The House of Ellis & Grant
Our Story
The following is an edited conversation with Ellis Grant Jr., who oversees the house his father built.
When people hear the name Ellis & Grant, what do you want them to feel before they even see the clothing?
Unhurried. That is the word I always come back to. My father used to say that a person who dresses well is never in a rush — not because they have nowhere to be, but because they have already decided who they are. That is what we try to give people. Not a look. A kind of certainty.
Your father started this. What did he teach you about what clothing is actually for?
He used to bring pieces back from his travels — a coat from a tailor in Milan, a shirt from a small workshop outside Lisbon, a pair of trousers he had made in Antwerp. He would lay them out on the kitchen table and just look at them. Not at the label. At the construction. At how the cloth moved. He told me that most people dress for other people, and the ones who dress well dress only for themselves. I have tried to build this house around that idea.
The range spans quite a broad sensibility — Italian tailoring, Scandinavian restraint, French ease. How do those influences sit together?
They are not as different as they might seem. What connects them is that none of them shout. Italian tailoring gives you structure without stiffness. Scandinavian design gives you simplicity without emptiness. French dressing gives you ease without carelessness. We are interested in the space where those three things overlap — where something is clearly considered but never laboured over. That balance is what my father chased his whole life, and it is what we are still chasing.
Ellis Grant Jr.
Director, Ellis & Grant