Holland & Sherry

Savile Row cloth merchant since 1836

Holland & Sherry is a cloth merchant, and proud of it. The firm began in 1836 at 10 Old Bond Street, London, where Stephen George Holland and Frederick Sherry traded in woollen and silk cloths. In 1886 it moved to Golden Square, then the centre of the woollen merchanting trade, and of the merchants trading there in that era it is the only one left.

The reach has been international for a long time. A New York sales office opened around 1900, and in 1968 the firm bought the Scottish merchant Lowe Donald and moved its distribution to a purpose built warehouse at Peebles, in the Scottish Borders. Since 1982 the head office has sat on Savile Row, which tells you who the core customer still is.

What a merchant sells is judgement. The house sources the finest natural fibre, and the book runs from Super 240s wool through cashmere to pure worsted vicuña. Cloth carrying this name has been checked by people who are hard to impress.

We keep Holland & Sherry lengths in the library for commissions where the cloth needs to do quiet, certain work: a dark worsted for the boardroom, or a jacketing with real depth of colour. Ask to see the current bunches at a fitting.