Lillie and Russell

LILLIE & RUSSELL, Tailors and Habit Makers, Standard Buildings, 86, Gordon Street, Glasgow.

    The development of Industrial Glasgow has, of necessity, involved a correspondingly marked development in the sartorial tastes and instincts of the local population, and in this connection we are safe in the assertion that no more representative exponent of the sartorial art, in its highest branches, will be found in Glasgow than centres in the establishment conducted by Messrs. Lillie and Russell at 86, Gordon Street.

    The concern in question is one of considerable antiquity, having been founded in the very infancy of Glasgow’s commercial importance, and long before even the most sanguine dreamer had grounds for picturing, in imagination, the splendour of our “Glasgow as it is”. The house of Lillie and Russell was founded, upwards of seventy years ago, by Mr. Lewis Ferguson, who subsequently assumed the present Mr. Lillie’s father into partnership. Then the business was successfully carried on for a number of years as Ferguson and Lillie. On the decease of Mr. Lillie, senr., his son, Mr. James Lillie, the present sole partner, assumed Mr. Thos. Russell, a gentleman well known in commercial circles in the City of Glasgow, as his partner, when the present trading designation of the firm was adopted. Mr. Lillie conducts an extensive and high-class trade.

    The premises have an excellent business-like appearance and possess an exceptionally attractive frontage. The interior of the establishment is of spacious dimensions, possessing a rearward extension of fully 100 feet, and is appointed in an exceedingly tasteful and elaborate style. The manner in which the entire stock is exhibited certainly reflects very high credit upon the cultivated taste of the proprietary, and cannot fail to convince patrons that, in transacting business with Messrs. Lillie and Russell, they are bestowing confidence on a most practical and reliable firm. The house confines its attention to an exclusively order trade, and, in this, its connection is not only numerically strong, but intrinsically influential.

    The departments comprise general tailoring, ladies’ tailoring and habit making, yachting, clerical, military, and court tailoring, and the making of gentlemen’s buckskin riding and hunting breeches. The workrooms, situate on the roof of the building, are incomparably the most commodious and best sanitated in the city, and afford ample accommodation for a staff of eighty workmen. The tradesmen employed in this department are, without exception, men of reliable taste and judgment, who thoroughly understand the very minutia of their business; the inevitable result being that only work of the best description is turned out. Mr. Lillie’s cutters are fully abreast of all the requirements of a difficult profession, one of the assistants devoting special attention to breeches cutting, and, from the success which has invariably attended this department, the firm are enabled, with confidence, to invite the support of patrons. The attention which is systematically paid to the perfect fit, finish, and style of naval, military, and volunteer officers’ uniforms has secured, in this department of the sartorial art, a wide clientele for the firm ; and no less celebrated are Messrs. Lillie and Russell for the superiority and moderation of charge in connection with the making up of servants’ liveries.

    The principal of this estimable house is personally a gentleman of the most superior business qualifications. He possesses a most accurate intimacy with the full technique of his profession and conducts his establishment on those conscientious principles which not merely deserve but command success. To those who have experienced the worry and annoyance of misfits, such a firm as that of Messrs. Lillie and Russell becomes an absolute boon ; and that the house is fully appreciated as such is conclusively proved not only by the prosperous condition of the trade done in Glasgow and throughout the West of Scotland, but by the still more convincing testimony afforded by a valuable business connection among influential patrons in all parts of the civilized world.

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