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SHANGHAIEXPRESSTHE METEORIC RISE OFCHINA’S HOTTEST CITY

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SHANGHAIEXPRESSTHE METEORIC RISE OFCHINA’S HOTTEST CITY

ANAUDIENCEWITHARMANIWHAT NEXT FORGIORGIO’S EMPIRE?

FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS SEASON’SNAUTICAL-INSPIRED FASHION

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Cover Sphere UK 3.2.indd 1 28/05/2010 13:09

A stitchin timeThe economic downtown has seen luxury brands refocus on the quality craftsmanship of

their products as customers once more value substance over style, says Simon Brooke

CRAFTSMANSHIP

It’s one of the most famous streets in the world but visitorstoSavileRowwill havenoticed a subtle changeduring thepast fewyears. Over the decades, even centuries, old names are still therebut their shops are often lighter andmore open than ever.

Walk into Huntsman and many of the other “houses” on “theRow” and you’ll now be able to see the tailors and cutters, tapemeasures around their necks, at work. Whereas they were oncehidden away in attics or basements, these skilled craftsmen—and, increasingly, women—are now proudly on display, as part ofa refurbishment estimated to have cost the various tailors around£1m, according to a survey by the professional body, SavileRowBespokeAssociation.C

OURTESYOFGUCCIARCHIV

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Gucci artisans ply

their craft in the

Florence workshop

in the 1940s

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52 spherelife.com | summer2010

This change of style is indicative of a broader shift in recent yearsthroughout the luxury sector. Whereas until now luxury productswere associated with heavily marketed brands and sensuous imagery(think Tom Ford’s high-gloss ads featuring honey-tanned nakedmodels) the focus is nowon craftsmanship and artisans.

Following a partnership with Newham College in North-EastLondon, the Row is now training and employing more tailors thanever before. “We have about 150 pre-apprentices spending time ontheRow,” saysMarkHenderson, chairmanof theSavileRowBespokeAssociation,whichwas established, in part, to promote thismessage.“It was once regarded as a dying art but now there’s an interest againin an authentic, beautifullymade product.”

Training a fully qualified tailor isn’t cheap.Having graduated fromcollege they’ll spend at least one year simply learning the job, fol-lowed by another three years assisting. It could take up to 10 yearsbefore they really start earning the company some money, meaningthat the total investment, according toSavileRowBespoke, could beas high as £600,000.

AsmanufacturersofoneofBritain’smost famous luxuryproducts,the individual tailors on the Row couldn’t afford the big advertisingcampaigns of the luxury conglomerates even if they wanted to. So,instead, their focus over the past few years has been on the skillsrequired tomake a £3,000bespoke suit.

MiltonPedraza,CEOofNewYork-based consultancy theLuxuryInstitute, believes that the recession has been largely responsible forthe luxury sector coming full circle back to craftsmanship. “Duringthe boom years people would spend their moneymore freely. Then,in the recession, they saw heavy discounting by luxury labels so itmade themquestion the value andquality ofwhat theywerebuying,”he says. “When people have less money there is a flight to quality—people want to be sure that if they’re spending their money they’regetting something of good quality. Now the marketing emphasisessubstance not style—it’s aboutmaking the product the hero.”

Gucci has been doing this with its Artisan Corner initiative. Thisyear, for thefirst time,Gucci artisans canbeseen in storesaround theworld cutting, stitching and using metalwork tools at specially builtworktables. Customers can see the product’s evolution from moodboard to sketches while videos showGucci artisans at work over theyears, “reflecting the fact that these skills are handed down throughfamily generations”, as the company explains.

Manufacturing costs might increase, but luxury companies arewilling to take the hit here, says Luca Solca, analyst at BernsteinResearch, “as they strive to convince consumers that their brandsand products are inherently precious, and that they are selling ‘sub-stance’ not hype.” He adds: “This is crucial, after the price slashingand end-of- season clearances in the second half of 2008 at the peakof the recession. The aim is to get consumers to feel comfortableabout buying at full-price again. Manufacturing in Europe or theUSA ismore expensive. But this is important—especially for emerg-ing market consumers—as they want to buy a piece of the Italian,French or Swiss chic.”

