Budd
INHERENTLY PATRICIAN, Budd has had a presence in the Piccadilly Arcade since 1910. Wars, recessions and sartorial revolutions have come and gone, but it remains steadfast: a bastion of grandeur and reassuring continuity in an increasingly slapdash and throwaway world. Indeed, it’s that very word, ‘throwaway’, that defines everything Budd is not. Of such superlative quality are its shirts that, with appropriate care, they’re liable to last a decade or more (if, at the end of that time, they look at all tired, you can bring them in for renovation). Whether bespoke, made-to-measure or off-the-shelf, a Budd shirt is expressly designed to improve with washing and ironing.
Collar-wise, the house style is best described as ‘forward’. By that, I don’t mean ‘fashion forward’ – one doesn’t come to Budd for that: even its youngest clients tend to fall into the category of ‘emerging traditionalists’ – but merely that it sits smartly, with its points closer together than the comparatively informal cutaway. Colour-wise, think of a garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll, with cornflower blue a perennially popular staple. I hardly need add that the fabrics are sublime in their softness, comfort and durability. Lesser shirtmakers pay lip-service to the mantra that ‘the customer knows best’. Here, he does not. At Budd, the expertise is vested in whoever stands behind, not in front of, the counter.
See also: Meyer & Mortimer, Henry Poole & Co, Turnbull & Asser
