Ross Ellis is the son of Andy Ellis, of Andy Ellis Tailors, a once very hip clothing store for men. In this interview he recalls life in the shop and discusses the riding coats which became the mainstay of Andy Ellis Tailors in later years.
There was a really good tailoring customer for the suits and he had a daughter who was an up and coming riding – a really good rider – only a young girl, only six or seven, something like that – and they asked him could he make her a riding coat and Dad designed the coat for her and she went on to become a really champion rider and people saw those coats and it developed from that. We started advertising it a bit as well, and then we went into making them as a ready-made coat as well and they’ve been sold all over Australia in the various saddlery shops. They must have had a photo of the old-style English riding coat that they showed to Dad, but he designed his ideas on the same sort of coat: it was a long, quite a long coat, but really nicely waisted and shaped, nicely bust shaped and really waisted and flared out over the saddle, over the hips and also over the saddle, and draped down over the back of the saddle. That style has changed now – they’re all getting really shorter, but that had a long run of thirty-odd years.
