Shirtmaker · London
Emma Willis
A Jermyn Street shirtmaker with its own factory in Gloucester: an unusual degree of control.
Emma Willis makes shirts on Jermyn Street with a workroom of its own in Gloucester, which is rare: most English shirt brands subcontract. The house works largely in Swiss and Italian cotton, and offers bespoke alongside ready-to-wear.
Owning the making
Controlling the factory is more consequential than it sounds. It means specification is not negotiated with a third party, that small runs and individual commissions are possible without penalty, and that the house can say precisely where a shirt was made, which most cannot.
The shirts are cut generously through the body by contemporary standards, in the English manner, and finished with a considerable amount of hand work.
The Gloucester factory
Owning the workroom means the house controls specification directly: single-needle seams, hand-attached collars where specified, mother-of-pearl buttons, and the ability to run one shirt rather than a minimum batch.
It also means the house can say precisely where a shirt was made, which most English shirt brands cannot.
The range
Bespoke, made-to-measure and ready-to-wear, plus ties, and a line of formal shirting. The house also makes for women, which is unusual on Jermyn Street and reflects the founder's own route into the trade.
Cut generously through the body in the English manner, with collars built to sit under a jacket rather than to be worn open.
Cloth
Principally Swiss and Italian cottons, with a strong line in fine poplins and voiles. The house also works in linen and in heavier winter cloths, and its bespoke customers can choose from a considerably wider range than the ready-to-wear shows.
The cut is generous by contemporary standards, in the English manner.
The record
What it costs
Prices across the site →These are not quotations. Prices below are the most recent figures we could attribute to a source, shown in the currency they were published in.
| What | Service | Price | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bespoke shirtAn indicative band, not a quotation. Bespoke entry prices normally exclude tax and cloth beyond the house bunch, and houses raise them without announcement. | Bespoke | £330–520 | September 2026 |
Houses often considered alongside it
Grouped because they compete for the same commission or work in a comparable idiom: not a ranking, and not an equivalence.
Picture credits 2
- An illustration of a shirt of the kind the house makes. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- Piccadilly Arcade, December 2015 03: Photograph · Edwardx · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0