Tell us a bit about
your business.
The concept for St
Saviours actually started when Matt and I were on holiday in Perth a few years
ago. We re-trimmed one of Matt’s hats while we were in Margaret River, and
chatted about how it’s impossible to find non-mass-produced and affordable hats
suitable for everyday wear. We both already had a thing for hats at this point…
Fast forward a year
and we held our first market stall in London selling a load of hats we’d
trimmed with vintage materials, flowers, feathers, interesting ribbons and so
on. We sold one hat at our first market, and were completely stoked!
We slowly attracted a dedicated following, and were soon selling weekly at London’s Sunday Up Market, and at summer music festivals across the UK. We ended up quitting our ‘day jobs’ when a buyer from Topshop picked us up for their flagship Oxford Circus store… then Anthropologie on Regent Street… then Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge. The most exciting day was when Kylie Minogue bought one of our hats. We then saw a photo of her in a St Saviours hat, with Stella McCartney at the Madonna concert (cue overexcited screaming)!!
We slowly attracted a dedicated following, and were soon selling weekly at London’s Sunday Up Market, and at summer music festivals across the UK. We ended up quitting our ‘day jobs’ when a buyer from Topshop picked us up for their flagship Oxford Circus store… then Anthropologie on Regent Street… then Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge. The most exciting day was when Kylie Minogue bought one of our hats. We then saw a photo of her in a St Saviours hat, with Stella McCartney at the Madonna concert (cue overexcited screaming)!!
St Saviours was
named after the converted vicarage we lived in, in East London. It’s where we
did all our work. We left London in January 2013 to start a new life in Perth.
How does the UK
compare to Perth in the handmade trade?
We have been doing
A LOT of research in Perth, and are totally excited by what we’ve seen. There
appears to be a super healthy handmade scene – I think the difference in Perth
(when compared to the UK) is that there are less opportunities for the
designer-makers to be exposed to the consumers. For example, less weekly
markets, less festivals with curated shopping areas, less independent shops
looking to stock local product, and so on. That’s why design markets, pop-up
shops and support from existing retailers are so important – these
opportunities encourage growth and development of the creative, handmade scene.
The great thing is
that the people of Perth are really supportive of the markets, interesting
shops, art/artists, and so on, so it’s the perfect storm of fantastic local
supply, and eager demand.
In London, a lot of
the markets are starting to become overrun with the ‘same-old-crap’ – lots of
mass produced jewellery and fashion imported straight from abroad, so you start
seeing different stalls within one market, selling the same stuff. This is so
tragic, and means the people who really hand-make their goods are struggling as
their products are inevitably more expensive and are swallowed up by the
mass-produced rubbish. In addition, the customers start staying away. Why
bother coming to a ‘designer’ market, when hardly anyone there is actually
involved in the design process?
We found that
organisations running the markets In the UK had lax screening criteria for
their sellers – this is totally opposite in Perth. It’s like applying for a
flipping Visa trying to get into Perth markets! But that’s great, and means
customers know they are seeing products which are unique, interesting, well
made, locally made, and so on.
Also we’ve seen
some fantastic and innovative products, designers and artists in Perth – there is
a real buzz in the creative scene which is evidenced through the fab markets,
the pop-up shops and the concept stores dotted about town.
The key issue I can
see in Perth, and this would apply to many designer-makers, is the access to,
and the availability of, materials. It can be a struggle sourcing raw materials
locally, and therefore you’re forced to ship items over from the East Coast, or
abroad. And of course this means your costs increase before you’ve even
started.
What inspires you?
We are very
inspired by colour, texture and pattern, so you will see lots of our hats make
use of interesting colour combinations and textured trimmings. Matt is
currently obsessing over patterns and is designing some patterns for printing
onto silk for hat trims and linings, and ladies scarves.
I guess we have an
underlying aim to make hats for ‘people like us’, so that inspires us when
we’re designing. We want ‘people like us’ to be able to afford them, and have
access to them, and want to wear them – we have no grand aims to become the hat
supplier to The Queen!
What do you love most about selling at markets?
What do you love most about selling at markets?
The market is where
we began our hat trade, and we both adore it (though, to be honest, the weekly
Sunday early mornings/late nights in London did become mildly tiresome).
The markets are the
best way to really ‘sell’ the features of your product to a customer. I can’t count the number of people who have
said “I’m buying this hat because you’re so passionate about it.”
I always say that
talking to customers about your product is like going on a City Tour. You learn
so much more, and the buildings, monuments and history are much more meaningful
when you are with a guide. As a market trader, you are that guide.
And we really love
that – chatting to customers about the hats is great fun. We completely missed
talking to customers when we launched in Topshop, so much so that we’d often go
in and hang around our stall in order to chat with customers.
What materials do
you use?
Almost all our
winter hats are blocked with wool-felt and the summer styles are generally woven
paper, or Panama. We have worked with fur felt, straw, siminay, and other
fabrics, but wool and Panama are our favourites. The trims range from millinery
petersham, feathers, silk flowers, vintage silk ties, leather, laser cut vinyl…
all sorts of things – trimming is the fun part.
What is your
favourite part of the creative process?
We don’t work with collections;
we are slap-dash and make things as they take our fancy. So this is really fun.
If we spot a great silk scarf in a vintage shop – we then see how many uses we
can get from the fabric. Pill box hat cover, a bow tie, hat trim… we love
transforming vintage items into new products. It’s also exciting when we have
new felt colours coming in for the hats, or a batch of newly dyed ribbons.
There is always a flurry of excitement when there are new colours to play with…
What’s been your
most popular item or line to date?
We sold thousands
of hats in Topshop in Oxford Circus, and overall - the ladies fedora shape, was
probably our most popular. It’s easy to wear, can look both smart, and casual –
and (lucky for us) celebrities are always spotted wearing fedoras. We made an
affordable, interesting, not-mass-produced product, which really resonated with
the audience.
What new products
are you working on?
We are looking into
doing more unique hairpieces and hats suitable for weddings/races – without going
down the fascinator or huge-80’s-style-hat road.
We are also really
keen to continue make our hats with local supplies – which is proving tricky so
far…
Where can we find
you?
We are in the
process of working out how we are going to get our hats ‘out there’ in Perth.
We have a very exciting concept in the pipework, which entails hats and more…
but it’s too early to talk about that now. In the meantime – we will be signing
up take part in Perth’s designer markets, including of course, Made on the Left
(if we make it through the screening process!).
