The market will decide but taxes, tariffs and duties distort international markets.
The Japanese, Chinese and Italians have been buying traditional British brands in recent years - e.g. Gieves & Hawkes, Barbour, Drake's and Baracuta. The prices have been hiked massively to realise quick returns.
I doubt whether these price rises are sustainable in the current market. The June sales began early this year with big discounts from the start. With the bad weather across much of northern Europe, there's a huge amount of stock to clear.
I was with a business associate the other week who works now full time in China and his verdict on the Chinese psyche is that they don't have a conception of good and evil in the Western sense, they just want to make money and don't care how they do it.
Trinity Ltd now have Gieves & Hawkes, they're another Chinese outfit and clearly this will influence the business strategy and goals. But in saying that, there isn't a model as flawed as the American and Brit management spivs over the last decades that has proven the ultimate in flawed short term thinking and devoid of long term goals and strategy, other than ensuring the ultimate pay-off of the deviant at the head of the pyramid.
Last edited by Upstate (2013-06-15 09:36:06)
Last edited by Rambling Sid Rumpo (2013-06-15 10:13:42)
Last edited by Upstate (2013-06-15 10:06:22)
Is James Sherwood that slightly campy (and nefarious-looking) fellow who appeared in the BBC documentary about Savile Row?
i dont mind people getting a piece of the action, providing a fair service, but its the sharp business practise that is wrong.
when you go and buy something from drakes lets say in london .. they have a shop with rent and rates, staff costs, VAT, marketing and so on to pay for. with Wills SW online store, he is buying at wholesale from drakes, then with no other costs apart from paying for shipping a whole box of goods with 0 duty (business to business pay no duty for goods between europe and US) he is selling on at not only the same price as drakes retail price but with a bloody premium! he is charging more than drakes who pay VAT in london ...but paying no tax himself ... so he is essentially passing on a tax component to the customer (not to mention the premium) which he puts in his pocket! he is a SPIV.
with the goods that are not as transparant in price structure as drakes for instance who have their own webstore, i can imagine its even easier to tack on larger premiums to the unsuspecting.
its no wonder he can afford to patronise tailors in mayfair and live the lifestyle of a 19 C gentleman at the dorchester and so on ... ripping of the iGentry obviously pays well. i should pack up in the equity markets and go into hawking chomois dress gloves and shirting cloth .. then perhaps i could dine at the dorchester too!
Last edited by Oldfruit1 (2013-06-15 10:33:25)
Last edited by Rambling Sid Rumpo (2013-06-15 11:50:07)
Sounds painful, Upstate! Sounds painful!
They could start a stage show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F-Gn2UAFXc
what do you mean re its lineage formby? C&M is a decent firm no?
fruity
Crompie must love us all so so much as this is one of the fastest growing threads on the whole site. Maybe he should join then he could puff himself under some nom de guerre such as 'Mr Shilling'. I have to say that I think that we would all miss him.
Cromps certainly makes Chenners look a rank outside amateur when it comes to stirring up the 'Lets kick Piggy' factor!
Formby - are you thinking of Max Beerbohm?
Last edited by Upstate (2013-06-16 07:34:50)
Jeez!
http://www.permanentstyle.co.uk/2013/06/savile-row-bespoke-at-london.html#comment-form
Epicene models and Crompie posing and lounging around the long room - WTF is the MCC thinking of?!