extracts from "Going soft on Savile Row "

It has been passed down from generation to generation, a tradition once on the brink of extinction, struggling for survival. Sons would follow in their fathers' footsteps, forgoing the usual carefree living of childhood to begin an apprenticeship that would last nearly a decade, and then only if the pupil showed exceptional aptitude. The world's wealthy and important would crave the results, often only to be turned away.

The ancient medicinal skill of some South American tribe? The tantric outpourings of some cult? Not quite. This is the lost art of soft tailoring, the technique employed in making a more comfortable, more flexible, fitted suit for a comfort-driven age. A dominant trend of Savile Row tailoring in the 30s, subsequently lost to the whims of fashion, it is now set to rediscover a broad appeal, giving this anonymous-looking London street an altogether new dimension.

Take Steven Hitchcock. Now 24, the youngest independent tailor at his world-class level, Hitchcock has been trained in the arts of soft tailoring since he was 16, working alongside his father, a jacket-cutter and director at Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard.

Anderson, where soft tailoring is the house style, has been the technique's only real home over the past 50 years. It was there that Hitchcock acquired his soft-tailoring skills, like a young Luke Skywalker sitting at the feet of a Jedi master, and it was there, in recognition of his initiation into a semi-secret art, that he was meant to stay. But Hitchcock broke the golden rule and left to set up on his own.

"Soft tailoring has practically been kept a secret for half a century," he says, "The culture at Anderson was to keep it under wraps. Some tailors are reluctant to pass their skills on to apprentices, and you can't learn [it] anywhere else.