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Just published by Chatto & Windus, the volume, by Australian-born, New York-based Richardson, recounts the rise to prominence of Nutter, who died in 1992, and his rock photographer brother David, who is still alive and contributes with extensive interviews.
Perhaps most famously, all of The Beatles except George Harrison wore Nutter’s suits on the iconic cover of Abbey Road; Ringo Starr later endorsed another of his creations, as did Jagger, Elton, Eric Clapton and other such notables as Andy Warhol and Vidal Sassoon. Nutter designed the suits that were worn by Mick and Bianca Jagger on their wedding day in 1971.
“In 1969, at the age of 26, Tommy opened an unusual new boutique on the ‘golden mile’ of bespoke [London] tailoring, Savile Row,” says the book’s publicity. “While shocking a haughty establishment resistant to change, ‘Nutters of Savile Row’ became an immediate sensation among the young, rich, and beautiful, beguiling everyone from Bianca Jagger to The Beatles — who immortalized Tommy’s designs on the album cover of Abbey Road.”
The Savile Row venture was backed financially by singer-entertainer Cilla Black, her husband Bobby Willis and Peter Brown, the managing director of The Beatles’ company Apple. “Meanwhile,” continues the publicity, “David’s innate talent with a camera vaulted him across the Atlantic to New York City, where he found himself in a parallel constellation of stars (Yoko Ono, Elton John) who enjoyed his dry wit almost as much as his photography.”
The book describes how, for Elton John’s 1984 wedding to Renate Blauel, Nutter created 20 spectacular outfits, “two of each, in case of any mishap, in a wide range of primary colours.” Elton has been quoted as saying that Nutter “completely glamorized Savile Row and made it accessible”
The biography has already been acclaimed for its depiction of two gay men in the British class system of the day and their rise from a modest north London upbringing. Edmund White, author of Our Young Man and A Boy’s Own Story, observed: “Cheeky, aloof, camp, Nutter was drawn to glamour like a moth to a flame. Lance Richardson has restored his fame and gripping story in all its detail and pathos.”
Andrew Lloyd Webber, a longtime friend, said: ““He made me a lot of things when one was younger and trendier. There was a wonderful maroon coat I remember I wore for Ascot — he was always such fun, very much part of my early life when Jesus Christ Superstar was going on. He made clothes for Tim Rice too, we were all great mates.”
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Tommy Nutter, Famous English Tailor
Born 17 April 1943
Barmouth, Merioneth, Wales
Died 17 August 1992 (aged 49)
Cromwell Hospital, London, England
Nationality Welsh
Education Willesden Technical College
Tailor and Cutter Academy
Occupation Fashion Designer
Labels Nutters of Savile Row also Tommy Nutter's
Tommy Nutter (17 April 1943 – 17 August 1992), was a British tailor, famous for reinventing the Savile Row suit in the 1960s.
Born in Barmouth, Merioneth to Christopher Nutter and Dorothy (formerly Banister), he was raised in Edgware, Middlesex, where his father owned a local High Street Cafe. After the family moved to Kilburn, Nutter and his brother David attended Willesden Technical College. Nutter initially studied plumbing, and then architecture, but he abandoned both aged 19 to study tailoring at the Tailor and Cutter Academy.
In the early 1960s he joined traditional tailors Donaldson, Williamson & Ward. After seven years, in 1969, he joined up with Edward Sexton, to open Nutters of Savile Row] at No 35a Savile Row. They were financially backed by Cilla Black and her husband Bobby Willis, Managing Director of the Beatles' Apple Corps Peter Brown, and lawyer James Vallance-White.
The business was an immediate success, as Nutter combined traditional tailoring skills with innovative design. He designed for the Hardy Amies range, and then for the man himself. His clients included his investors, plus Sir Roy Strong, Mick Jagger, Bianca Jagger and Elton John. Nutter himself was most proud of the fact that, for the cover of The Beatles' album Abbey Road in 1969, he dressed three out of the four: George Harrison elected to be photographed on the road-crossing in denims.
In the 1970s his bespoke business became less successful, but he branched out into ready to wear clothing, marketed through Austin Reed. He also successfully expanded into East Asia, establishing the Savile Row brand in Japan. In 1976 Sexton bought Nutter out of the Business. Nutter went to work for Kilgour French and Stanbury, managing his own workroom. Sexton continued to run Nutters of Savile Row until 1983, when Nutter returned to the row with a ready to wear shop: "Tommy Nutter, Savile Row". (This new venture, which traded at No 19 Savile Row until Tommy's death, was backed by J&J Crombie Limited, who continue to own the "Tommy Nutter" trademark.) At this time, Sexton set up a business in his own name.
In the 1980s, he described his suits as a "cross between the big-shouldered Miami Vice look and the authentic Savile Row."[3][9] He created the clothing of The Joker worn by Jack Nicholson in the 1989 film Batman.[10]
Nutter died in 1992 at the Cromwell Hospital in London of complications from AIDS.[1][3]
Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Tommy's lifetime.
In 1943, in the year that Tommy Nutter was born, on June 20th through June 22nd, the Detroit Race Riot erupted at Belle Isle Park. The rioting spread throughout the city (made worse by false rumors of attacks on blacks and whites) and resulted in the deployment of 6,000 Federal troops. 34 people were killed, (25 of them black) - mostly by white police or National Guardsmen, 433 were wounded (75 percent of them black) and an estimated $2 million of property was destroyed. The same summer, there were riots in Beaumont, Texas and Harlem, New York.
In 1955, Tommy was merely 12 years old when on September 30th, movie star James Dean, 24, died in a car accident. He was headed in his new Porsche 550 to a race in Salinas California when, traveling at 85 mph, he collided with a 1950 Ford Tudor, also speeding, driven by a 23 year old college student. Dean died, his passenger and the other driver survived.
In 1975, Tommy was 32 years old when in January, Popular Mechanics featured the Altair 8800 on it's cover. The Altair home computer kit allowed consumers to build and program their own personal computers. Thousands were sold in the first month.
In 1987, when he was 44 years old, was the first time that a criminal in the United States - a serial rapist - was convicted through the use of DNA evidence.
In 1992, in the year of Tommy Nutter's passing, on February 1st, US President George Bush and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia jointly announced an end to the Cold War, proclaiming a new era of "friendship and partnership". At Camp David in Maryland, they reviewed ways to jointly reduce nuclear arms and support reforms in Russia but no agreement was reached at that meeting.
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