Helen Brocklebank, welcome to the insider podcast.
Thank you for having me on Martin.
Now I’m sitting in the offices of Walpole this morning. So tell me, why does the British luxury industry need an organization like Walpole?
Well, Walpole serves as a powerful collective voice for a sector that’s worth £81 billion to the UK economy. And British luxury is not always very high profile as an economic driver, which I think is completely mad because it grows 11% every single year; it exports two-thirds of what it produces; it creates a kind of incredible soft power, reputation oversees for the country as well. It represents the very best of what we do here, creatively, innovatively, creating famous names. So British luxury is a sector that really needs that collective voice and Walpole is the body that does that.
Interesting. And from what I’ve seen, because I’ve been following Walpole, it’s a voice that’s getting increasingly important for the industry. Because you seem to be gaining members, I mean, literally on a weekly basis. So the luxury industry is clearly waking up to the need for someone to give it a voice.
Well, I mean, it has grown. We’ve got more than 250 member brands. So lots of those that you would recognize, you know, very household names like Burberry or The Macallan or Glenfiddich or Harrods or Rolls-Royce Motor Cars or Aston Martin or Jaguar Land Rover. But there’s lots and lots of SMEs too. And even some very famous name brands like I mean Lock and Co. Hatters or Church’s shoes are not necessarily big businesses, but they’re businesses with huge reputation. And I think that’s another reason why it’s such an important sector.
Okay, we’ll come on to talk about you and your joining the organization in a little while. So it’s fair to say that you’ve not been with Walpole all of its life, because it’s been going for 30 plus years. Just give us a perspective on how that organization has changed and evolved since it was founded.
So it’s obviously evolved as any organization would over 32 years. In fact, it’s evolved enormously. But if I think about where it started, there is a really important kind of thread running through what we do, that even as we’ve grown in size and powered up the influence of what we do. Still is the kind of the secret sauce of Walpole, because it started by six chaps who were leaders of, not luxury in 1992, but kind of high-end businesses. And they thought we’ve got the same customer, we’ve got the same business model, if we just get together for lunch every month, there’s probably no problem we can’t solve and no opportunity we can maximize.
And that also speaks to the creative and very entrepreneurial mindset of these kinds of British businesses. And whilst we have evolved to a place where I would describe this as the luxury CBI, and we are very, very active as a voice in government, a kind of knowledge and insights, an intelligence source for the luxury sector, that community part of it is still absolutely key. And it’s a really unique thing. I mean, there aren’t other sector bodies that have that in the same way, certainly in this country.
And I think that entrepreneurial, collective enthusiasm that all of the Walpole members have for helping each other, for paying it forward. It’s not just about how do I make my own business better? How do I get Walpole to champion my interests? There’s a spirit in the sector that is, I think, another reason why it’s the very best set of businesses in the UK that says, how do we help all of us? If one of us is winning, we’re all winning. And so we have this kind of internal motto, which is ‘no one succeeds alone’. And I think that is really, really important to what we’re doing here as a business organization.
And it’s obviously a sense of friendly competition. They’re all in it together, basically.
I mean, back to that thing about having the same customer, having the same business model, we can learn, we could be stronger. And that also in a way speaks to the uniqueness of the British luxury sector. So if we think about French luxury, it’s really, really focused on personal luxury goods. So it’s, you know, beautiful ready to wear, beautiful handbags, perfumes, all that, you know, jewelry, that kind of stuff. British luxury is the broadest luxury economy in Europe. And it includes about 12 different sector verticals. So super strong in automotive. In whiskies, in wines and spirits, I mean, particularly this kind of Scotch whiskies and the emerging English sparkling wine category. Personal luxury too – it does great jewelry, great watches, great fashion brands, iconic ceramics, like Wedgwood, and the hospitality sector as well.
So it’s really, really broad. And there isn’t an LVMH or a Kering in this country or a Richemont, those big super groups. So the structure as a kind a group of businesses is super different. So in a way, you also really need an organization with the collective firepower and the convening power of Walpole to bring together such a disparate range of businesses, all of whom have those same interests.
