This paper presents the first quantitative historical study of the relationship between a brand and its buyers. The sales ledgers from Henry Poole & Co., the founder of bespoke tailoring on London’s Savile Row, were used to calculate the frequency and value of all purchases for a sample of 665 customers from 1890 to 1899. The results show that the top 20 per cent of buyers accounted for just over half of Henry Poole’s sales volume and value. This contradicts the widely accepted Pareto principle that 80 per cent of a brand’s sales come from 20 per cent of its buyers. If the 80:20 rule does not apply, even for an exclusive luxury brand in the 1890s, then previous histories of marketing need to be reconsidered. Marketing strategies that increased availability for light buyers may be more historically significant than targeting strategies for securing brand loyalty from heavy buyers.
