Vice Style

John Simons is one of the unsung heroes of British post-war fashion. With a history in menswear dating back to 1955, this is the man responsible for the clean lines and collegiate cut favored by everyone from the original London mods, skins and suedeheads, through to the Francophile cappuccino sippers of the acid jazz revival. Starting with the mythical Ivy Shop in Richmond and Squire in Soho, followed by J. Simons in Covent Garden, he was the go-to guy for button-downs, penny loafers, longwing brogues, and check shirts.

With a full-scale renaissance in American heritage brands, it seems a wise time to catch up with the man who had a twenty year start on Ralph Lauren, and who first imported Filson, Pendleton, Brooks Brothers, and countless others. At the end of 2010, he opened his current shop John Simons, with his son Paul, in Chiltern Street, Marylebone.

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Vice: So, Mr Simons, please give us the run-down on this iconic look you pioneered?
John Simons: The style was born out of our first shop, The Ivy Shop in Richmond, which opened in 1964 and was inspired by the Ivy League collegiate look. To a great extent, the Americans were replacing a missing tradition. We have a tradition going back hundreds of years, and even though theirs is a relatively new country, they had this new mode of dress that everybody shared in.

What was your background?
I was in window display originally, I did my apprenticeship at Cecil Gee. I was lucky to be right in the milieu at the right moment. This was hugely influential on me—growing up during a time with multitudes of change going on after the war—people’s expectations were changing, and their vision was changing too. Things were fun, but before that things were pretty utilitarian. You had the Italian waiters on Compton Street in their natural shouldered jackets, or Austin's in Shaftsbury Avenue selling American clothing. Lou Austin was a sax player on the Queen Elizabeth. He'd go back and forth between Britain and America buying clothes and bringing them back with him. This was just after the war, I was looking in the window there from when I was 11 or 12. I ended up doing their windows in the evenings. I only did it so I could have a good look through their stock.

Who were your initial customers?
We started up to sell to young executives, but funny things went on... We did sell to the ones who wanted to look like Chet Baker or Cary Grant, but gradually it became pared down and we were selling to the suedeheads with their shortish hair and very neat partings. This was a slight move away from the Ivy look that first inspired us. That then mutated into the skinheads, who we never really catered to, but I think that’s how they came about. That masculine look that we promoted gradually became distorted to this hard look which ours was never intended to be. From that, you had the Brutus shirts coming out that we never sold—very tight, very tough-looking—almost like a play on their name. Never sold them, never wore one. This lad from Brighton, Ben Sherman, used to come in on a Saturday and buy our American shirts, and of course, later used them as the inspiration for the shirts he used to make.

Our second shop, Squire in Brewer Street, opened in 1968 and was highly instrumental in influencing the Kings Road look. I can remember the Spanish and Italian tourists coming to a screeching halt outside our window with all our Shetland sweaters, smart shoes, and no-nonsense clothing. I remember thinking, 'Aye, aye, we’ve got a success here'. Again, the look was masculine - hard, but not rough. It did, however, give birth to some pretty rough looks. Nowadays, these uniforms aren't indicative of attitude, but back then they were, you know what I mean? Then, you’d see a guy and think, 'I’d better cross the road', these days he might be a pacifist. In those days, when guys became skinheads, they were pretty tough. That’s gone now, you can’t draw conclusions.

What kept you going through the fickle changes in fashion over the past 40 years?
We opened our third shop, J. Simons, in 1981 and it stayed open 'til 2009. We always had a consistent grassroots clientele who came in every day, whether they were buying or not, for 20-plus years. A lot of them were not specifically interested in Ivy League clothing. We were helping to dress a lot of everyday men who couldn’t go to fashion shops, who wanted cords or a vintage Saville Row suit. We’ve never been elitist. We'd happily serve some little old boy with a bad leg and a lovely personality who’s a pleasure to spend time with.

Has your approach remained constant?
When we opened, we were getting the clothes relatively cheap - we'd pay $30 for a dozen new shirts. By the 80s, though, clothes started getting really expensive, so we started selling vintage clothes. It was a real eye-opener, as prior to that there was a real stigma to it. Even now, we have titled people from the House of Lords who buy secondhand from us because they don’t like new clothes.

As it gets harder to source the things we want, we’ve launched our own brand and we’re making our own shirts, trousers, suits, and jackets. Things which are elusive - popover shirts with button pockets, a slim trouser—but not a hipster—with a high rise and slim leg, or natural shouldered jackets with patch pockets, a centre hook vent, three buttons, halflined, two cuff buttons, an inch apart. People love it as they can't find them anywhere else and they have our label inside.

Aside from your rude health, what would you like to see develop style wise?
Some of the powers that be at big companies should open their doors to people who have an inspired understanding of what’s going on. That way, there’d be a possibility that men up and down the country could feel the benefit of this particular revival. The only chance of this moving forward is for those people to open up the doors for those who have this vision. What it can do to engender a better world? Even if it didn’t make a political difference, it could influence the visual aspects of life on a general scale from a trainspotter fringe.

For more infromation on the store, click here.

INTERVIEW: TONY SYLVESTER
PHOTOS: SANNA CHARLES

TAGGED: J Simons, John Simons, Ivy League