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Ozempic is causing trouble on Savile Row

The city’s most celebrated tailors are overwhelmed. Their customers’ bespoke suits and shirts are suddenly baggy and require drastic readjustment. Tom Chamberlin reports from the high-end front line of the weight-loss revolution

This might be regarded as a good thing — the new drug has brought lots of people flocking back to their tailors with suits and shirts that must be radically adjusted to fit newly svelte frames. The extra layer of inconvenience here is that, whereas suits have some level of inlay that allows for adjustments, and surplus fabric can be hidden inside the jacket without anyone being any the wiser, shirtmakers do not have this privilege, so have to be precise. It is just a shame that it means starting the bespoke process from scratch and all the work gone into perfecting the original pattern, which should last and grow naturally with the customer for life.” This is another element of the issue that craftsmen have, which is that the relationship with a tailor is an intimate one.

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