The Contour of Luxury Spring/Summer 2018 | Page 61
Alexis Day
Your bespoke tailoring is dashingly edgy and
supreme, to say the least and it has garnered quite
an impressive roster of celebrity clientele. If I may
boast a bit for you, your clientele consists of George
Clooney, Naomi Campbell, Harrison Ford, Keira
Knightley, Mick and Bianca Jagger, David Bowie,
George Michael, Usher, Bryan Ferry, Tom Jones,
Jonathan Ross, Vic Reeves, Frank Lampard, Goldie,
Morrissey, Kevin Rowland, Keith Flint from The
Prodigy, The Killers, film director Joe Wright, Phil
Daniels, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sean Bean and,
more recently, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Martin Freeman
and Paul Weller. Who was your first celebrity client
and how did the word spread about you in the
entertainment realm?
Mark Powell
I think really what was good was, well the early clients
that came to me, they just sort of discovered me, and
then particularly early on, when I had the shop, it
was always about just good word of mouth, so then
what would happen is then maybe their, particularly
someone like David Bowie, their manager or managing
team or whatever, would connect you to other people
in the business and then you’d get other people coming
from that situation. But I think particularly in the 90’s,
when I feel like my boom really, I feel like it was my
big booming period, as these young men’s tailor, slash
designer, a lot of it came through the sort of the stylist
that I worked with, you know when I did people like
George Michael, and Bryan Ferry. And then I did all
those Brit bands at the times that were sort of quite
edgy or cool, or you know, mainstream at the time.
And then I was coming to New York quite a lot at the
time as well. I started to do some very good people in
New York. I even got friendly with John Kennedy Jr.
when he was doing George magazine and stuff. I did a
couple of fun covers of that with George Clooney and
Harrison Ford. That was a good period, the 90’s for
me. It was also the right time to sort of, with those sort
of clients, because you need to be more mature, but not
too mature when you do a lot of high profile celebrity
clients, because a lot of them they still want you to be,
they want you to be a man, I’ve got a lot of wisdom, but
they do like for you to look young and glamorous. But
I’m still very good looking now, so I don’t look too bad.