From the research I was doing, it’s not just about giving them a voice. I also understand that you’re getting involved in helping them to develop as well through the Brands of Tomorrow initiative. Tell me a little bit about that and some of the ‘alumni’ that have come through that.
Well, I think Brands of Tomorrow is the happiest making thing anybody can do. So it’s a program that was conceived about 20 years ago, and it is about supporting new brands coming through. So Walpole has a mandate for helping this sector grow. And part of that is to actively intervene in the lives of 12 fledgling luxury brands every year, to help them on the next stage of their journey and so therefore always create a pipeline of growth for the sector.
And we do that through investing the time and talents of the established brands and every single CEO that’s a Walpole member really roots for the new kids on the block, which is such an inspiring thing. And they get involved: every one of those brands has a mentor. I mean somebody like Michael Ward who runs Harrods is a mentor, Tom Athron at Fortnum & Mason as a mentor. You know, the kind of the commitment of brands to help the new ones is just very encouraging. And people like, I mean, Bremont Watches is now a really big international brand, or Miller Harris, lovely perfume brand.
Also Nyetimber back in the very early days of the sparkling wine industry was part of it. Alba Brown… Castore, with I think a billion pound valuation. What they learned from Brands of Tomorrow is that they did not want to be positioned in the luxury sector, but that’s fine. We’re here for that. You know, if that’s your learning at the end of 12 months. You want to scale faster than you would in a luxury model.
That’s some impressive names to have come through that program.
Incredible names, you know. So, we’re always looking for who’s going to be the new one.
And how do brands actually get involved in that?
It’s an open application process. I mean, we advertise it, and we’re also very conscious to push it into places where Walpole wouldn’t necessarily be on, or British luxury wouldn’t necessarily be on the radar. But if you’re turning over more than £300,000 and less than £5 million, if you are a British brand, if you’re positioned in the luxury sector, it’s quite a wide berth for that. So it’s like from kind of top-end premium through to super luxury. It’s a broad church. You just fill out the form. And then we have a panel that reviews all of those forms, and we take – of the 100 plus applications that we get – we then select 26 to come to interview and then we take on 12 per year.
So if you’re a luxury brand listening, you know where to go if you want to be the next Bremont basically!
Applications open every year beginning of September.
Now, you’ve already touched on this, but we’re sitting here now in what I think is one of the most beautiful parts of London. If I look to my left, we’ve got Sloane Square and all the wonderful stores and places around there. If I look to my right, we go up the road. We’ve got Harvey Nicks, Harrods. I mean, we really are, we are surrounded by luxury here. So to expand a bit on what you’ve already mentioned, what for you are these quintessential elements that make British luxury so special?
I think it has to be useful luxury. So British luxury at its best is not only beautiful, it’s also useful, if I can cannibalize William Morris’s phrase. I think you have a great entrepreneurial spirit too, so if you think about the forefather of British luxury, Josiah Wedgwood, he was just enormously frustrated that the last innovation in ceramics had been made by the Chinese a thousand years earlier. And so there he was in Staffordshire, making experiments in clay, and he was a kind of chemist and a potter and his parents had been potters. And he couldn’t make porcelain. He made what we now call ‘bone china’. He called it creamware, and went, right, that’s it. That is the new thing. This is the innovation. I mean, it was an innovation in china. And he was a very canny marketeer, and he sent the Queen a tea set and then marketed that as Queen’s ware, and suddenly now it’s like he’s got royal cachet. We were very much at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, so people were building canals and he persuaded them to build canals so that he could get his beautiful bone china to London and then export to the rest of the world without it being broken; because of course in the middle of the 18th century roads were terrible.
And I think that spirit of ‘the thing that I really want, the thing that I’m dreaming of, just doesn’t exist. I’m gonna have to bloody well get on and make it myself’ is really emblematic of this kind of British determination. So, determination, entrepreneurial quality, creativity, a sense of fun, you know, so we love a bit of pomp and circumstance, but we don’t stand on ceremony. But if I had to distill it into one thing, it’s that spirit of the inventor. I mean, even look at Burberry. Thomas Burberry was not someone who wanted to suddenly be a fashion designer. He was really annoyed that he was wet! That the coat he had was not waterproof. He made a massive innovation in textile design and created gabardine, a really incredible technical fabric. And then went on to create the trench coat, and then not long after the First World War happened and then it became tried and tested in horrible conditions.
