MORE LUXURY WANTED

If the Lord’s day event provided a smorgasbord of British tailoring delights, a veritable cornucopia of  British luxury goods and services was presented in the same week of June at the Walpole showcase, staged at Somerset House.

Walpole is the body that represents the cream of major British companies and aims to encourage other new ones to follow in their footsteps. It is at once grand establishment and exquisite service. Each year it selects a number of young British companies that it sees carrying the Walpole mantle forward, as Brands of Tomorrow. It runs a programme dedicated to bringing on individual craftsmen and women. It is supported by an impressive list of high level partners and friends.

Ranging over such disparate members as William Grant whisky, Wedgwood, Claridges, Backes & Strauss watches, and the Royal Academy of Dance through to Links of London, Church’s Shoes, Purdey and Henry Poole, it is about services as well as craftsmanship. It is impressive.

In the lavish  programme  that accompanied this latest presentation, the case is made that British craftsmen could be selling much more of their luxury work if they upped their game.

At the Walpole presentation: Above, top gun name Purdey remains determinedly country classic in its range of clothing and accessories, as this suit. Ettinger, family-run leathergoods house, now offers an initialling service in gold or silver for all its designs, such as the billfold below. Chivas Regal's 30 year old blended whisky should not be used in cocktails, but maybe its 12 year old, as in this unusual rhubarb sour below. And at bottom,a hand engraved crystal decanter with silver base from a new collection at Hamilton & Inches, commissioned from Phiip Lawson Johnson. On the Home page menu, a diamond encrusted watch from Backes Strauss.

”It appears that there is a breed of super-rich who really are different, and for whom there is little which is ever quite luxe enough,” writes Lucia van der Post of the Financial Times in the Foreword . “They want things that are even fancier, more gilded, more truly special than most of us had dreamed of.”

And to compete with what other luxury providers are doing around the world to cater for this breed, British producers and service providers need accordingly to come up with more inventive means of attracting them. That is the message from Walpole.

For Savile Row tailors this may seem a tough call. No longer can any of them have the several hundred tailors sewing away as in the heyday of Kilgour French and Stanbury, for instance. They have neither the room nor the pool of skills to provide an extra layer dedicated to gilding their craft, even if they wanted to.

And a shoe craftsman such as Cliff Roberts, for example, should be seen as an artist,  dedicated to his belief in quality rather than to fancier footwear,

But van der Post makes the interesting point that it isn’t simply a matter of more luxe but of more culture. She cites major international brand names providing artistic and literary links, as well as the small British menswear chain. Albam, that offers its own selected library for its sort of customer. The aim is to make the customer feel clever in selecting a given brand.

British houses are uniquely positioned to benefit here, having a history and craftsmanship that has global appeal. Walpole members may have the size and backing to be able to indulge in the more exotic flights of fancy for Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals (UHNWIs), but smaller, British craft houses can still attract them with inventive, intelligent marketing.

Small is still beautiful.