How Giles Deacon Created Purdey’s First House Tweed

As a summer heatwave continues to boil both sides of the Atlantic, tweed may not be on most people’s minds. But the Tom Purdey tweed is no ordinary tweed.

It happens to be the first in a new series of house tweeds from James Purdey & Sons, the bespoke London gunmaker established in 1814 that’s since become a full outfitter of traditional shooting clothing and accessories. What’s more, the cloth—which has been made up into a variety of traditional men’s and women’s shooting styles, including a house signature field coat, shooting vest, and shooting “breeks” (a.k.a. breeches)—has real fashion-world bona fides, having been developed by the renowned fashion designer Giles Deacon.

Deacon, a London Fashion Week mainstay known for designing Pippa Middleton’s wedding dress and creating a Tiffany-blue number worn by Beyoncé during her 2023 Renaissance tour, was tapped by Purdey to be its creative director in 2024. In developing the Tom Purdey tweed, Deacon saw an opportunity to highlight British craftsmanship and reconnect with his own roots: The designer hails from the Lake District of Cumbria near the Scottish border, where flocks of Herdwick sheep are shorn to make heavyweight tweeds.

“I’ve always known and been brought up within that sort of environment, so it’s something I’ve been very aware of and have a close affinity to,” he tells Robb Report.

But first, Deacon had to study the man. Tom Purdey became his family firm’s chief salesman in 1920 and occupied the role for more than 30 years, during which time he traveled widely and rubbed shoulders with royalty and celebrities in both town and country. Together with his brother Jim, he also penned an influential book on sporting called The Shot Gun, which cheekily advised readers to carry a flask of “cold tea”—a.k.a. whiskey—into the field.

“He was, I think you could safety put it, a very enigmatic bon vivant,” Deacon says of his inspiration. “A bit of an aesthete—a tweed addict, clearly.”

Upon his death in 1957, Purdey left behind a photographic trove that proved invaluable to the designer. Combing the archive, Deacon noticed that Purdey frequently shot in a dogtooth pattern overlaid by a lighter windowpane check, which became the template for his own modern interpretation.

Partnering with a historic mill in the Scottish town of Hawick, Deacon developed a substantially weighted tweed clocking in at 430 grams. Made from finely spun lambswool in 21 individually colored yarns, its resulting dogtooth pattern is crisscrossed by a pale blue windowpane inspired by the school colors of Purdey’s alma mater, Eton.

“I wanted it to be muted and rich,” Deacon says of the earthy yet urbane fabric. “I didn’t want it to be an incredibly bold and chatty tweed. I wanted it to have that layer of sophistication that would warrant a Tom Purdey and a Purdey background, but with enough of a spark to make it quite recognizable going forward.”

In addition to those shooting-oriented garments, the tweed has also been made into baseball caps and flat caps, plus a wider range of accessories and home goods in a cashmere-tweed blend including ties, notebooks, throw cushions and blankets.

As distinctive as it is, the Tom Purdey tweed will just be the first in a series of house tweeds designed by Deacon, each of which will be tied by name and inspiration to a particular Purdey from the firm’s 211-year history.

“I really like the idea of getting a whole family of house tweeds, because they will all have their different personality to them and use and appeal, which is still very recognizable and true to the house,” says Deacon.

In other words, Purdey tweed will continue to be a family affair.