Shirtmaker · London · Founded 1910

Budd Shirtmakers

A small London shirtmaker that has stayed a shirtmaker, in an arcade off Piccadilly.

Budd has made shirts in the Piccadilly Arcade since 1910. It is small, bespoke-focused, and has resisted the drift into general menswear that has taken most of its Jermyn Street neighbours. Its reputation among people who buy a lot of shirts is very high.

BespokeMade-to-measureReady-to-wear

Budd Shirtmakers' windows in the Piccadilly Arcade, at Christmas — Piccadilly Arcade, December 2015

House style — shoulder: not documented

Chest — extensive handwork

Fittings 1–2 6–16 weeks

From $430 lowest documented, converted

Staying small

Budd is a shirtmaker with a shop rather than a brand with a shirt department, and the difference shows in the cutting room, which is on the premises. Bespoke shirts are cut to an individual pattern; the house also makes ready-to-wear in its own house fits.

It also holds one of the better ranges of formal shirting (dress shirts with marcella bibs, detachable collars, the whole vocabulary of evening and morning dress), which is a specialism that has largely disappeared elsewhere.

Formal shirting

Budd holds one of the better ranges of evening and formal shirting anywhere: marcella and piqué bibs, detachable collars, studs, and the specific constructions white tie and morning dress require.

This is a genuine specialism and a disappearing one. Most shirtmakers now make an evening shirt as a variant of a business shirt; a house that treats it as its own garment produces a noticeably different result.

The house cut

English rather than Italian: cut with room through the body, a longer tail, and a collar built to sit under a jacket rather than to be worn open. The bespoke is cut on the premises.

Ready-to-wear is made in the house's own fits, which suit a customer wanting an English shirt rather than a slim contemporary one.

Small, and still a shirtmaker

Budd has stayed a shirtmaker while most of its neighbours became clothing brands, and the consequence is a narrower and better-judged proposition: shirts, the things that go with shirts, and staff who make shirts for a living. In a street given over to gift boxes that is worth more than it sounds.

The record

Founded

1910

City

London · Piccadilly Arcade

Country

United Kingdom

Service levels

Bespoke · Made-to-measure · Ready-to-wear

Shoulder