Luxury or Provenance?
I’ve started to question whether calling English Utopia a luxury brand is right?. Certainly the cost of our items would place them up there alongside many better known brands carrying that mantle. Burberry, Hermés, Luis Vuitton, etc. They also have similar prices or more in their outerwear offer. All of these brands design and make beautiful things, many of which I admire. Like us, they use some of the best fabrics in the world and for the most part they are not globetrotting to find the cheapest labour.
The term ‘value for money’ can be applicable whether spending £100 or £1,000. The lower price point is perhaps more driven by numbers and the need to achieve volume, even though design comes into it of course. But rarely can the lower price be a consideration of ‘best in class’. It is almost always a purely commercial consideration in its realisation. On the other hand, with a more expensive item different considerations can come into play. Such as the choice of manufacturing location, method of production, i.e bespoke possibilities against mass production, and of course, to include better raw materials. The mantle of ‘luxury brand’ is then bestowed upon a product or products at a certain price point, but the term is misleading in my opinion. There is an externality about the word that the product should fit into, or conjure up images of fitting into that is less about the product and more about the environment one should expect to live in/experience. Meaning ‘lifestyle’. For years this has been the marketing mantra that portraying a lifestyle, being a member of an exclusive club, is how to sell an expensive product, even some cheap ones. Therefore ‘luxury’ isn’t really a word that reflects the integrity of the product. Most brands I would suggest, want to project the image of first class flights and yachts and a regular box at La Scala.
There should perhaps be another class that one might call ‘Provenance Brands’. Where the emphasis is towards transparency. In origin of manufacture, not just country but also supplier name(s) and the publication of raw material suppliers. If using the best it should be something that can enhance a brand. All of these things to me are more important than selling a lifestyle. No doubt you will be happy with the one that you already have. When offering high priced merchandise I think it is very important that the consumer gets to see why the ingredients of the product are more expensive. Why one cotton is better than another, why one type of insulation is better than another and so on.
I was listening to a podcast recently, where the owner of another high end British brand was being interviewed. The reasons he gave for their market position was an uncompromising and fastidious attention to detail and that they only buy raw materials in the UK. Hmmm, interesting. I see products that are made in the far east or Africa and the quality is stupendous with a lot of attention to detail! On the point of ‘only buying raw materials in the UK”, is that because they are better? How are these points validated? The truth is that ‘British Craftmanship’ is a myth used to sell you product. Provenance, even integrity is something else.
We too are based in the UK and this is why we make here. Firstly, others may differ in their opinion but for me, there is an inherent integrity in designing the product, making the patterns, and cutting the fabric in house. You are buying something that is more than an idea outsourced. You are buying the ideas and skills that you think you are paying for. Not just a label. Secondly, we work with individual machinists in the UK, who have the skills and machinery in their own homes or workshops. Why is this better than a factory? Well it’s certainly better for the machinists. They can work from home and in their own time. It also means that we don’t have to have a production run or minimum factory quantities. The problem with a factory is that it requires one to make stock. If you make stock you need to sell it. Which creates a downward price pressure and most of the time when you see a sale advertised, it is to get rid of stock. Neither does it afford versatility. As the customer you have to buy exactly the product you see because it is already made. We only make to order and this affords a large degree of customisation. You may well ask why we don’t have a small unit with our own workers in it. The main reason is that the machinists with the right skills are rarely condensed within a small area unless you are perhaps in a larger city like London, Manchester or Birmingham. We are in little old York! My life is here, my children are here and that is how the business became established in the way it has.
The next important point is that the best fabrics in the world are really expensive and there is no market for volume in them. Even a small factory struggles to find enough customers to meet the production run required at minimum 30 pieces usually and often much more. Whereas we can buy 3 meters from Loro Piana or Fox brothers for example and make just one coat. Buying a single fabric in a single colour from best in class mills such as the ones mentioned will undoubtedly result in something like a £1,000 + product. Well good luck finding 30 people to spend £1,000 on the same product in the same size and the same colour. As a result a factory simply won’t offer the best fabrics in the world for this very reason and so you never get to see them.
There is a real joy to work with fabric mills who weave from the best raw materials. A finer yarn count or micron, a tighter weave (not always a sign, but often) and greater durability. Better stuff lasts longer, simple as that. Similarly, we are in the game of trying to keep people warm and dry through the use of natural fibre. That to me is consistent with product integrity as well. Natural fibres are always more expensive (scarcity or difficulty to produce) but usually outperform man made fabrics. The whole area of what makes a waterproof coat is interesting to me. If a Goretex coat totally blocks out rain but you’re saturated inside from sweat, does that mean waterproof? Well on one level I guess it does. But if wearing a natural fibre coat such as a waxed cotton or Ventile jacket and it keeps you dry for 6 hours AND allows perspiration to be released so that you do not have a sweaty clammy feeling, isn’t that also justifiably waterproof? At its extremes I probably have to concede that a ‘plastic’ barrier will win the day ,but how many of us are operating at those extremes? However when it comes to warmth, natural fibre is a hands down winner. I’ve worn them all and a Ventile or Waxed Cotton jacket, insulated with Goosedown, I have never found anything remotely close to it terms of a combination of warmth, weather protection and comfort.
Lastly, to make things in the way we do means that our products are expensive for most people. Ideally it would be great if a product locally made from the best fabrics in the world, that will last longer, feel better and look better, were affordable so that everyone could experience wearing something really good, really nice. I don’t know how to crack that. If someone only has £50 to spend on a coat, the two avenues open are cheap quality or charity shops and faced with that choice, always go for the latter.
I deliberately haven’t played the sustainability card until the end. The industry has borrowed terms for the purposes of just selling more stuff for decades. Every swing ticket on a product has gone from ‘recycled’, to ‘organic’, to ‘sustainable’, all very good and worthwhile, but not the sole reason for buying something as everyone claims it now. I think for me, it’s a combination of things and everything can be summed up under an umbrella of provenance and integrity and that includes integrity to being open about when we get it wrong or when and where we can improve, but also to be very confident about what we are doing and why.