» Suited & rooted
Andrew Kay travels to a remote spot near Piddinghoe to catch upwith besoke tailors to the stars Gresham Blake and his wife Fal
I first met Gresham Blake and Fal six years ago. It was early days at Latest Homes magazine and I was asked to interview up-and-coming young business people. Gresham, recently graduated, was working from home, a small three story terracced house in Brighton’s Hanover. They had no business premises, no retail outlet and already he was making suits for an impressive number of clients. The Gresham Blake look was soon established, a return to the sharp cut suits of yesterday, fine tailoring, exquisite detail and a quirky, sometimes bizarre twist. He had the knack of marrying fabulous fabrics to traditionally styled suits. The effect was amazing, truly British, a quality that he upholds as being key to his look, but at the same time adventurous.
Pretty soon, he had found city centre premises and the list of clients grew. Business men and women with a desire for something unique started to clamour for his clothes alonside a huge list of celebrities from the world of music, film and theatre. To this day, the client list reads like the gossip page of a celeb magazine and there is no sign of their empire abating, on the contrary it continues to expand.
For some time you lived ‘above the shop’ in Bond Street, when did you decide to move out of Brighton?
Gresham: When Bond Street became too squashed and noisy, about two years ago. It was so noisy that we cut a foam panel that fitted the window but it was like a padded cell.
‘‘We had Heather Mills in, she was doing the whole celeb thing, you know, baseball cap and dark glasses, and I really didn’t recognise her. But in the end she turned out to be really lovely, very easy to work with”
Fal: It did help economically when we were setting up the business but you could never get away from work. Two years was enough of that.
Where did you move?
F: We rented in Partridge Green, a barn conversion, and we fell in love with it but it was just that bit too far away. We had been to the Isle of Skye and stayed in a barn there and fell in love with barns.
G: We found this one for sale on the internet, it was only third property that we had seen as we were only prepared to look at ones that were not in chains. We walked in and saw the height of the space and the layout and we simply fell in love with it.
It’s far more isolated, very diferent from living in town.
G: Yes it is, but it is very easy to get in and out of Brighton and the traffic is never really bad along the coast road, I can do it there and back in 35 minutes.
Do you find that you work more from home?
G: Yes I do, Ideas don’t come to me 9-5 so I will often find myself working late at night.
F: He does a lot of the design work at home as he doesn’t get as distracted as he can in the shop.
When I first interviewed you both you were operating from home.The business has now grown massively.
F: Yes, the business this year has turned over £1,200,000 and it is still growing.
Your business profile is now huge and you have a large portfolio of celebrity clients.
G: That works in two ways. Some of the clients have come to us through the film and TV industry, stylists will come and ask us to create a look for that client. Sometimes that means a suit that matches a set.
F: That in itself can create problems. We made a set for Rachel Stephens that disappeared on the set as they had changed the colour at the last minute. It also happened with Chris Evans for the Brits, the day before they decided that they wanted it to be more sparkly so we had to make it again – overnight.
Is it all very rock and roll?
G: Not at all, we have just styled Aled Jones for his new album. That said we are about to do Iggy Pop in his house in LA.
Do you do a lot of travelling to see clients?
G: I have just come back from New York where I deal with Virgin. We have just styled the American styling for all their staff at Club Class level. I don’t do the hoi poloi.
Will you do Richard Branson?
G: Yes we are doing some suits for him for the launch of a new project next year. I would love to do the uniforms for his space tourism.
Surely they will all look like costumes from Barbarella?
G: Yes but with a Virgin logo on them.
Do any of these corporate clients become private clients?
F: Yes Jimmy Carr is now a private client and some of the Sussex cricket team have returned after we did their corporate suits. Steve Coogan was a private client who has become a corporate client and we have recently styled some stuff for Saxondale.
Are there any clients who you cannot mention?
G: Yes.
Who are they?
G: I really can’t say.
But surely they will appear in a distinctive Gresham Blake suit?
F: Yes, that’s very true.
Is the whole celebrity thing a help or a hindrance?
G: It’s a great endorsement for our brand, of course, but we cannot deny that it’s also fun. People do come from all over the world now to have a suit made by us.
You now design for men and for women.
F: Yes we did clothes for Denise van Outen, a personal wardrobe. There is a definite renewed interest in tailored clothes for women because they are very flattering and have not been readily available for some time.
Will the brand ever get franchised?
Possibly, possibly not, I’m still putting that package together to see if it can work, if it has the right energy and enthusiasm and whether that energy can be franchised. We do have the off-the-peg range now which would be easier to franchise but the bespoke range is a different matter.
Do you find there is a resistance for clients to travel to Brighton for fittings?
No most people like a day out in Brighton, 40 per cent of our clients are from London. But we are opening a studio in South Molton Street in the West End where we will be able to serve more London clients and of course stylists.
How much of your success has been down to good marketing?
F: I think that marketing is very important but without the product behind you it’s pointless. Some of the ideas early on were traditional but with a real twist. Those got us lots of media attention, but we also found that people loved wearing them.
Does the Gresham Blake look transcend fashion?
G: Yes I hope so. What we do is fairly classic. We are however introducing a new range called Glorious British for Autmun/Winter 2008. It’s a more casual range, a lazier look and a ready-to-wear range. All the fabrics will be woven in the UK and garments made in the UK and the labeling will feature full details of that and include an picture of the cutter and perhaps some of the machinists.
F: Each suit will carry a hallmark that dates the garment. We want this range to be very transparent in its sourcing and manufacture because we believe that people really do care about these issues as much as we do.
Is there no end to what you will design?
G: No, I will just do anything…
F: …except 4 button jackets. He hates four button jackets, jackets should have one, two or three buttons – never 4.
G: We are even involved in making a Manga cartoon called the Time Tailor with a really sucessful manga cartoonist Tony Luke who does Dominator X. I just love working in different mediums, I find it very exciting. We are having the manga characters made into a lining fabric.
Do you find that people resent your ability to work across mediums?
G: Yes, but people love to pigeon hole you. I don’t care what they think.
Has success given you the opportunity to take life at a more leisurely pace?
G: No, not at all. We work as hard as ever but we work more efficently because we have more support. And we are very fortunate that we love what we do.
F: We have also made time to put something back. We are currently doing a charity project with a group of celebrities who have all designed ties for us, Matt Lucas, Barbara Hulliniki of Biba, Jonathan Ross, Jose Mourinho, Dylan Jones.
G: It’s all for CLIC Sargent, a charity for kids with leukemia that Barry MacGuigan introduced us to as he is a patron. We’ll do about fifty of each and there are fifteen designs. They will be £75 each and will be on sale in November. We will also be auctioning their original artworks for the charity.
Is it hard being married and working together?
F: No, we both have different roles within the business and the team is large enough for us to not be together all the time. Moving out to Piddinghoe has really helped too.
Is there anyone that you would rather not design for?
G: Not really, I suppose I don’t really like working with people who think that we are there to serve them. We had Heather Mills in, she was doing the whole celeb thing, you know, baseball cap and dark glasses, and I really didn’t recognise her.
F: Yes, but in the end she turned out to be really lovely, very easy to work with. Yes, she wanted that bit extra, but so many people expect that now that we make it a part of the service that we offer to all of our customers.
