On the cod - gone drinking.

Pig - an unclaimed garment.

Pigged - a lapel which turns up after some wear.

Pinked...pink a job - making with extra care.

Skiffle - a job needed in a hurry.

Skipping it - making the stitches too big

Small seams - warning call when someone being discussed enters workroom.

Soft sew - an easily worked cloth.

Tab - fussy, difficult customer.

Trotter - fetcher and carrier: messenger.

Tweed merchant - Tailor who does the easy work: a poor workman.

Whipping the cat - Travelling round and working in private houses: common practice in old days when a tailor would be given board and lodging while he made clothes for a family and their servants.

Cork - the boss.

Crib - large scrap of cloth left over from a job, usually enough to make a pair of trousers or a skirt.

Crushed beetles - badly made button holes.

Cutting turf - clumsy, unskilled working.

Doctor - alteration tailor.

Drag...in the drag - working behind time.

Drummer - trouser-maker.

Have you been on the board? - are you experienced?

Hip stay - old-time name for wife.

Jeff - a small master: one who cuts out his garments and also makes them up.

Kicking - looking for another job.

Kicking your heels - no work to do.

Kill - a spoiled job that has to be thrown away.

Kipper - A tailoress. So called because they sought work in pairs to avoid unwelcome advances.

Log...on the log - piecework: the traditional and complex system of paying out-workers.

Mungo - cloth cuttings, which by custom the tailor used to retain to sell to a rag merchant for a little extra income.

Savile Row Jargon

Over its centuries of history, Savile Row has developed a colourful language of its own - here are a selection of words and phrases still mostly in use:

Balloon...having a balloon - a week without work or pay.

Bodger - Crude worker. Common to other trades.

Boot - loan until payday. Can you spare the boot? - can you give me a loan? Dates from crossed-leg days, when a tailor recorded the loan by chalking it on the sole of his boot.

Bunce - a trade perk, like mungo and a crib (see below).

Bushelman - Journeyman who alters or repairs.

Cat's face - a small shop opened by a cutter starting out on his own.

Chuck a dummy - to faint. Allusion is to a tailor's dummy tumbling over.

Clapham Junction - a paper design draft with numerous alterations or additions.

Codger - Tailor who does up old suits.