Thomas Mason Highlights Murray Crane & Crane Brothers
Murray was invited by Thomas Mason to sit down with Christian Barker to share his story from New Zealand and his views on the current climate of menswear as part of their global series Cut From The Right Cloth.
Thomas Mason specialise in luxury shirt fabrics.Founded in Lancashire in 1796 they partner with only the best ateliers, brands and tailors around the globe. We’ve been working with Thomas Mason for over 15 years and are proud to be regarded as Premium Partners.
"At the close of the 20th Century, menswear was in thrall to a new wave of British tailors. “Back in those days, the late nineties, you had houses like Oswald Boateng, Richard James, Kilgour by Carlo Brandelli, they were the dominant force,” says Murray Crane, founder of leading New Zealand men’s clothier, Crane Brothers. “When we first started in 1999, we were hugely influenced by that modern Savile Row look, which was very slick, very structured.”
Within a decade, however, the sharp silhouettes and look-at-me palettes of the ‘Cool Britannia’ era were giving way to more muted colourways, cloth that eschewed sheen in favour of rich texture, and construction more akin to a cardigan than stiff regimental garb. “I’d always been drawn to the English aesthetic,” Crane says. “But when we started seeing this Italian flavour coming through in tailoring, introducing this softer feel, that Neapolitan shoulder and so on, it made a lot of sense.”
New Zealand, where Crane Brothers plies its trade, isn’t known for its fussy formality. “It’s a very casual place,” Murray concedes. “We’d always struggled to win men over to the traditional suit and tie. So when the Italian styling and unstructured construction fell into the mix, it felt like we had discovered that ‘special sauce’,” Murray says – the element that would make tailoring relevant to the average Kiwi customer. “Today, that Italian take on style is what everyone wants. It’s all about an elegant but relaxed lifestyle. It’s all about comfort, easy care, while still looking great.”
Particularly as we emerge from a long period where work-from-home was the norm – not least in NZ, which endured some of the world’s strictest lockdowns – there’s no longer a rigid distinction between professional and leisure attire. “You used to have a weekend wardrobe and a work wardrobe. Now you have one wardrobe that just works every day,” Murray says. “You might wear the same thing on a Monday morning that you wear going out for dinner on a Saturday evening. You’ll go to work and won’t feel like you need to go home and get changed before you meet your mates at the pub. That’s gone.”
Read the full interview on Thomas Mason's website.
Thomas Mason specialise in luxury shirt fabrics.Founded in Lancashire in 1796 they partner with only the best ateliers, brands and tailors around the globe. We’ve been working with Thomas Mason for over 15 years and are proud to be regarded as Premium Partners.
"At the close of the 20th Century, menswear was in thrall to a new wave of British tailors. “Back in those days, the late nineties, you had houses like Oswald Boateng, Richard James, Kilgour by Carlo Brandelli, they were the dominant force,” says Murray Crane, founder of leading New Zealand men’s clothier, Crane Brothers. “When we first started in 1999, we were hugely influenced by that modern Savile Row look, which was very slick, very structured.”
Within a decade, however, the sharp silhouettes and look-at-me palettes of the ‘Cool Britannia’ era were giving way to more muted colourways, cloth that eschewed sheen in favour of rich texture, and construction more akin to a cardigan than stiff regimental garb. “I’d always been drawn to the English aesthetic,” Crane says. “But when we started seeing this Italian flavour coming through in tailoring, introducing this softer feel, that Neapolitan shoulder and so on, it made a lot of sense.”
New Zealand, where Crane Brothers plies its trade, isn’t known for its fussy formality. “It’s a very casual place,” Murray concedes. “We’d always struggled to win men over to the traditional suit and tie. So when the Italian styling and unstructured construction fell into the mix, it felt like we had discovered that ‘special sauce’,” Murray says – the element that would make tailoring relevant to the average Kiwi customer. “Today, that Italian take on style is what everyone wants. It’s all about an elegant but relaxed lifestyle. It’s all about comfort, easy care, while still looking great.”
Particularly as we emerge from a long period where work-from-home was the norm – not least in NZ, which endured some of the world’s strictest lockdowns – there’s no longer a rigid distinction between professional and leisure attire. “You used to have a weekend wardrobe and a work wardrobe. Now you have one wardrobe that just works every day,” Murray says. “You might wear the same thing on a Monday morning that you wear going out for dinner on a Saturday evening. You’ll go to work and won’t feel like you need to go home and get changed before you meet your mates at the pub. That’s gone.”
Read the full interview on Thomas Mason's website.
We have also built up an extensive catalog of Thomas Mason content on shirting, fabrics and how to style them. These can be found on Dispatch.
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