A place of tradition in the heart of town

Cordings has helped shape the sartorial landscape of Britain for 185 years, with its classic country tailoring a firm staple of many sporting wardrobes

- Alec Marsh

AT 19 PICCADILLY, on a corner formed by the junction of Air Street, stands a landmark that is to my mind every bit as synonymous with London as the Houses of Parliament, the doubledecker bus or Nelson's Column. It is Cordings, a temple of tweed, corduroy and moleskin that has been outfitting gentlemen - and ladies, too - since 1839. This shop has been here since 1877, having relocated from The Strand, and it remains today what it has been for a century or more: a place where a countryman feels at home in the heart of the seething metropolis.

And as this veritable Sirius in Britain's sartorial firmament is celebrating 185 years since one John Charles Cording founded his business as an 'outfitter and waterproofer, what better time to pay a visit? I am greeted in reception where a gleaming cabinet contains some 600 different pairs of socks - by Cordings' co-proprietor and managing director Noll Uloth, a quietly spoken entrepreneur who acquired Cordings in 2003 with his business partner, the musician Eric Clapton. Uloth, a former Royal Hussar, leads us down the creaking staircases to menswear to begin a journey through time, space and twine.

"The product that we're famous for is the covert coat," he announces. "The Victoria & Albert Museum has a Cordings covert coat in its archives. We are credited with being its originator." It will require little introduction to readers of The Field, and remains a staple of every gentleman's wardrobe as well as any gangster film directed by Guy Ritchie, who is a Cordings devotee. The particular greenish-brown shade means horsehair doesn't show on it. Uloth explains: "It's light and tough, and it's still made out of the same cloth by Fox Brothers & Co in Somerset."