In west London, there is a cut-through from the coughing traffic of Kensington High Street to the calm of Holland Street called Kensington Church Walk. Apart from the pretty neo-Gothic church itself, St Mary Abbots, the walk is unremarkable. Almost. Nearing Holland Street there is a shopfront in what might be called 1960s brown — a sludgy, unprepossessing colour. This is Hornets. There are three Hornets around here; all are extensions of this.
The name — unusual, but we’ll get to that — is not what draws attention. The frontage does: two expansive windows that usually boast a quartet of mannequins, suited in tweeds or navy, invariably with a hat. Cravats make frequent appearances. Lining the front, pressed close to the glass, are boxes with their mouths open, and in them sit gold and silver cufflinks as colourful and impressive as birds of paradise.
Over them protrude leather shoes polished to an almost unfathomable shine. At night, you can look at them and see the moon. In the daytime, on the wall opposite, cushions are sometimes put out for passersby to sit, so that they can rest and admire the frontage. The owner — unusual, but we’ll get to him, too — is often found there, though not so much in winter.
Unexpected character
Hornets is what might today be called a vintage gentlemen’s outfitters, though when it opened, more than 40 years ago, it would have said it sold second-hand clothes. These are not the clothes of vintage stores that fill up student towns. Instead, the shop is full of tailoring from a different age: suits of alpaca wool, grey worsted trousers, bow ties of black marcella. There are correspondent shoes, leather motoring coats, Panama hats and velvet dinner jackets. Velvet jackets in all cuts, as it happens. Outfits that were cut in the basements of Savile Row and Jermyn Street find their way here. None of it is cheap; all of it is reasonable. It is a shop where fashion is considered a disease and style the ultimate aspiration.
On any given day, the shop might be filled, variously, with would-be dandies, race-goers, aristos, the merely curious. Or just those in need of a good suit. It is a Tardis of purples and reds, of leather satchels and sturdy suitcases, of wooden hangers and cedar shoe trees. Londoners might not know the place, but it has a reputation internationally and is discussed conspiratorially on forums. But it is not a shop built on snobbery; Hornets is special for its egalitarian spirit, for its insistence on good manners, for extending a welcome to everyone. You do not need to have a special interest in waistcoats to like it here.
Outfits that were cut in the basements of Savile Row and Jermyn Street find their way here
Much of this is down to its founder, William “Hornets” Wilde — Bill Hornets to some. He is extravagantly but carefully put together, his grey hair well-groomed, his lips often pursed tight, amused, as if there is a joke waiting to be told. He speaks fondly of people like David Niven, Cary Grant, King Charles; he is liable to talk, if prompted, on the importance of dressing for dinner. He has the voice you might expect: languorous and gravelled, from a different time. He does not pronounce the Ts in restaurant. It is the kind of voice that usually emerges trailing a torpid length of cigar smoke.
But Wilde is not what you might expect. He grew up in Croydon, when it was still a part of Surrey. He left school at 14, barely able to read, unable to write, and in with a gang — boys from the local borstal with names more usually found in detective stories from the 1950s: Killer Green, Smooth Talking Chalky.
Out of work, and just 15, he used a talent for impersonating Jack Hawkins, the well-spoken star of The Bridge on the River Kwai, to land a job selling cloth in Allders, the old Croydon department store. He used his wages to pay two local women: one to teach him to write, one to teach him elocution. He soon discovered RADA and, at 17, landed a scholarship there, studying alongside John Thaw, Sarah Miles, Edward Fox. Ask him, and he will tell you he didn’t fit; still, he left with an agent who also represented James Mason. Acting work followed: Liverpool rep, a few TV shows (Doctor Who, Emergency Ward 10, The Saint), a horror movie.
Tailoring as armour
Wilde was also exploring Portobello Road Market in search of clothes. It lured him. On holiday in Greece he found he wanted something else from life but cameras and cues, and opened his first vintage clothes shop.
It moved to Bell Street, before a morning walk took him to Kensington Church Walk. He kept walking back, keeping an eye on it, wanting a shop there.
He got it. The name? Not Wilde’s idea. A boy working in the shop had noticed Hackett had opened, and it provided inspiration: if there was Hackett, and Hermès, how about Hornets?
Today, Hornets is there to provide fine tailoring at fair prices. Wilde often cites a Huntsman suit as his example; if it costs £5,000 to have one made, a used version in Hornets might be £500. The job of the staff here is to teach the customers what to look out for; the hand-cut buttonholes, the different weaves, how to detect the linings of a suit. And how to wear one: Wilde refers to good tailoring as armour that should give its wearer confidence.
He says his passion is buying and sourcing the clothes, but never reveals where he finds his pieces — though it’s easy to suspect that the same types who buy the clothes are the same types who sell them. And perhaps that is Wilde’s great love. But if you visit, and find the gentleman on a cushion outside his shop, and sit down beside him, you might conclude that, in the end, what he really loves is to tell a story.
2 & 4 Kensington Church Walk, W8 4NB; hornetskensington.co.uk
