I thought to open this article with a very interesting historic anecdote about
the birth of the European silk industry and its eventual migration to England .
Then you don't have to wade through the remainder to get to the most interesting
part.
Many of the Huguenots who made Spitalfields their home came from
Lyons , centre of the French silk industry. They set up business as silk
weavers, using handlooms to weave raw silk imported from Italy . The Huguenots
brought with them a newly invented technique which allowed them to give thin
silk taffeta a glossy lustre.
They also had a Calvinist belief in the
virtues of hard work, thrift and self-discipline, and saw business success as a
sign of God's grace. As a result, they prospered, building large and handsome
houses around Brick Lane , with glass-ceilinged workshops in the attics, where
they set up their weaving looms.
By 1700, there were nine French
churches in Spitalfields. William Hogarth's 1738 engraving, Noon ,
contrasts a well-dressed Huguenot congregation leaving a French church in London
, with surrounding English squalor
We draw our inspirations from the
past, act in the present and plan for the future.
As oil prices rise, so
does everything that is remotely related to manufacturing, nothing escapes the
hammer, if it's a commodity, then some one (organisation) is controlling the
flow.
Rice, wool, wheat, water, and our own favourite silk, but food is
a necessity. And in a recession the little luxuries have to go, or do they? Here
is a little evidence to prove otherwise and, published only one week ago.
TM Lewin, the shirt retailer, saw sales rise by 14% to 63.4m and EBITDA
grow by 21% to 11m for the year ended February 23. TM Lewin said it had
continued to buck the retail slowdown with first quarter sales since the year
end ahead by 16%.
This is reassuring, even in a recession people can
still afford a little luxury.
We have to keep an eye on the market,
because we deal in silk, which is a commodity and has risen 20% over the past 2
years.
For a retailer the fewer channels or checkpoints a product has to
pass through the cost lessons because the product does not have to travel as far
and through as many hands.
If we ordered in large volumes the price
comes down, but in many cases so does the quality, besides it was never our plan
to develop relationships with conveyor belts.
That's why we chose to go
bespoke, small quantities, the best quality at a price.
A better way to
save on production costs is by working directly with manufacturers, which
lessons the gap between retailer and customer
By producing our own
fashion accessories there is only one degree of separation between us and the
customer. A few degrees are added while silks are woven and ties are made up,
all of which takes place on English soil. When the finished product is back in
our hands, we are again 1 degree away from the buyer.
The other big
reward is we deal directly with some of the best known designer brand names in
England , no agents, no wholesalers, or distributors to post barriers or costs.
Twice a year we travel to London and meet with sales executives from
Vivienne Westwood jewellery department and sales staff at Timothy Everest, often
we're face to face with the actual product designers, who in turn deal directly
with manufacturer, not sourcing agents. So the control is tightly in their
hands, where it should be, otherwise brand identity is lost and individuality
So there are fewer movements along the supply chain, whether we supply
our own brand or others. Either way there are benefits for us and our customers.
Don't' forget the history of cufflinks, after
all the French can claim the French cuff.
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