If you walk down Savile Row today, you will not miss number 40. Among the Guard of Honour-style line-up of mannequin busts in beautifully cut blazers, a sartorial rebellion is taking place.
I come face to face with a mammoth, multi-coloured patchwork bomber jacket with Gieves & Hawkes behind me, tailors whose flagship has stood at 1 Savile Row since 1912. The comic proportions of this garment fill the window.
“It’s probably the most photographed, stopped and looked-at window on the street,” says Rav Matharu, the 40-year-old founder and creative director of Clothsurgeon, welcoming me inside. “And you have the Beatles plaque and the Kingsman signs on this road! The big bomber is a massive guerrilla marketing tactic.”
Matharu founded his trailblazing “bespoke streetwear” fashion house in 2010, providing clients — counting rap royalty Drake, A$AP Rocky and Kendrick Lamar alongside A-listers Kevin Hart, Riz Ahmed and FKA Twigs — with any design they want, in whatever fabric they desire. That could be a cashmere and tech-fabric tracksuit embroidered with Marcus Rashford’s dog Saint, which he made for the footballer’s 21st birthday, deconstructed Patagonia duffel bag jackets as commissioned by Selfridges, or custom hats and T-shirts, like the ones he made with the England team days before they headed to the World Cup in Qatar.
Gimmicks like giant jackets are not commonplace on the road that was once the primary stomping ground of Masters of the Universe. But Clothsurgeon landed here in August as an original — the first to offer tailored streetwear on the Row, and the first to be South Asian owned and led. Matharu, whose parents are Indian immigrants and raised him in Leeds, does not take this lightly.
“It was an emotional six months leading up to the opening. I think I cried every day into work,” he says. “The reaction was overwhelming, the community was so proud.”
He laughs when I ask if his heritage has been a barrier in his career. “Um, yeah. Massively,” he says.
“We get overlooked, we are not taken seriously. It’s almost like [people think], ‘you’re South Asians, just do the work behind the scenes’. We are doing all the craftsmanship in the factories, and have been doing so for a very long time in this country, but I don’t feel we get our spotlight when it’s due, when we want to be head of design, or creative directors, or photographers.
“It just needs to be said that we are here and we want to be in the limelight. We are talented. We have skill. It’s time for us to shine as well,” he says.
Disrupting the menswear industry has not always been his goal. Matharu dreamed of being a football player — and was successful, too. At 11 he joined his hometown club, Leeds United, turning pro at 17 before leaving the game at 21 when he could not find a tempting contract. As a sportsman, he invested heavily in his wardrobe. Fashion came as the natural next step. He had a two-week stint at London College of Fashion (“I came home, purely down to the expense of living in London”) and three years in retail, before enrolling at Leeds College of Art and Design in 2006.
There Matharu developed a signature scalpel pattern-cutting technique and his tutor dubbed him a surgeon. That stuck, as did his fixation on streetwear products.
“I grew up obsessing about Nike, vintage Jordan’s, Champion — that hip-hop street culture is where my roots are,” he says. “I wanted to combine craftsmanship and attention to detail with the world I am from. That’s where the concept of bespoke streetwear comes from.”
His wife Parv, 39, is a driving force as head of operations. “I’m a little bit pushy, and I always said you should branch out on your own,” she says. That came in 2012, when Matharu was sacked as head designer at the now closed custom streetwear label House of Billiam, during their honeymoon. “I got an email saying you’re no longer needed. You could have waited until I got back,” he says.
Over the past decade, collections for Harrods, Mr Porter and Coca Cola came and went as the dream of a spot on the Row intensified. The Pollen Estate, which manage the tailoring epicentre’s rentals, needed convincing on his left-field portfolio: unfinished-looking blazers with basting on show (£3,500); Loro Piana wool and cashmere blend Varsity jackets (£2,700) and one-offs like upcycled Louis Vuitton monogram blousons and gilets made from Nike joggers waistbands.
With his foundations laid, and W1 keys in his pocket, Matharu is set on expansion. He wants ready-to-wear and lifestyle sectors and to take things global — “Tokyo, Paris, LA, New York. Grow the business but keep the model bespoke.”
But he is most animated when describing his ‘Window of Opportunity’ artist residency idea. It will see him offer the seat to upcoming creatives. “At the end of their month or so, we will hold a night for them to showcase their work and invite clients and customers in.”
Supporting craftsmanship is the essence of Clothsurgeon. “We offer a very exclusive service, yes. But it is inclusive to anyone who wants to come in and create.” It is not the Savile Row mentality of old — Matharu has sliced up that rulebook, with medical precision.
