Tailor's Rise from Three Penny Trousers to £14,000 Suits

Tailor’s rise from three penny trousers to £14,000 suits

As a young apprentice in Trinidad dreaming of becoming a Savile Row tailor, Andrew Madan Ramroop was paid three pence for every pair of trousers he made. But today his suits command price tags of £3,525 to £14,000 – and there is a four-month waiting list for them!

Along the way he has overcome racism, acquired and developed a business on Savile Row and become a Professor for Achievement and Distinction in the field of Tailoring by the University of the Arts London – a journey that has earned him a place in the finals of the National Training Awards 2007.

Andrew, of 19 Savile Row, London, W1, was born in 1952 in a tiny village in Trinidad, the son of a cleaner/messenger and a home maker and washer-woman for the wealthy. As a 10 year old he worked on a food stall that supplemented the family income. And whiling away time on the stall, he would sketch and cut out clothes from newspapers. “Few villagers dressed beyond shorts and open neck shirts,” he recalls, but by observing his teachers’ smart dressing he nurtured an ambition to become a tailor.

As a teenage apprentice he was exploited, getting just three pence per pair of trousers. But Andrew got a break in 1966, when his father got him an apprenticeship with the island’s leading tailor, in Port of Spain – “a new beginning that set me off on an exciting career.“

Before 1970, Andrew had never been further than nine miles, but was driven to sail to the UK, because he wanted to work in Savile Row “where they made suits for Prime Ministers, Presidents and Royalty.”

He explains: “Wearing a suit I made, I went to look for work. I was immediately engaged. A lowly paid backroom post with no prospects but Savile Row nonetheless.”

He realised he needed formal training to progress, and worked 100 hours a week as an alteration tailor to fund his education.

Andrew enrolled on a three-year full-time tailoring course at the London College of Fashion. Although he gained a distinction in his college certificate he could not get a job as a trainee cutter. He was told: “the customers would not take kindly to a foreigner”.

But Andrew got a job with Maurice Sedwell, as assistant cutter in Savile Row. By 24, he was married with two children, and was helping to run the shop. He attended business workshops, took on a part time teaching role at the London College of Fashion that lasted for 12 years, and in 1994 acquired Maurice Sedwell’s.

Andrew has increased the business by 300 per cent and sells in 52 countries. Andrew Ramroop has now set up Savile Row Tailoring Academy which is due to take its first students in January 2008.

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