There’s something about stepping foot inside Huntsman. One of Savile Row’s oldest and most prestigious tailors, you can feel the history as you approach the stone steps out front, and it hits you when you swing open the heavy wooden front door. The parquet floor is well worn and the dark wood cabinets that line the walls hint at the heritage of the century old business. Some of history’s most famous names have conversed here. Everyone from Sir Winston Churchill and King George V to Gregory Peck and Elizabeth Taylor have been measured up, while more contemporary clients include Brad Pitt, Mark Strong and Alan Cumming. All of this can make it slightly intimidating, but any anxiety is immediately quelled when you meet the in-house shirtmaker, Sean O’Flynn.

An old face of the Row, O’Flynn operates his bespoke shirtmaking business upstairs at Huntsman, in a small room located on the first floor. He welcomes you like an old friend, with a warm smile and a firm handshake that lets you know you can rely on him. Quick to regale old stories of the heady days of the ‘70s, Sean is resolutely old school. While many of his contemporaries deploy the use of technology to stay on top of business, inputting customer details into spreadsheets on laptops, O’Flynn sticks to pen and paper. His ledger is full of the minutiae of each client’s details, with measurements and preferences jotted down precisely. He shows me cut outs of fabric choices pinned next to each order, which makes it easier to see who commissioned what. Some things are best left the old way.

So where did it all begin for O’Flynn? “Here in the ‘70s”, he tells me next to the fire at the front of the shop. He started as an apprentice. “Huntsman was prepared to let me go to college. They had a set up with London College of Fashion, so I went there once a week. But I loved the West End.” And just how different was it working in central London back then? “You always look at things differently in retrospect, but it was a lot seedier back in the ‘70s. There were numerous little tailor shops and workshops around the West End. But you also had the sex workers and the drug dealers, and Bowie in the background of it all. It was all happening. London then was a lot tighter, a lot smaller, and the West End was the real hub. It’s not like now where it’s spread out so much.”

The clothes have changed since then too. There’s been a significant change in tastes in the last few years, let alone forty. While business shirts reigned king for much of the 20th century bespoke world, today clients are requesting just as many casual shirts alongside the classic white and light blue 9-5 variety. “There’s a few things that have changed. Primarily, people are a lot less conservative. Because back in the day it was all white shirts, and then some sometimes blue, whereas now it’s much more varied. When I first started a lot of shirts were still the pullover tunic style, which buttoned half way. Then after those I used to make shirts that would button on to shorts, so I used to make these matching undershorts as well.”

The client experience hasn’t changed an awful lot though. By O’Flynn’s own admission, half of the satisfaction of going bespoke is the relationship that is built between shirtmaker and wearer, and this has always been the case. Building a rapport and developing a unique experience for each client is something he takes seriously. It’s more than just making a perfect-fitting garment; for O’Flynn that one-to-one collaboration is an essential part of the process. “Customers tend to stay with you for a long time. I’ve got customers that have been with me for over 30 years. Once you gain their trust they let you guide them and it goes on from there and you get a really solid relationship. It takes all of the hassle out of it for them, they can just come in, choose stuff and go.”

Fabrics, naturally, play a big part in what O’Flynn does. “There’s so many fabrics and there’s so much to learn with how they work. It’s quite amazing. I was first introduced to Thomas Mason when I worked at New & Lingwood in the early ‘80s. Since then the brand has really enhanced  the collection. And to my mind they do some of the nicest fabrics around, both in quality, design and pricing. And the service is second to none. They come and see me and whatever I need they always help out.” Any favourite fabrics? “All of them, basically. And then what I really love about Thomas Mason is their seasonal collections. The colours are really cool and people respond to that.”

Today, O’Flynn’s operation has become a family business. His son Edward has held the role of his apprentice for three years, learning the ropes under the watchful eye of the master in the same building his father started out over forty years ago. Whether he takes over the reins in the future remains to be seen. But for now there’s a great pleasure to be taken in watching an old master perform his trade in a way that has remained largely unchanged for over a century.

Photography by Charlie Thomas