So there’s always this sort of red thread of innovative thinking, of innovation as well as the heritage. I mean, there’s a heritage element as well, but you think that real thread is this idea of just pushing things a little bit, new ideas, new thinking.
It’s a sector that is very clever. It gives you a sense that it’s all timeless and it’s beautifully slow-moving and it’s kind of style and all that. And of course, it is. But it’s constantly, every single day at the cutting edge of innovation. So things like AI, I’ve lost count of the conversations I’ve had with members about how they’re using AI to kind of power up a much more effortless, friction free, beautiful, high-touch personal service with their customers.
So I think that innovative spirit is great. The other thing that I have seen – and since my tenure at Walpole we’ve had Brexit, the pandemic, Ukraine War, the cost of living crisis, the energy crisis, now of course the disruption of Trump – it’s nobody in British luxury says, ‘well, we can’t do this’. They just go, ‘well how can we do this?’. Okay, that’s a bit of a problem. How can we do this? And I think that’s why you’ve seen the sector grow 69% in the last five years…
And five of the most tough years with all the headwinds that you just mentioned.
And that matters because it’s also a sector with a UK workforce. So there are nearly half a million people whose jobs depend on British luxury brands nationwide. So London, here we are in this most beautiful area, shop windows. But the engine room is completely national. And it matters because every single one of those CEOs is going, how can I protect this? Those are good jobs, they are well-paid, they are highly skilled, they’re unique, they support families, they support communities. How do I protect and grow that?
From a skills development perspective especially, I imagine. When I’ve spoken to other people in the luxury industry and they say some of these skills are in danger of dying out; and bringing new artists and new craftspeople into the world of luxury manufacture, I know it’s a perennial problem whether you’re in watchmaking or whatever. Is that something Walpole gets involved in or is that something you get feedback from in terms of the thirst for craftsmanship that’s still out there?
Yes. I mean, a making job is a good job. And I think it’s incredibly important to put that on the map. So we began a campaign last year called Luxury in the Making, which is just to show why the human quality of this, you know, this is, I don’t know, you bought a pair of Church’s shoes. And the reason that they are not the same price as a pair of shoes you might buy in Marks and Spencer say, is because they’re in Northampton, you’ve got people who have learned their trade for four plus years. I mean, actually, if you’re doing jewelry, you’re training for longer than a junior doctor. You’re training seven years. It’s about four years with shoes. But there’s about 40 pairs of hands that go into that one pair of shoes.
Those are crafts that are kind of unique. Northamptonshire shoemaking is unique to this country. Savile Row bespoke tailoring. That’s a unique skill. It is our couture. We invented it here. We need to kind of preserve that. Staffordshire pottery, I mean think back to the Wedgwood idea, but we’re possibly in Staffordshire about eight years away from losing the skills that are so necessary there. So we really need to protect what we’re doing, we need to encourage young people to come into it and also actually there are people who have retired who’ve got those skills, or people who are retired who want to retrain in a more flexible workforce where you don’t need to be on a line for five days a week. You can do a day here, you know, a different kind of working pattern to work with your thing. Looking laterally at what we do to kind of preserve those crafts is important.
And I think that comes back to that mutual support membership thing, presumably. I mean, again, Walpole, is a forum for people to share ideas about how they might get new talent in and retain existing talent. I’m sure those conversations go on between the members?
Exactly. So how do you work with local colleges? How do you work with schools? At what point, and probably actually the answer is about 11 to 12, do you need to start talking to young people about the kind of pleasure and satisfaction of working in one of these incredibly famous name brands? There’s some really great stuff, because it’s not just a UK problem. This is a European challenge, and there’s some great stuff going on with the other luxury associations across Europe.
So I went to see my colleagues, I say colleagues, my opposite numbers, my friends, at Comité Colbert, which is the French luxury association and the kind of ‘OG’ luxury association. They’ve been going for a lot longer than Walpole. And they were doing, over this last weekend, an incredible exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay and they had the maison demonstrating the crafts. Somebody from Hermès was there making a Birkin handbag. Before my eyes, it’s like the closest I’ve ever got to one of those. It was incredible, so he started making it when the exhibition opened on Thursday, and I said, when are you going to finish? And he said, it’ll take me the length of time it takes me, I will probably be finished by Sunday night.
