House of Nutter ― The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row

The strange, illuminative true story of Tommy Nutter, the Savile Road tailor who changed the silhouette of men’s fashion—and his rock photographer brother, David, who captured it all on film.

Growing up in an austere apartment above a London café that catered to truck drivers, Tommy and David Nutter seemed destined to lead a rather humble existence in post-war Britain—that is, until they found themselves unlikely protagonists in a swinging cultural revolution. In 1969, at the age of twenty-six, Tommy opened an unusual tailor’s shop on Savile Row that beguiled everyone from Mick Jagger to Twiggy, and led to his bespoke designs being immortalized on the album cover of Abbey Road. Meanwhile, his older brother David’s talent with a camera vaulted him across the Atlantic to New York, into a parallel constellation of stars—Elton John, Yoko Ono—who seemed to enjoy his dry wit almost as much as his art.

House of Nutter uncovers the secret history of two gay men who influenced some of the most enduring styles and pop imagery of the twentieth century. With unparalleled access to never-before-seen photographs, letters, sketches, clippings, and diaries—and drawing on interviews with more than seventy people—journalist Lance Richardson presents an unforgettable dual portrait of brothers who dreamed their way through five decades of extraordinary events, their personal struggles playing out against vivid backdrops of the Blitz, an obscenity trial, the rise of disco, and the ravages of the AIDS crisis.

A propulsive, deftly plotted narrative filled with rich detail and almost operatic twists, House of Nutter takes readers on a kaleidoscopic journey into the minds and times of two unsung mavericks.

LANCE RICHARDSON is a writer from Sydney, Australia. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Slate, The Guardian, The Atlantic, newyorker.com, and several international iterations of GQ. He now lives in New York.