An Egghead and a vibrant swathe of Richard James Spring/Summer '12 ties at the Savile Row shop

The Savile Row and Bespoke shops will be closed on Friday 6th and Monday 9th April.

Apart from that, it’s business as usual.

A happy and peaceful Easter to all, believers and non.

Harold Shand - "It's my manor!"

It’s 1980 and bristlingly confident (‘The Mafia? I’ve shit ‘em”) and commendably visionary proto-Thatcherite hood Harold Shand dreams of developing London’s desolate docklands into a venue for the Olympic Games and the odd casino or two.

New-born free marketeer Harold (a brilliant Bob Hoskins in the role that broke him) embarks on a ‘hands across the ocean’ exercise and looks to enlist the help and financial backing of  an American gangland boss. All goes perfectly to plan until Harold experiences a Good Friday to forget when both his Rolls Royce and pub are sent heavenwards and a third bomb is found in his casino. Who can it be?

The Long Good Friday, (1980, John Mackenzie; Costume Design by Tudor George; brilliant soundtrack by Francis Monkman) is a classic of the Brit gangster genre, throughout which Harold and his superbly sultry moll Victoria (Helen Mirren) give a fascinating look at ballsy early-eighties power dressing.

Royal blue gingham jacket (below – Harold would have liked it on the yacht) available from Richard James Savile Row and Richard James Online.

Richard James Spring/Summer '12 Royal blue gingham jacket

Richard James Tokyo 2007 bag

An office spring clean throws up one of the biodegradable paper ‘shoppers’ that we produced to commemorate the opening of the Tokyo shop in Spring 2007.

Ghetto Kraviz by Nina Kraviz. From the album Nina Kraviz. Out now.

John Hamm, he of Mad Men, sports a Richard James Spring/Summer ’12 navy seersucker bomber and black and white striped polo shirt on the cover of the new out, May 2012 issue of Esquire UK.

Get the polo – which is also available in green and sky blue – at the Savile Row shop and the bomber at the Savile Row shop and Richard James Online.

And watch the new series of Mad Men on Sky Atlantic now.

Richard James 1995 camouflage suit

Our contribution to the V&A museum’s Best of British Design 1948-2012: Innovation In The Modern Age – a 1995 vintage camouflage bespoke suit.

The exhibition showcases British post-war design from the year that the UK last hosted the Olympic Games to now, the year of the latest London Games.

Some 300 exhibits – including a Mini, a folding Moulton bicycle, certain of Antony Price’s Roxy Music costumes and some stunning textile designs – neatly illustrate how that peculiarly British friction between tradition and modernity coupled with a naturally subversive impulse expresses itself on the drawing board.

We’ve long been fans of camouflage and that used for the V&A suit is a variation on the British Army’s classic Disruptive Pattern Material. The first bespoke Savile Row suit we made in it was to enable a customer who doesn’t much like wearing suits cock a snook at the opera.

This season we have board shorts (below) and ties (bottom) in another variation of the same camouflage, all of which you will find at the Savile Row shop and Richard James Online.

Richard James Spring/Summer '12 fuscia and red camouflage board shorts. Also available in turquoise and lime, grey and blue, and turquoise and purple.

Richard James Spring/Summer '12 turquoise, silver and green camouflage silk tie. Also available from the Savile Row shop in yellow, green and sky blue, blue, silver and turquoise, and pink, yellow and orange.

Ziggy Stardust plaque on Heddon Street, London W1

The newly unveiled plaque marking the 4oth anniversary of the release of David Bowie’s seminal The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars on Heddon Street, London W1, which runs parallel to Savile Row. The plaque is only the second in London that has been erected to commemorate a fictional character, the first being for Sherlock Holmes.

The cover of the album (below) featured a Brian Ward photo of Bowie standing outside No. 23, which is where the plaque now is.

Bottom, Bowie’s 1972 Top of the Pops performance of the Spiders From Mars track Starman, which elevated him to stardom.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

Plug 1 and Plug 2 of De La Soul’s First Serve with Must B The Music. It’s released next week.

Richard James calf leather wallets

A snatched shot of the Savile Row shop’s colourful new counter display of our classic, two-tone calf leather wallets.

Hand stitched, eight card slots, one note pocket and two hidden compartments.

Some say that for aesthetics’ sake the pockets of a Savile Row suit or jacket are best left empty.  Not always possible, of course, but these wallets were designed suitably slim with the idea of preserving your silhouette in mind.

Bar Italia in Soho, London © Mike Hewson

You could try an Italian made fine gauge cotton polo for adding a sixties sensibility to your look if you’re checking out London’s Bar Italia Scooter Rally this Saturday.

See a swarm of immaculate scooters from all over London and the South East mark the start of the official scootering season by meeting at the London Eye at 11am before setting out en masse to the grand old Royal Naval College in Woolwich (bottom), where there will be hard fought prizes.

Mods famously met at Bar Italia in the 60s, a number of them to take a look at the get-up of the fresh-in waiters from Italy as much as anything else.

Our three button, soft, fine gauge cotton polos also come in white and navy and are available from the Savile Row shop and Richard James Online.

Contact photographer Mike Hewson (top photo) here.

Richard James Spring/Summer '12 Italian made fine gauge cotton polo in lilac

Bar Italia Scooter Club scooters at the old Naval College, Greenwich. Photo courtesy Bar Italia Scooter Club