It all started back in 2001, the year we all met, sort of. Stuart H had crossed paths with Stuart W professionally in Tunbridge Wells and they had always had that business spark and became friends. Meanwhile Stu H and Sam were crossing paths socially in Tunbridge Wells and another friendship was formed. Jump forward to 2011 when Hardman & Hemming was set up by Stuart H after a few years tailoring in Brighton, London and Guildford.

However, bricks and mortar were calling and that could not be done alone. It was time to become a double act and find the right shop. Well, it just so happened that in 2014 Colin De’Ath, a tailor in Southborough was thinking of retiring and selling his business. Talk about the perfect fit.

The double act had its location and started working alongside Colin before eventually buying the business in 2015 and delighted to be carrying on tailoring in Southborough and Tunbridge Wells which had first started in the London Road shop in 1982.

Business flourished and it became clear that more hands were needed to keep up with demand and they knew just the person for the job. Yep, that was when Sam joined the team and that’s when things really started going up another notch and we haven’t stopped since.

Stuart H started working in a front of house role for a tailors in the early 2000s, learning about cloth and style of course fittings in the made to measure world before progressing to cutting and making over the coming years and then setting up H&H, learning and training very much on the job and certainly hands on which has been the same for Stuart W and Sam.

We have made multiple suits for the BAFTAs, had suits featured at Soccer Aid and on the red carpets at various events. Our work has been published across the South East and nationally online and in wedding publication such as Whimsical Weddings. We have also been delighted to have been asked to contribute to style features every year since we started.

In 2019 we won the prestigious TW Times ‘Creative Business of the Year’ Business Awards having been runners up in 2018. The award recognises innovation and ideas and we were so proud that our little tailoring business won over large marketing businesses and it was all down to our fresh and exciting approach to tailoring.

It can’t be just great ideas though; it has to be backed up by quality tailoring and we are constantly learning and bringing new skills in to the business to ensure our bespoke work is at the top of the game whilst also embracing new technologies and manufacturing techniques to ensure our made to measure work can’t be beaten.

It is important to us to that the traditions and skills of tailoring continue on across the UK, and we love doing our bit to produce high quality suits – but even more than the traditional elements, we love putting our own spin and modern take on the bespoke world.

We like to tailor our services to everyone (excuse the pun!), tailoring isn’t about gender or body types, it’s about making the garment that the customer wants and needs regardless of who they are. Our tailoring is for anyone who wants us to make for them and our door is open to everyone.

We like to introduce new things to our classic tailoring, which is why you’ll see Shirt Club & our Made to Measure services too and we ensure that everything we do is ethical. It’s very important to us.
And we always aim to inject a bit of personality into what is traditionally a bit of an old gent’s club, times have changed and tailoring should too, we love what we do and want to have fun whilst we do it– check out our Get Shirty podcast and you’ll see what we mean.