Julien de Luca is the scion of one of France’s great tailoring dynasties, Camps de Luca, famous for dressing King Hassan II of Morocco, the Shah of Iran and much of the Saudi royal family. But when he was young he was told by his grandfather there was no future in the family business; tailoring in France was over, crushed by fast fashion, and he would need to find himself a new career. The grandson dutifully became a stockbroker in London. Then, four years ago, he got a call: maybe business was not so dead after all. Did he want to come back to the family firm? “I decided to put my faith in tailoring,” says de Luca.

It was the right decision: business has grown 15 per cent every year since. There is similar growth at France’s other major tailoring houses, Cifonelli and Smalto. Even luxury titan LVMH is focusing on bespoke thanks to its takeover of menswear group Arnys this year. Indeed, together these companies are spearheading a renaissance in the sector, asserting that Paris, the home of couture, isn’t just for womenswear.

“I think the change in the past four or five years has been that people are discovering quality again. They want to know how something is made and they appreciate the craft of it,” says de Luca, who had to start his training from scratch, but now sits alongside his brother Charles as one of the two cutters at the firm. “That’s particularly true among young people. We recently had a 22-year-old in, working in a bank but by no means the most highly paid, who had saved up to buy his first bespoke suit.”