Savas has a lot to celebrate. The menswear label, now in its 10th year, has evolved to become a globally recognized powerhouse, all centered on a singular product that’s edging toward iconic: a simple, immaculately produced leather jacket.
Savannah Yarborough, who started the company out of her apartment in East Nashville, credits a dedication to quality for the unique position Savas has in the luxury menswear market.
“I trained as a tailor in London at Central Saint Martins, which is where Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Stella McCartney went to school,” she says. “It’s where the Sex Pistols were formed.”
In London, she learned true British tailoring, which is renowned for its structural durability and attention to detail.
“When I first started Savas, I was like, ‘How can I cut leather the way a British tailor on Savile Row cuts cloth?’”
Since those early days, the brand has shifted from custom to ready-to-wear, and launched footwear in 2020. But the jackets are what Savas is known for — and for good reason. There is an effortless, timeless quality to them that recalls the well-worn denim chambray shirt Ralph Lauren donned in a Bruce Weber photo from 1981, or the high-collar jacket George Harrison wore on the cover of All Things Must Pass. That lived-in accessibility translates into luxury materials surprisingly easily, and these days you’ll see Savas on everyone from Jack White to Brian Cox, the latter of whom wore a brick-red Savas jacket and matching boots on The Late Show after a particularly memorable episode of Succession —and to much fanfare.
“Really, the reason we’ve grown is because I’ve taken 10 years of experience and pattern-making and fitting clients and applied all of those foundational elements and research into our fit,” says Yarborough. “When you buy a Savas jacket, you’re getting all of that knowledge that goes into it.”
Savas is the only American brand in a specific section at the high-end New York department store Bergdorf Goodman, where its items hang alongside luxury brands like Brioni and Brunello Cucinelli. But they’re still happily a Nashville-based company, through and through.
“We have doubled down in Nashville,” Yarborough says. “I am proud to be here. We couldn’t have done this anywhere else.”
Talking to six of the city's most interesting designers and checking out some of Nashville’s best street style