And then they also had the schools, the colleges, I should say, were next to the maison. And you could see, so if you were kind of at school, looking at this exhibition, you could see how there’s a college that teaches you the skill. Then there is a workplace that you can then go to and kind of execute that skill, and you can have a job there. And I thought that was super clever. I mean, the Musée d’Orsay is hugely prestigious. It’s kind of, I mean somewhere between, I don’t know, the National Gallery and the V&A, I guess. So just everybody was kind of hanging out with this exhibition. So really good for promoting the value of this, the artisan, it’s an artisan driven sector, but they’d also worked with all the schools. So all the schools nationwide had a budget from their local council, I’m not sure quite sure how it works in France, but to bring the kids to see the exhibition over the weekend as part of their career development. I thought that was really, really forward thinking. And they do another thing called Les De(ux)mains du Luxe, kind of a play on like ‘demain’ meaning ‘tomorrow’ and ‘deux mains’, my pronunciation is terrible, meaning your ‘pair of hands’, which they do in December, where it’s four schools and they go and visit and they learn how to do it on that visit. So this was a more of a watching thing.
Excellent, so that talk of matters overseas, and I do want to come on to talk about your trip to the United States, because I think there’s a lot of interesting things to talk about with that, but thinking overseas more generally, I mean, you’ve touched on this already, but in terms of British luxury’s contribution to, let’s use the term ‘Brand Britain’, I don’t like it particularly, but I mean in terms of our soft power element, what role does the power of those brands play in projecting Britain on the world stage in a softer sense?
It’s hugely, hugely important. And it is, you know, the creative industries, you know film, books, theater, television, the Royal Family, the music, all of that stuff is kind of wrapped up in one big, lovely, reputational gift box around the world. And luxury goods are, kind of, the merch. I mean, it’s kind of the band t-shirts of the great global tour that is Brand Britain. And I think that’s every single time you might buy I don’t know, a Jo Malone candle, if you’re in Boston, you buy a Jo Malone candle, or you buy Burberry trench coat, or a Smythson notebook, or a pair of Church’s shoes, you’re buying into that sense of the kind of creativity and the skills and the quality, and particularly in high quality manufacturing of the UK. And I think it’s something that is demonstrable because it’s that the value of those exports is £56 billion. So…
There’s hard cash and soft power.
You could put a number on it. But also, I think when things are geopolitically incredibly complex as they have been, I mean, obviously in our mind right now with the US, but geopolitical complication has just been a feature of the last eight-plus years. It’s a place where we kind of, you know, we learn about each other’s culture. You know, it’s a really soft power becomes even more important and the trade that comes with that. So the tangible soft power is really crucial because the more you trade, the more you understand the culture, the less likely you are to just end up in a war – either a trade war or nasty, evil war.
And so in your, what I imagine are your extensive travels with Walpole representing British luxury, what are the areas that you’d say where that love of British luxury, that soft power, is at its strongest? And are there other areas where that’s up and coming in terms of interest in all things British?
Britain has an incredibly powerful and well-established brand, and the thing that I have been delighted and surprised by is that the soft power of the UK is incredibly robust. So here we are, you know, first of all with Brexit thinking, everybody must hate us. I mean, when I went to the US about a year after the Brexit vote, nobody had heard about Brexit. They didn’t care, basically. And the ones that did said like, oh yeah, you’ve got Brexit, we’ve got our own problems. I mean, it’s too late. So it didn’t matter. And I think that’s an important thing to keep front of mind, that people are much less worried about the crazy things that you might be doing at home than, you know, all the political shenanigans than you are. So the robustness is really there – and it is global.
It’s more enduring than we think, perhaps.
I think it’s absolutely more enduring than we think, but we can’t be complacent about it. And that’s incredibly important. And I think complacency, or that familiarity, breeding contempt thing, you have to recognize the jewel of the soft power of this country and do absolutely everything you can to support and continue to make it strong.
