LONDON Savile Row tailors lost their claim to the word bespoke, as meaning exclusively hand-made earlier this week, following a ruling by the British Advertising Standards Agency.

The ruling, issued Wednesday comes after a dispute about an advertisement placed by placed by London-retailer Sartoriani, which offered a bespoke suit for 495 pounds, or $968.

Sartorianis suits, a fraction of the cost of traditional Savile Row suits which run at an average of 5,000 pounds or $9,784, are made-to-measure and produced in Germany, where they are mostly machine cut and sewn.

The complainant, Savile Row Bespoke, the association that represents Savile Row tailors, argued that the claim of bespoke were misleading, as traditional bespoke suits are made by hand in the U.K. to strict guidelines.

The complaint has not been upheld by the agency.

Source

thats just sucky! but i guess the price should be a giveaway?

As much as I dislike wikipedia they seem to have a very good definition

Bespoke is usually a British English term for tailored clothing made at a customer's behest, and exactly to the customer's specification. Bespoke clothing is created without use of a pre-existing pattern, differentiating it from made to measure, which alters a standard-sized pattern to fit the customer. In American English, it is a synonym for "custom made."

Post Last Updated:19.06.2008 at 20.34

That's stupid...so the English are re-defining their own language now?

Without meaning to be pedantic I must add the English language like any language is a living thing which redefines itself with new trends and new generations, how many of us use the same English with its corresponding definitions as we did at the birth of modern English in the 16th century? I certainly don't. Aside from that basic principle I must add that I would expect a bespoke suit to be made to my personal measurements regardless of what a dictionary says. :D