Enter Atelier Arena

What do the musicians Paul Weller and Daryl Hall, the gallerist Iwan Wirth, and the actor Gary Oldman have in common? A taste in tailors.

I meet Tom Arena, who’s just set up a regular pop-up atelier, in his suite-cum-studio on the Chelsea Hotel’s fourth floor. He has just finished a morning of fittings with “Young British Artist” Liam Gillick and the makeup queen Bobbi Brown. I’m here for my second suit from Arena and the sheer abundance of cloth and swatch books of the world’s finest yarns makes my head spin: Fox Brothers tweeds, Dormeuil cottons, Caccioppoli linens and silks, exquisite Venetian linings and trimmings. 

Tom, a southeast Londoner of Italian-Irish stock, cut his teeth at the legendary Huntsman of Savile Row, where he began training at nineteen under the tutelage of the tetchy, chain-smoking Brian Hall. It was here, among surfaces strewn with half-made garments and heavyweight shears, that he was initiated into the world of blind hems, rip downs and roll lines. He spent two decades as Head Cutter at Paul Smith, where his unique eye for color and pattern helped take the business global. In 2021, Tom launched his own bespoke tailoring business, Atelier Arena, setting up shop on St James’s Place, in the basement of Chopin’s last London home.

Rails of bespoke suits and jackets, reams of fabric impeccably organized in wooden drawers; silks, satins, denims, crisp seersuckers surround me. Two of his latest creations hang ready on the mannequins: a bottle-green suede trench for Vogue’s Hamish Bowles, a grey wool three-piece suit for Shogun’s Cosmo Jarvis. Above his cutting desk is a mood board of clients and muses: Daniel Day-Lewis in his bespoke Arena evening suit accepting the Oscar for There Will Be Blood; Gary Oldman in his bespoke Arena tux winning the BAFTA for The Darkest Hour; pictures of Brian Jones, Basquiat, Bowie, Hockney, the antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs. I remark on a picture of Donald Sutherland in that famous tweed from Don’t Look Now and Tom says, “Roeg [Sutherland] came in the other day. Saw his dad’s jacket on the wall, said he had it and that he’d bring it in. I might make a couple of them,” he decides. 

But one picture in particular stands out — a photograph of the man who introduced us, Nick Laird-Clowes. Considered by many as the best-dressed man in London, Nick is a musician and songwriter, best known as frontman of the English band The Dream Academy. Several years ago Nick let me in on his best-kept sartorial secret, and I haven’t looked back. For my first Arena suit, I took Nick’s advice and played it safe, a classic navy chalk-stripe number, which I practically sleep in. A good suit has supernatural powers — mine has definitely quelled some hangovers.

Back at the Chelsea, Tom is having me “push the boat out” second time around: black needlecord (cut against the grain to maintain its true colour), generous lapels, roped shoulders, a slight kick in the trousers to give it that seventies feel. So how is this “pushing the boat out” exactly? Because it’s double breasted, which I’ve always avoided, my father having convinced me that it’s a bit “wide boy.” But my trust in Tom is implicit. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor: he takes my measure anew every time he sees me, whilst all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect them to fit me.” If you believe in the old adage that the suit maketh the man, Tom is the man to see.

Atelier Arena is taking appointments at The Chelsea Hotel between 27-30 January and every 3 months. Suits begin at $6,000. info@atelierarena.com @atelier_arena