think I do. But I think people notice welldressed people a lot more these days, as so many people care so little for their appearance and their clothes. I often get asked if I am going to a wedding or attending court, as I wear suits most of the time.

And of course now Fox have a ready-to-wear clothing line? It started because we have a lot of customers from Japan, who love this British authenticity. We pick them up from Taunton station and they come through this wonderful countryside in our Land Rover. One lady started crying because she thought it was so beautiful! It is like Disneyland but it’s real. Then we take them to the mill where we’re weaving cloth as they did over 150 years ago. After this tour, many customers wanted to take something home with them. They couldn’t take a big bolt of cloth, so we started producing ties, then scarves, made locally. More recently we’ve produced ready-towear lines using the same principle. I started to meet craftsmen and makers and then went abroad in search of similar artisans. I met tailors in Naples, shirt makers in Florence, glove makers in Venice and I saw all these wonderful things that, even though costly, are made as they should be by a craftsman with pride. These items are not destined for landfill. They are to be coveted, loved and repaired and worn for a lifetime, then handed down to someone who truly appreciates the craft that went into making them. They are beautiful things to own.

What other items have you made in collaborations? We collaborated with Colnago and made a bicycle called the C64 Frameset. Ernesto Colnago started making bicycles in the basement of their family home in Milan, cutting down the family mulberry tree to use as a bench, and was soon was making bicycles for the world’s most famous cyclists. We always try to work with like-minded people who have a passion. I love the passionate Naples approach. You go see a tailor and he takes you for the finest coffee in the world and then for the best pizza you’ve ever had in your whole life, because he’s taken his own homegrown tomatoes to the restaurant to stick on their pizza.

You did a few casual jackets too? Taking the iconic piece of the Spanish wardrobe, The Teba – a mixture between a jacket and an overshirt – we teamed up with Justo Gimeno in Zaragoza and made a version of the jacket in Fox Brothers Somerset Jacketing in a classic gun club check. We also collaborated with Hervier, who have been making workwear in Chatillon Sur Indre since the 1920s, and made a classic charcoal and black French utility jacket from our herringbone cloth.

How do you see the future of Fox Brothers? We are doing a big evening wear story next year, and a selection of pocket squares illustrated by artists such as yourself, printed using a traditional silkscreen method by Adam Lee in Chesterfield, using reactive dyes in the finest silk with hand rolled edges. I love the story about textile producer Ziggy Asher on Edgware Road, who came to London during the War with one piece of cloth that he kept in his top pocket for good luck. He started printing pocket squares illustrated by Jean Cocteau and Henry Moore; they were made commercially but were very popular and are now worth fortunes. I’ve always loved that art meets clothing idea. n