Bourdon House, a stone’s throw from Berkeley Square, may be set amid the throng of 21st-century Mayfair – tourists taking selfies outside Louis Vuitton, and Annabel’s club dismantling its latest eye-popping display – but the mood here on a brisk winter’s morning is completely different. Beyond those glossy black doors – the very ones that greeted the Duke of Westminster when he lived here – there’s a private member’s club so discreet it would never deign to divulge its fees, all plush burgundy interiors and patrician dress codes. But it’s upstairs that the real action takes place. 

Unlike most tailoring emporia, whose studios tend to be below street level, Dunhill’s bespoke and made-to-measure operations have their nerve centre on the upper levels of Bourdon House. It’s a few modest rooms where canvas sheets dotted with the small print of each bespoke jacket and pair of trousers line the rails, and a whiteboard charts the progress of each item through the system, and for whom it is destined – a sort of sartorial war command. Its lofty position within Bourdon House means light streams into the warren of rooms, ready for Dunhill’s new life under recently installed creative director Simon Holloway. 

‘There’s a sense of responsibility in looking after the heritage of a house like Dunhill, and its future trajectory,’ says Holloway. French conglomerate Richemont – which counts Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Alaïa as its crown jewels – bought Dunhill in 1998. Holloway, who cut his teeth at Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, was ushered across from historic British outfitter James Purdey & Sons, also owned by Richemont, in April 2023. ‘But I like to think that Alfred Dunhill would approve of the direction we’re taking things,’ says Holloway, who replaced former creative director Mark Weston, and before him John Ray, previously Gucci’s head of menswear. It’s fair to say there have been a few ups and downs in the past 15 years, but Holloway’s focus is Dunhill distilled: homing in on the immaculate tailoring that’s been a sleeper hit at the house, which has been better known for sporting attire and accessories. 

‘We’ve seen a significant uptick in suiting sales, and I think that comes down to the pendulum swinging back to a more tailored silhouette from a fashion perspective. I think people have casualised to the point where they’re actually bored of slumping around,’ says Holloway. His first focus on arrival was the house’s bespoke arm, enlisting Savile Row’s secret weapon, William Adams – a tailor who’s worked at some of the finest houses, including Ede & Ravenscroft and Kilgour – to run the tailoring department and execute Holloway’s vision of sophisticated, elevated suiting. 

The Bourdon House nerve centre comprises three cutters, one trouser maker and two coat makers – this last being the traditional term for the complex craft of constructing a suit jacket. The focus here is on excellence of fabrication. First a client will sit down to have a consultation in one of the handsome rooms that mushroom off the central staircase, and to leaf through fabric swatches, particularly those from British mills; Adams gestures to an inky expanse of navy pinstripes destined for a single-breasted suit. The process involves conferring with the tailoring team on the minutiae of fabric, style and fit – anywhere between one and three meetings to fine-tune the details, although repeat orders can be placed from anywhere in the world so long as Dunhill has your measurements. Once the form and structure are decided upon – single-breasted or double, dinner jacket or something sportier – the whole process will take up to 10 weeks; costs depend on choice of fabric and details, but expect a substantial four figures. 

The most adventurous garment that the bespoke studio has worked on to date was a fleece coat with a difference – the polyester fabric replaced by cashmere, and the nylon accents by suede. As a rule, though, this is the place to come for exceptional bespoke suits for events and serious business meetings. They’re working on up to 80 suits at any one time. 

‘I wanted to refine the sense that this is the pinnacle of British craftsmanship and the feeling of handcraft and a careful curation,’ says Holloway of his interpretation of Dunhill’s tailoring. Connoisseurs can spot signature stylistic flourishes a mile off: the soft drape of Anderson & Sheppard, the peak lapels of Edward Sexton. What does Holloway intend for Dunhill? ‘It’s going to be a masculine silhouette,’ he says. This will be welcome; after years of blowsy, oversized shapes at Zegna and Versace, or reed-thin, gender-fluid cuts at houses such as Celine and Saint Laurent, the proportions of men’s suiting haven’t favoured plain old ‘classic’ for a while. ‘Structure but with lightness, a very British look, and fabrics with a very English colour palette and texture,’ says Holloway, who worked with historic yarn makers in Hawick, Scotland, to formulate particular cloths. ‘There’s a sense of Britishness at Dunhill’s core.’

Dunhill, one of the few British-born luxury houses, has perhaps more than most always been about innovation and doing things with pluck and gumption. Alfred Dunhill was a pioneering young fellow who started as an apprentice at his father’s saddlery business aged 15, and took the reins in 1893 at 21. As technology changed, he responded by outfitting the new world of automobiles, creating, as he termed it, ‘everything but the motor’. A raffish young Bertie Wooster could have seen his Morgan accessorised in Dunhill’s leathers, had Jeeves pack his white tie in its debonair suitcases and – by the roaring twenties – lit his cigarettes with a Dunhill lighter.

In a sense, the Dunhill man has always cut a rather glamorous dash. To opt for a Dunhill suit was to actively choose something more racy over the rather staid Savile Row; sports jackets, driving accessories and eventually a rakish line-up of eveningwear came to be its calling card. Fleming’s Bond was fond of its lighters, and Truman Capote donned Dunhill black tie for his 1966 black-and-white ball.

Back in the eyrie above Bourdon House, the tailors are focused on the finer details of the robed effect on a shoulder, or the alignment of stripes on a lapel. ‘It’s important to try and thread a needle through an entire century plus of Dunhill in this new era,’ says Holloway. The trusty suit is a solid place to start.