Holland & Sherry

London cloth merchant since 1836, now on Savile Row

Holland & Sherry is a cloth merchant, and proud of it. The house 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 all the merchants who traded there in those years it is the only one left.

Its reach has long gone beyond London. By around 1900 the house was selling in New York, and in 1968 it bought the Scottish merchant Lowe Donald and moved its stock north to Peebles, in the Scottish Borders. Since 1982 it has stood on Savile Row, which tells you who it still works for first.

As a merchant, the house trades on its eye for cloth. Its books run from Super 240s wool through cashmere to pure worsted vicuña, and any length carrying the name has been looked over by people who are hard to impress.

We keep Holland & Sherry lengths in the library for commissions where the cloth must do quiet, certain work: a dark worsted for the boardroom, or a jacketing with real depth of colour. Ask for the current bunches when you next come in for a fitting.