Face Silk

March 22nd, 2007 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Face Silk

The Birth of English Silk Industry; Ties and Cufflinks

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

This kind of historical data is important for small independent fashion retailers like us, but more importantly, for potential customers who are looking for fashion accessories that don’t have the generic flavour on offer at large retailers.

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 luxury silk ties, 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 view Vivienne Westwood jewellery plus meet 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 silver cufflinks, after all they can be claimed by the French, like the French cuff.

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