What women want

My doctor needs to know my weight so he can calculate the dosage of a prescription. As I kick off my heavy boots to claw back a few pounds before stepping on the scales, he instructs me to “breathe in.” He thinks I’m hilarious. It may well be vanity but it’s also something ingrained in the female psyche and shared the world over.

We have an emotional relationship with our bodies that plays into the clothes we choose to wear. It’s what Daisy Knatchbull, founder of her eponymous high-end women’s clothing company, refers to as “the female problem.” She not only understands the complexity of the issues – “Pretty much every woman has the same struggles, whatever their age and size,” she notes – but addresses them, head-on.

This proved to be the driver for opening Savile Row’s first women’s tailors. Here, at the historic heart of London’s men’s tailoring, 33-year-old Knatchbull has created a safe and welcoming space for women to spend time in a relaxed and friendly environment, guided by a crack female-only team whose goal is to make them look – and feel – special.

Knatchbull, great-granddaughter of Lord Mountbatten, is something of a style disrupter. She hasn’t trained formally as a tailor, but she knows the process quite literally inside out. And she has applied that foundation to targeting what it is that women actually want, and the most desirable way to achieve it. She familiarized herself with traditional tailoring when she became communications director for Savile Row’s men’s tailor Huntsman at age 23, after a short stint in fashion journalism at The Sunday Times. In 2016 she pulled a stunt in an attempt to bring in more women (who represented a very small proportion of clients) and became the first woman to dress in top hat and tails at Royal Ascot – subsequently prompting the organizers to change the dress code, attracting pages of press attention.

Her experiences kickstarted her thoughts in a new direction. “I realized women want to have clothes made for them, and clothes which are adaptable – which makes perfect sense as our bodies change not only over time, but literally day to day, much more than men’s do.” The idea germinated and turned into a quest. “I was the crazy 20-something who spent two years finding a team with the same vision to open a tailoring store for women,” she recalls. A tiny Chelsea basement became the location of the first store, originally called The Deck. And then the pandemic happened. “We were closed for 18 months, but fortunately we were a very lean business and had very loyal clients.” Then in 2020 there was an opportunity to open in Savile Row, taking her there much faster than she’d envisioned. “It was a terrifying decision, but I believed so much in what we were doing.”

Once the pandemic was over, Knatchbull found that attitudes had shifted. “There was this more conscious consumer who wanted craftsmanship, sustainability, and ‘less is more,’” she says. “We already did all that organically in the business. It’s the practice we preach: natural fibers, inlays in our suits, helping women by fitting the clothes around them and not the other way round, so they are very comfortable to wear, and fit their shape.”

Significantly, the initial talking and listening process matters as much as the trying on: “There’s a high level of personal service, including a lengthy consultation with the female tailor who will end up knowing your body better than you do,” explains Knatchbull. “We help enhance women’s bodies. Essentially, it’s all about proportions, about having clothes made specially for you, to suit you. The outside world tells women their legs are too short, their boobs too big. Every woman feels it; there’s always something they dislike about their body,” she notes. “We study clients’ bodies subtly and use careful, sensitive terminology. We know how to read people. And we know how to deal with the ongoing changes. For example, there are side adjusters on waistbands to cater for bloated stomachs – we all get them – and we always have extra inlay in our clothes so we can let them out when necessary,” she says. “That’s the beauty of it: it’s about possibility, it doesn’t have to be awkward.’’

Fabrics are all from British and Italian mills, and there’s something to suit each of the thousands of clients who, says Knatchbull, “come from all walks of life: astronaut, activist, whistle blower, law firm head, vaccine developer, racing car driver, banker – every kind of woman. The youngest is 19 and the oldest is 94. I’d say the core demographic is aged 45 to 65. I love it when a mother comes in with her daughter.”

When a bigger space came up on the Row in 2022, Knatchbull snapped it up. The following spring saw the start of the ready-to-wear collection, designed to complement the made-to-measure offer. The collection now accounts for 45 percent of the business and includes fabulous trench coats, shirts, dresses, suits, and more. “We’ve built an algorithm and from our database we can figure out what a real size 10 or size 6 looks like, based on data from women we’ve fitted,” she says. “We know what shade of pink our client likes, all her preferences, and we build and evolve the collection alongside the customer, truly listening to her, designing with the same uncompromising quality.”

Knatchbull has strong ties with the US, and she spends much of each year presenting trunk shows in key locations. This spring she’s already shown in New York, LA, Palm Beach, Nashville, and Palo Alto, among others. “US stores are definitely on our road map,” she hints. She’s recently done two sell-out collaborations with the best in US luxury. “Aerin Lauder was the first and made sense as the sensibilities are so similar. She has a great discerning eye and taste and represents real American luxury and beauty. She was a client, became a friend, was posting about us, and it was a natural, authentic partnership.” The second was Mark Cross, the oldest luxury US brand and among oldest in the world, a favorite of Grace Kelly. “It was very cool to design a tuxedo clutch with them, to complement the evening velvet and tuxes we sell.”

Daisy Knatchbull is a powerhouse who is changing the conversation around women’s clothes. She wants her store and trunk shows to be the destination for the modern woman looking for the ultimate investment piece. The designs are timeless yet fashionable, the cut impeccable. “The idea is they will last, hopefully handed down to the next generation,” she says. “One of our clients sadly died recently, and the suit we made for her is in her will.”