J.H. Cutler has been making bespoke clothing in Sydney since 1884. The lineage runs through five generations and the length of this city’s modern history.
Beginning with Joseph Handel Cutler, who opened his rooms on George Street with nothing but inherited skill and a certainty about his own capabilities; continuing with Leslie, who purchased a permanent address on Bligh Street, but declined twice the purchase price when offered it, because a house of this kind is not a proposition to be traded; followed by Bruce, who held the business through war, recession and the disruption of mass manufacturing without compromising the work; and then John, who left school at fifteen to learn the craft, trained in London, and built a reputation that placed J.H. Cutler in the company of Savile Row’s finest. The thread connecting all four generations was not simply longevity, but a seriousness and depth of understanding about the craft that the business has carried from one generation to the next, and the only reason a tailoring house founded in the nineteenth century is still here, still making things by hand, still relevant.
J.H. Cutler now occupies a suite in Simpson House on Pitt Street, a heritage-listed building from 1912, once the first office of Australasian Films and the anchor of Sydney’s early cinema precinct. The recently restored ghost of a Rex Simpson Menswear sign looks down over the city toward the harbour from the building’s northern wall. Two doors away, in 1896, the first cinematograph film ever screened in Sydney played to its audience. J.H. Cutler has been part of this city’s story long enough to find itself, unexpectedly, in the company of its own history.
Welcome to J.H. Cutler’s scheduling page. Please follow the prompts to arrange an appointment with John Cutler or Sam Hazelton.
