Senior Tory ends four-year row on Tommy Nutter rights

A four-year High Court battle involving the Conservative vice-chairman Alan Lewis and a Savile Row tailor which once dressed Mick Jagger, Elton John and Cher has finally ended.

In an out of court settlement ahead of a Court of Appeal hearing which is due tomorrow, Tory party stalwart Lewis has agreed to buy the rights to Nutters of Savile Row which leaves him free to use the brand Tommy Nutter — the flamboyant tailor who achieved fame in the Sixties when his suits were worn by a celebrity clientele, including three of the Beatles on their “Abbey Road” album cover. Nutter died in 1992 of complications from Aids.

The complex dispute pitted Lewis, who also owns men’s clothing chain Crombie, against businessman David Mason, who owns the rights to Nutters of Savile Row.

After High Court hearings and years of discussions, Mason has now agreed to sell his rights to Lewis.

Mason is also creative director at Anthony Sinclair — a tailor founded in the Fifties which specialised in making civilian suits for officers in the military and which got its big break when it was commissioned to make suits for Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr No. He will now focus on his other tailoring brands.

Aaron Wood, trademark lawyer at Swindell & Pearson, based in Derby, who represented Mason, said the parties had “amicably resolved all issues between them” and “have agreed that from November 29, J&J Crombie will have full ownership of both brands and associated rights.”

Previously, Lewis had been in talks to sell Tommy Nutter to a subsidiary of Fung Capital — the private investment arm of the billionaire Fung family of Hong Kong, which separately controls the trading giant Li & Fung. It is unclear whether these talks could be reignited now he has full rights to the name.

Experts in trademarks and brands expect the out of court settlement to have reached hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Tommy Nutter’s last high-profile work was the outfit he designed for The Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman, played by Jack Nicholson in 1989.

Nutter once described his suits as a “cross between the big-shouldered Miami Vice Look and the authentic Savile Row”.