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Observations: Savile Row does it with style, but Hermès is just horrible

Mayfair has gained two new pieces of public art. One is of the highest quality; the other is glorified window-dressing. First, the quality. Savile Row, London's buttoned-up bastion of tailored existence, has been given a faintly surreal vibe by Verge, a gangling two-ton bronze sculpture created by the American artist, Joel Shapiro. The piece floats a few feet in front of the façade of No 23, a new building designed by the architect Eric Parry. Strung up on tensioned wires, the sculpture suggests a floating body whose languid limbs would surely represent a literally unsuitable client for the cutters and sewers at, say, Dege & Skinner, or Huntsman and Sons.

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