Changing the perception about the history of menswear in London first required research; the museum conducted a textual analysis of the Sherlock Holmes stories for references to colour. In designing the tweed, blue and yellow were integrated into a grey base – to represent the most-used colours in Holmes stories and a London nod to traditional tweed, respectively – by Lovat Mill in Hawick. Then, the Museum of London partnered with department store Liberty and worked with its subsidiary, milliner Christys’, to create a deerstalker in homage to Holmes and a flatcap, both to be used primarily for PR purposes. “Museums, for a long time, have taken an object, replicated it and turned it into a product. But this was actually saying ‘Let’s take inspiration from the content, not replication.’” Marcus asks.

The museum received Arts Council funding to create a documentary about the history of tweed and the milling of London Tweed. Thus, Lamb & Sea, a documentary film trio from the East End, came on board. “The museum wanted a film which would give a succinct background on the history and fashion of tweed, but also go into the relevance of the performance fabric in relation to Sherlock and how that fits in with the museum now,” say two of the filmmakers. They made a 15-minute film incorporating those elements and the process of making tweed – which combines modern technology and traditional craftsmanship. This inspired the aesthetic of the documentary, which draws on the beauty inherent in the mechanical process. But the video was a first for the museum “For us, this was really experimental,” Marcus says. “Since we’ve had a robust social media strategy that focuses on video, we’ve never created anything longer than three minutes. To say, we’re creating a 15-minute documentary, was quite a big statement for us and we didn’t really know how it would go.”

The documentary was complemented by a shorter, more promotable piece of video content. “We needed to be connected to Londoners and one of the ways we can do this is through high-profile Londoners,” Marcus says. The museum worked with the Mayor’s Office and the British Fashion Council to get London Tweed represented at the London Collections Men headline event, alongside Tinie Tempah.

Tempah was sent to Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons to create a three-piece suit made from London Tweed allowing Press Association broadcast agency TNR to shoot a three minute film. “This is such a beautiful suit, the only way to tell that story is through video,” TNR’s head of production Rhian Harries says. “This was the closest way we could show a tactile fabric without handing it around to people in the audience.” The film was launched before London Collections Men and achieved cut-through with fashion and lifestyle publications like GQ and Women’s Wear Daily. Marcus says the project worked across all of the museum’s comms channels because of its diverse content.

Rationale:

Not only were visitor numbers to the Sherlock Holmes exhibition around 85,000 – a great success – but viewer statistics were among the best ever. Over 6,000 people watched the documentary and over 10,000 watched the Tinie Tempah film. “We’re really starting to appreciate the power of owned content. We’d done a lot of editorial films, but we’d never done a longer documentary which would give us the scope to do some scene setting, bring in other people,” Marcus says. “As a museum, we don’t want to be insular. We want to be looking out onto the city we inhabit.”

The project will also help the Museum of London’s partnerships with London institutions in future as it expects its list of partners will continue to grow. “I think it’s actually changed our strategy,” Marcus adds. “Video has been a big part of our strategy for the last 18 months. This 15-minute documentary was a gamble for us. It worked so well because I think we got the tone right...It proved to us that we can do longer, more considered pieces of content.”

And the tweed hats sold out four times over. Elementary, my dear.