Hermès, for example, is keen to stress that it has long espousedcraftsmanship, rather than reacting to demand, pointing out thattheyemploy2,000craftspeople in 12productionsites acrossFrance.

LVMH, meanwhile, has been accused by some commentatorsof putting balance sheets and shareholders before creativity andtraditional working practices, but the group is now focusing moreon traditional skills—as its latest ad campaign highlights. LastSeptember it opened a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly

Whenpeoplehave lessmoney there’sa flight toquality.Theemphasis is onsubstancenot style

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50-54 New Luxury V3 Sphere UK 3.2.indd 52 07/06/2010 22:54

product rather than branding and marketing, but now recognisesthat in order to achieve its growth ambitions it needs to spread theword to awider audience.

“The way to convince people is by letting them hear it—it’s likedrinking goodwine—once tasted, you don’t want to go back to plonkagain,” says Ireland. Although it would be cheaper tomanufacture inthe Far East, at Meridian’s price point these costs are not a stickingpoint and there are other advantages. “We have 25 R&D engineersintegrated into our production unit here andwehave greater controlover the product quality bymanufacturing in the UK.We train peo-plewhen they come tous butmany then staywith us for a long time.”Luxury group Richemont took a stake in the company in 2006

and this has allowed the business to extend its message into theworld of luxury goods. Sales in the 10 months up to March this yearwere up six per cent on the same period last year, a remarkable sta-tistic in the context of the global economy. The company has justlaunched a CD player retailing for around £10,000 and a surround-sound processor for around £12,000 and has sold more of theminthefirst twomonths thantheirpredecessorsdid in thewholeof2009.Also extolling the benefits of manufacturing locally is New York-

based Be & D, a small, high-end handbag company. Like Meridian,they believe that the benefits of having makers close to the creativedepartment outweigh the high costs involved in manufacturing inone of the world’s most expensive cities. “If I’m inspired to makesomething, the sewing machine is only across the office, and we

spherelife.com | summer2010 53

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Clockwise from

bottom left:Meridian

has seen demand

for its audio

equipment swiftly

rise; a Louis Vuitton

shoe in creation at

Fiesso d’Artico; a

tailors’ back room

on Savile Row;

painstaking work

in Gucci’s Florence

workshop during

the 1940s; a Meissen

craftsman at work

workshop near Venice that celebrates the ancient art of the shoe-maker in a verymodernway.

The Fiesso d’Artico plant follows a shoe-making tradition datingback to the 13th century and each pair of shoes requires up to 250different processes. “Louis Vuitton was originally a craftsman whooperated his first workshop in 1859 to ensure total quality control,”says Yves Carcelle, chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton. At thisnew workshop, he explains, “tradition emerges in modernity,” andthere is “a desire for excellence that is demonstrated by a perfectunderstanding of the leather and the range of techniques used in thecreation process.”

Last autumn it also launched a collaboration with the Schoolof Fashion at Parsons The New School for Design in New York.Students deconstruct historical costumes from the Parsons Archiveand signatureLouisVuittonpieces in a competition that allows themto learn about the company’s history of craftsman skills under theguidance of artisan masters. The work will be done in real-time attheParsons’ storefront gallerywindowonFifthAvenue.But as traditional methods come to the fore, what place does

new technology have in the manufacturing process—can the twocomplement each other? Tim Ireland, CEO of Meridian, an audioand video home entertainment company based in Huntingdon,Cambridgeshire, certainly thinks so, describing his technical ex-perts as a combinationof scientists and craftspeople.Anicheplayer,Meridian has traditionally relied on customer experience of its

50-54 New Luxury V3 Sphere UK 3.2.indd 53 07/06/2010 22:54

54 spherelife.com | summer2010

can really work together to achieve the look I am going for,” saysSteve Dumain, creative director of Be & D. “It just feels right tome that we would be working in the same office where many of ourgoods are actually conceived, manufactured and eventually shippedto our customers.”

