House of Nutter

House of Nutter

The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row

Summary


A wildly entertaining biography of the British fashion designer who set the trends for rock royalty from the Beatles to Mick Jagger to Elton John.

Tommy Nutter was a visionary tailor in the bespoke tradition who dressed everybody from Lord Montagu of Beaulieu to Twiggy, who outfitteds three of the Beatles for the cover of Abbey Road (George Harrison preferred jeans), who put Mick Jagger in a white suit for his wedding to Bianca and who dressed Elton John for years, using the singer as his muse for his signature outrageous style. Nutter was alluring for his ambiguity -- a chameleon who could rub shoulders with Princess Margaret and then dance with the drag queens at Last Resort -- and his clothes were the physical expression of a sharp, audacious wit.

House of Nutter charts Tommy Nutter’s dramatic career that spanned barely 23 years, ending in 1992 with his untimely death. It is a history of London during an era of economic and cultural upheaval, a celebration of the methods and traditions of Savile Row; and an elegy for what was lost during the worst days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

With archival access to photos, letters and interviews from Tommy Nutter's sole living relative, his brother, David, Lance Richardson takes us behind the '70s glamour to explore the public face and private life of one of Britain's most respected yet rule-breaking bespoke clothiers and the celebrities he dressed.

Reviews

  • Richardson has created a pattern-perfect double-breasted biography of two gay brothers, who, in an unlikely rags to riches story, were brought up in north London and went on to shape the social and sartorial side of life in the 1960s
    Helen Davies, Sunday Times, **Books of the Year**

About the author

Lance Richardson

Lance Richardson has written for numerous publications, including the Guardian, the New Yorker (online), and several international iterations of GQ. Originally from Sydney, Australia, he now lives in New York City.

www.houseofnutter.com
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more