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Artist’s impression of how Savile Row could look with its new lanterns |
West End | diary | Saville Row tailoring | Dickensian style gas lamps |Jewish Museum | Soho Theatre
SAVILLE Row is famed for its dazzling tailoring and shiny suits, but it has always been a bit gloomy when it comes to street lighting.
No longer will you have to rely on moonlight or the display of your mobile phone to find your way thanks to a period makeover with Dickensian-style gas lamps befitting the historic street.
Large “Grey Wornum” lanterns on eight-metre “Parliament” columns, originally designed by the famous architect George Grey Wornum for Parliament Square in the 1950s, will be erected along the street that produces around 3,000 bespoke suits a year.
It will also undergo a “decluttering” programme by Westminster Council to rid the street of unnecessary signs as part of the £72,000 improvements.
Savile Row houses 17 tailors and has attracted some of the world’s most famous names including Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming and Prince Charles.
Mark Henderson, chairman of Savile Row Bespoke, said: “Savile Row is a precious and unique part of London providing a luxury product for which people travel from all over the world.
“We are delighted with the new lamps, which are perfectly suited to reflect the street’s excellence and prestigious heritage.”
The project is largely being funded by the area’s landlord, the Pollen Estate, which will provide £50,000.
Isserlis helps to boost museum
WORLD-renowned cellist Steven Isserlis was in fine fettle as he played at a fund-raising concert in St John’s Wood.
Hosted by Sir Sydney Lipworth QC and his wife Lady Lipworth, guests dined in style and enjoyed an intimate serenade.
The concert was thrown to boost the coffers of the Jewish Museum as it prepares to reopen at a new location in Camden Town next year.
Sir Sydney is something of a music man himself, and his time as chairman of the Philharmonia Orchestra Trust hasn’t been wasted. Accompanying the cellist was the US harpsichord player Maggie Cole.
Top cop makes a point on knives
THE rising tide of knife crime was the topic of a heated debate at the Soho Theatre
this week.
A panel including the man responsible for tackling the problem, Detective Chief Superintendent Chris McDonald, and a former knife- carrier turned youth worker, Jason Neish, grappled with its causes and what can be done to halt the bloodshed.
As the title put it: “Is knife crime the product of a deviant sub-culture or a logical reaction to life on the street?”
From DCS McDonald, a self-confessed copper from the “Life On Mars era”, the outlook appears bleak.
With zero tolerance not working, a ready supply of knives available from “your local Woolies”, and the “fallen soldier” mentality rife among kids, DCS McDonald said we were “pissing in the wind” when it comes to stamping out the problem.
Anecdotes were as lurid as the negative headlines the panel decried, with children stabbed in the legs in class, knife stashes on every council estate and kids armed to the teeth running around their leafy suburbs.
The causes are never ending: peer pressure, instant kudos, a failing education system, the increasingly violent society we live in, a mistrust of “youfs”, an absence of role models, the widening gap between rich and poor, the lack of engagement with young people and a shortage of any real deterrent in the criminal justice system were all floated as probable causes.
As far as solutions go, aside from turning London into a police state, a few steps away from DCS McDonald’s call for “Heathrow-style” security in our cities, there is no quick fix.
On one thing they could all agree, young people are the best educators of young people.
Elton’s piano under hammer
A GRAND piano belonging to Sir Elton John is to go on sale at auction next month.
Kiki Dee, Take That and the late Paula Yates are among the many stars who have sung along to the 1971 Steinway the flamboyant entertainer kept at his home in Old Windsor. He recorded the smash hit Don’t Go Breaking My Heart on the German instrument which is tipped to fetch more than £50,000 at Bonhams in Knightsbridge on June 18.
Sir Elton recalled: “I haven’t owned that many pianos in my life and particular pianos have special memories.
“It was a totally amazing time – the huge success in America, the touring, producing a new album at the rate of sometimes two a year. I had to pinch myself at times.”
The star is also flogging his Versace boiler suit featured on the cover of his first greatest hits album. |
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