Cultural Capital
“With the weight of history bearing down on any man who cares to walk down Savile Row, it is understandable that it has gained a reputation as a forbidding street for any chap who isn’t a military man, a skilled equestrian or blue-blooded”. (Sherwood, 2008, pp14)
What the fashion critic James Sherwood describes here is how exclusionary Savile Row, and by extension, the bespoke tailoring industry can be, and how nearly everyone lacks the social and/or cultural capital to feel comfortable within it.1 According to Bourdieu, a person’s background influences their tastes, skills, ‘habitus’ (including how you talk and behave), and cultural references. Social, economic and cultural capital is transformational – one can give you the other (Huang, 2019). If we can increase our students cultural capital within the bespoke tailoring context, we will help them secure industry contacts and a job.
In educational settings, “scarcity of social and cultural capital” is one of the factors behind the degree awarding gap for students from “lower socio-economic backgrounds and minority groups” (Banerjee, 2024). While we as educators must make sure not to favour or promote certain identities over other, or imply that our students should change who they are, we can give them confidence by bestowing them with knowledge (Thelin, 2025, Mesthrie, 2011). One way of doing this is by demystifying the terminology and jargon used by tailors. Defining key ideas or terminology at the beginning of a course makes a significant contribution to mitigating the differences in cultural capital that students can arrive with (Bamber & Jones, 2015).
Intersectionality and neurodiversity
Our student body is very diverse with a richness in linguistic backgrounds, neurodiversity, genders, and socio economic and educational backgrounds (UAL, 2025). Various characteristics can intersect creating potential disadvantages2 (Crenshaw, 1991, Nichols & Stahl, 2019).
Since many of our students are dyslexic, visual learners or speak English as a second language, it suggests that creating a glossary using images and a dyslexia style guide3 should be helpful to them.4
Community, gamification and co-creation
Using the glossary to play a Pictionary style game will combine the advantages of using drawing to enhance memory (Salamon, 2018) and promoting community, which can help in reducing the awarding gap (Banerjee, 2024). In addition, gamified learning has been repeatedly shown to increase the engagement and the motivation of students, and help them learn more effectively (Thelin 2025, Christopoulos & Mystakidis, 2023).
Co-creating the glossary with the students could have many benefits. It would give me insights into what kind of vocabulary needs explaining, and would create an environment of active participation that “recognises their agency and help flatten the hierarchy” (UAL, 2024). Hopefully it would lead to a glossary including terminology from a wider range of environments, thus avoiding reinforcing traditional ideas about what is “correct” vocabulary. Though bespoke tailoring has its origins in Savile Row, our students will go on to working in various different contexts, such as the international fashion industry, costume, couture or styling. A tailoring glossary would ideally reflect the complexity of the wider tailoring world while being presented in a way that makes studying and revision clear and easy.
References:
Bamber, V & Jones, A. (2015) ‘Challenging students: enabling inclusive learning.’ in H Fry, S Ketteridge & S Marshall (eds), A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Enhancing Academic Practice. 4th edn, Routledge , Abingdon, pp. 152-168.
Banerjee, P. (2024). ‘Connecting the dots: a systematic review of explanatory factors linking contextual indicators, institutional culture and degree awarding gaps.’ Higher Education Evaluation and Development, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 31-52
British Dyslexia Association (2023) Dyslexia Style Guide 2023. Online. Available at: https://cdn.bdadyslexia.org.uk/uploads/documents/Advice/style-guide/BDA-Style-Guide-2023.pdf?v=1680514568. (Accessed 17 July 2025)
Crenshaw, K. (1991). ‘Mapping the Margins: intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Colour.’ Stanford Law Review. Vol. 43, No.6 pp. 1241-1299
Christopoulos, A. Mystakidis, S. (2023) ‘Gamification in Education.’ Encyclopedia 2023, 3, pp. 1223–1243. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia3040089. (Accessed 18 July 2025)
Huang, X. (2019) ‘Understanding Bourdieu – Cultural Capital and Habitus.’ Review of European Studies. Vol. 11, No. 3. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5539/res.v11n3p45. (Accessed 18 December 2025.)
Mesthrie, R. (Ed.). (2011). The Cambridge handbook of sociolinguistics. Cambridge University Press.
Nichols, S & Stahl, G (2019) ‘Intersectionality in higher education research: a systematic literature review.’ Higher Education Research & Development, DOI:10.1080/07294360.2019.1638348
Salamon, M. (2018) UAL ‘Drawing Laboratory: Research workshops and outcomes’. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal. Vol 3/Issue 2 pp. 131-141
Sherwood, J (2008). The London Cut. Savile Row Bespoke Tailoring. Pp.14
UAL (2025) Attainment Profiles. Available at: dashboards.arts.ac.uk (Accessed: 23th May 2025)
UAL (2025) Student Profiles: Characteristic. Available at: dashboards.arts.ac.uk (Accessed: 23th May 2025)
UAL (2024) Supporting inclusive and developmental crits: a guidance for staff at UAL. Available at: https://www.arts-su.com/news/article/6013/Crits-and-Inclusive-Learning-at-UAL/ (Accessed: 6 March 2025).
Undy, C. (2025). Blog Post One – Disability. Available at: https://pgcertclaireundy.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/04/25/blog-post-1-disability/ (Accessed 17 July 2025)
- This quote is from The London Cut (2008), a book by an established fashion critic about Savile Row style and history. It is almost 20 years old, from the time when I started studying bespoke tailoring. Though the industry has diversified somewhat during this time, Savile Row is still an intimidating place for many of our students. The fact that Sherwood doesn’t even consider the “chap” might be a woman, even less trans or non binary, is telling. The inclusiveness of the bespoke tailoring environment throughout history would be an interesting area to investigate. ↩︎
- For example in the case of the underrepresentation of Chinese students in the disability statistics (Cheah et al, 2024, Undy, 2025) ↩︎
- For example the Dyslexia Style Guide by British Dyslexia Association (2023) ↩︎
- Autonomy supportand well-organised, clear learning activities have been found to relate positively to student engagement, which in turn enhanced study results. (Banerjee, 2024) ↩︎