With small production runs, economies of scale make itpossibleforthecompanytomanufactureinNewYorkCity.“Keepingmy hands on the manufacturing side at this stage is essential toensure the quality remains superior in comparison to many goodsin the industry,” saysDamian.The trend is not simply confined to the likes of London, Paris

and New York. The Sardinian resort of Porto Cervois a backdrop for more than 60 international luxurybrands, but the driving force behind a new develop-ment nearby, the Promenade du Port, is determined toavoid well-known names in favour of a carefully curatedcollection of independent boutiques. “We want to givethe Promenade du Port an edge and vibe, where newbrands have the opportunity to launch their creations,”founder Andrea Brugnoni says. “I speakwith people whounderstand my vision and philosophy and this is why,most of the time, the retailers taking part launch a newcollection among their products exclusively forPromenade du Port.” Rather than go for the usualcommercial retail rents, Brugnoni is offering favour-able terms to his incubator luxury brands by co-investingwith them.

Even more than fledgling companies, traditionalluxury houses, which always fought shy of the “brandand bling” approach to luxury, are naturally delight-ed by this latest trend. “This is really what the term

‘luxury’ used tomeanbefore certain fashion companies took it over,”says Dr ChristianKurtzke, CEO ofMeissen porcelain, which is 300years old this year.Meissen craftspeople require at least three years’training and it canbemore than 10years before they can start topro-duce the celebrated crockery.

“It’s a lifetime journey,” saysKurtzke,who joined the company 18months ago after 25 years with Boston Consulting Group. “I choosepeople from the local area because they’re happy to take time—people from the cities prefer things like marketing where speed isimportant.” Meissen’s high margins mean that the company canafford to spend years training craftspeople—and, in this new, post-recession world of luxury, the investment is paying off. While thechina sector inGermany fell by 21 per cent in the first quarter of thisyear,Meissen’s profitswere up 23 per cent.

Conveying the message of artisanal skills to potential audi-ences is not easy. Kurtzke has decided actions speak louder thanwords and has taken 2,500 square metres of floor space atBerlin’s KeDeWe department store to showcase Meissenporcelain makers at work, while a recent factory open dayattracted over 10,000 visitors.

Mark Ellis, new business director of Syzygy, a dig-ital communication and marketing consultancy whose

clients include Chanel and De Beers, is scepti-cal about how persuasive mainstream advertisingcan be about craftsmanship. “So far the messageshave been fittingly superficial, such as press adsshowing models lovingly hand-sewing leather solesto eye-wateringly priced shoes,” he says. “It will beinteresting to see how these brands embracedigital media going forward to really open up andallow customers to see behind the scenes.” Atsome point, he says, “maybe we’ll get to see our

very own eight-piece Louis Vuitton luggage setbeing hand-crafted in the workshop via an interactive

3Dwebcam.”Back in Britain, too, there are craftspeople, young and

old, ready to work for luxury manufacturers, equally newand old. Leo Vaughan Williams of Beckford, a new creatorof high-end furniture, silverware and accessories, welcomesthe use of up-and-coming technology such as laser-cutting

glass and silver andwood formarquetry.“On the other hand,” he says, “I’ve got older

artists who don’t even own a computer. Thereare plenty of craftspeople out there. I find them atGoldsmithsCollege events or at country fairs.”Beckfordclients,manyofwhomhavebespokepieces

made, will very possibly already own a Ferrari and shopat Gucci, says Vaughan Williams. “But now they wantsomething else, something that doesn’t have a well-known label but is just beautifullymade and is very rare.”The essence of timeless luxury, surely.

From top: the

Promenade du Port

complex in Sardinia;

Be & D’s Foundry bag

in McIntosh Red; a

maplewood desk

box from Beckford

CRAFTSMANSHIP

There are craftspeople youngandold ready towork for luxurymanufacturers newandold

s

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