But of course, the place where it works so magically is the US. And I think that shows up in the numbers as well. I mean, the US is 22% of British luxury’s exports. It’s the single most important country. And that love and the connection and the kind of, there’s a nostalgia there sometimes. The suppleness of British soft power really plays well in the US because you can really lean into Tartan Day if you’ve got Scottish roots. I mean if you look on Instagram at Tartan Day, it’s kind of demented. Fabulous kind of riot of tartan, not in Scotland, but in America.
I have a relative in America – actually who’s a relative of my wife – who’s very obsessed with their Scottish heritage. I know that’s a thing.
I mean, it’s so, so massive. It’s kind of like, you know, you kind of need somebody to talk about the fresh pair of eyes on the, on what people love. But then also the coolness of music, or the modernity of the UK. So that kind of London versus Britain is also a cultural nuance.
Yeah, for sure.
It’s supple and flexible. I mean, it’s kind of punks and palaces. And I think that’s quite unique in terms of countries, you know, national brands.
Yeah, it’s fair to say, I think as Brits, we are a little bit prone to knocking the old girl. But it’s only when you’re actually outside the country where you realize that we’re perhaps being a little harsh on ourselves.
Well, I mean, that’s a lesson I learned really quickly on my first trip with Walpole in the US, that self-deprecation does not work at all! I mean I thought, right, we’ve got to stop being British about being British. That modesty doesn’t play as modesty; it plays as a lack of confidence. And so it is quite hard. And actually, it’s even harder for Scottish luxury brands who are incredibly modest about the superb quality that is just second nature to them. And that’s, I suppose, why I also think I’m the cheerleader in chief for the sector because I’m not making this stuff. I don’t need to be modest. I can just go out and say, hands down, this is absolutely the best cashmere you will find in the whole world. And it is.
Excellent. Now mention of the United States and as we sit here just into the second week of April, to give it a time stamp, you’ve recently returned from a trip to the United States. Tell us a little bit about that, what you were hoping to get out of that and what happened.
The context is that Walpole does a biannual trade mission to New York. Every other year we take about 25 smaller brands and help them get established, they’re kind of early on in their export journey to the US. It’s a difficult market where the potential is huge and we have got a ton of tried, tested and trusted programs for doing that.
So that was the primary reason we were there. But of course, as we were planning the trip, the political situation in the US became rather more, what should we say, capricious. So I left my colleagues in New York for the week and I headed up to Washington just to kind of meet some – and this was before we knew that the tariffs would be announced on the 2nd of April – but I was there around the 18th of March, just to kind of take the mood and also to try and look at potentially, if British luxury goods became much more expensive, which would be the effect of tariffs, what the price elasticity was, and then also trying to work out what we could do to mitigate that.
And to the point about soft power, I spent quite a lot of time with the British Embassy there, and in New York with the Consul General, and I’ve also talked to the Consul General in LA. So that FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office) network is very important for this sector. And so how do we help them with these kinds of, you know, with the whiskeys or with Smythson notebooks or whatever it happens to be, with tangible elements of soft power. How do we get those into the embassy in a more intentional way, so that somebody from the Senate goes to see somebody in the embassy, somebody has noted, as you would do in a luxury brand, that they absolutely love The Macallan whisky, their favorite, and that person’s turned up about six o’clock. So out comes – without any song and dance, just subtly – their favorite whiskey that they’re being offered.
So kind of using it in an elegant and intentional way and actually particularly Scotland, because Mr. Trump has a great love of Scotland. So just, okay, let’s go a bit harder on this. And then it was talking to kind of political types and stakeholders as well about how do we try and what is there anything we can do to try and soften this?
And then I went to Dallas, because Texas has become – partly due to Trump one and Trump two – and it’s a place where there’s zero tax. It’s a center of wealth. A lot of the tech people are going to Texas. So I also in the spirit of like, okay, if things become more expensive, how will that impact, will people still buy? And that was just to find groups of affluent people who have a great love of luxury and also British luxury, just to talk to them about that.
I suppose also with Texas, it’s to help put it on the map for the brands back home that might not realize that there’s growing opportunity happening there?
