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.
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