Made to Measure - Hasting, Sussex

Craig's jacket, circa 1991; made from organic hemp by Ronnie a tailor in a basement on Bishops Bridge Road. Craig dyed it blue.  T shirt; organic linen made to measure by playwright and fashion designer Lorna Holder.


Craig Sams has always been ahead of the game in fashion, business and pretty much everything else. Here he is with his favourite seagull outside his greenhouse in Hastings. Having founded, among other things, Green and Black's chocolate with his wife Josephine Fairley, his latest project is Carbon Gold a biochar fertiliser.

His overall view on clothes is this: if you shop for clothes quite often they don't fit properly, the sleeves are too short, trousers don't fit round the waist etc. It therefore makes more sense, long term, to have things made to  measure. He roots out small independent tailors, uses organic fabrics as much as possible and hardly ever buys anything new. As a result he has a lifetime supply of suits, shirts and t shirts.
Audrey of Hasting repairs everything, relines waistcoats etc; salvaging garments that would otherwise be thrown out.