Written by Menswear Fashion
in
Interviews
on the
thirteenth March 2024
As Magee 1866 rejoice a brand new season of males’s tailoring, we talked to Chairman Lynn Temple who has seen how males’s tailoring has developed within the enterprise over the many years. He provides a quick historical past of tailoring on the model and his ideas on why it continues to have a spot in each sartorially delicate man’s wardrobe.
Tailoring beginnings in 1866
The story of Magee begins in 1866, John Magee started as a small draper’s store on the positioning of the current Magee of Donegal in Donegal city.
Lynn feedback on the historical past, “John Magee started as a fabric service provider and bought material that was woven in Donegal all through Eire and the UK within the mid-1800s. Later my grandfather got here into the corporate within the 1870s as a younger apprentice and he continued to purchase fabric from the native handweavers and promoting it to the tailoring commerce. So, you could possibly say the enterprise started with assembly the wants of tailoring.”
At this level in trend historical past tailors have been thriving and all fits and jackets have been made on this means as there was no prepared -to-wear.
Thornproof within the Nineteen Forties
With the transfer from bespoke tailor-made fits to the rise of ready-to-wear within the late Nineteen Forties many companies turned in the direction of manufacturing and so did Magee 1866.
“On this interval our Thornproof fits have been the order of the day, an promoting slogan which highlighted the standard of the material. Our outerwear, designed and woven in Donegal, might stand up to each a day within the subject and day on the agency.”
Lynn remembers, “Thornproof instructed a narrative of a person carrying a sturdy Donegal go well with which was constructed to final but was a classy fabric, one thing males actually wanted within the austere post-war period.”
“Tweed is a novel material that may hold out the damp and hold within the heat, it developed from a utilitarian material to trend material within the Nineteen Sixties when Sybil Connolly and Irene Gilbert launched it into their collections and to the world stage.” Lynn Temple, Chairman, Magee 1866.
Main the way in which within the Nineteen Seventies
Quick ahead to the Nineteen Seventies Magee continued to supply high quality tailoring for males and produced robust promoting campaigns throughout Eire and the UK with slogans like Magee Make A lot of a Man, Masters of Masculine Color and For Males Who Lead the Manner. Whereas these slogans elevate a smile and an eyebrow at present, they inform us what males needed of their wardrobe – daring color and standout tweeds. Magee supplied each in trendy cuts.
Into the twenty first Century
Within the late 2000s Lynn’s daughter Charlotte Temple got here on board as Inventive Director and developed the Magee 1866 model, modernising collections for each males and for girls. He says, “Charlotte actually moved the model into the twenty first century and moved our providing from jackets, fits and trousers to collections with distinct moods and seasons.” For males’s tailoring she constructed upon the tailoring experience and materials that the model is so well-known for however developed the gathering for the wants of the fashionable man with an emphasis on luxurious pure materials, with a variety designed and developed within the mill in Donegal.
The Fashionable Man
At this time, the model is a vacation spot for tailoring for each work and marriage ceremony – with ready-to-wear and made-to-measure choices. Lynn outlines his ideas on why it continues to attraction, “As a household and as a enterprise we consider in integrity. Integrity and high quality are woven into our materials and clothes and it’s what’s made them final the check of time.”
In an period that craves authenticity this perception in producing superbly crafted tailoring which regularly attracts on material designed and woven in Donegal has by no means been extra vital.
magee1866.com