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s, you know, we talk about the US as the single most important country for luxury exports, and that’s of course, 100% true. But it isn’t a country with… you know, this idea of thinking of it as a single country is wrongheaded because every single state has its own way of doing things, its own sensibility. And there are probably 10 cities in the US which are important for luxury, but the most, the biggest opportunity is probably Texas, I think, right now.
It’s interesting because there’s not just different state governments and regimes but obviously different diaspora as well and, as you mentioned, the kind of connections to places like Scotland, I mean these people tended to settle in certain places; so I guess you’ve got that love of the old country element as well.
I know, it’s so fascinating.
I love America. I think America’s just the number one most fascinating country in the world.
Yes, completely agree. Where’s your favorite place? Where’s your, if you were advising luxury brands, where would you say they should head for?
That’s an interesting one. I mean, obviously you’ve got your West Coast, but I think, you know, I mean some of the cities that I’ve been to in the past in the West Coast are perhaps not quite the strongholds they were before. I mean, to be honest, when we go to America, we tend to go into the darklands. So like desert areas and very quiet, big skies. But I mean there’s, you know, even places like Colorado, and there was a lot of money in Colorado when we were over there skiing a few years ago. And it’s, a lot of wealthy Americans go to those places. Yeah, Aspen, Steamboat, Vail is, you know, those are classic luxury. It’s a bit like the Swiss resorts, Verbier, Crans-Montana. You’ve got this, you know, this amazing luxury infrastructure. People like to shop when they ski!
There’s luxury behavior right there. So you’ve got to be… it’s about the detail. So the detail of where you’ll find those pockets of super fans and buyers is really important to kind of research. And then show up in a way that really connects with that local customer. And then of course, what we really want as well is to encourage as many discerning, interesting affluent Americans as possible to come to this country. So thinking about that; you can’t control tariffs. I mean, you know, it would be nice to control tariffs, but President Trump’s policy is his policy. Yeah, much as I would like to there be a magic wand waved and it for not to be, this is where we’re at right now.
So look, what can we take to the bank? And we’re really encouraged by how the government has played the tariff issue. I think they’ve been very measured and cool-headed about it. They haven’t got involved in retaliatory tariffs, which is very sensible because you just start to retaliate and then you paint a big target on the back of your most-named goods in this country.
But also, if anybody remembers when you release this podcast, the speech Keir Starmer gave at Jaguar Land Rover this week about what can we do, so bringing forward things for automotive about the zero emissions vehicles. So I think that what can we do to mitigate the impact of this is a conversation that we all need to be having. And if goods get more expensive in the US, as they will, high-value American visitors will travel. They will come to Europe, and to the UK, to shop. And we need to be rolling out the red carpet for them. We need to take that share. I mean, there’s absolutely no reason why we should just wave them over the channel to go to Paris and to Italy, much as we’re all friends. But why wave them over there and just go ‘knock yourselves out’? You know, we need to bring back tax-free shopping.
I was going to say actually, I know this is a particular campaign element for Walpole, it’s a good moment to talk about that.
Yes, it’s such a good moment though, because it’s like they’re going to come. It’s a great growth dividend waiting to happen. We know they’re the biggest shoppers and actually when things get better in terms of tariffs in the US, they’re also really, really good at buying back home the things that they come and buy here in the UK. Let’s give them the incentive. Let’s not put barriers in the way. Let us not give that competitive advantage to a country that’s two and a half hours away by rail. I mean, that’s just wrong headed.
And it’s a wrong-headed policy of the previous government. It’s not this government’s policy. And I think a swift turnaround to do that will, I mean, fundamentally, it’s how do we do everything we can to get this country growing? That ecosystem of retail, hospitality, and culture. And we know that for every pound a high-value visitor spends in a nice hotel like the Belmond Cadogan up the road, they spend eight pounds in the local community. And the most important thing is just protecting those jobs, because this sector’s growth over the last five year period meant that one in every 10 new jobs created in this country was a British luxury job. So let’s not, in a time when things are tricky overseas and tricky for exports, let’s try and find a way to mitigate that damage and protect those jobs.
Indeed, the first time I came across Walpole was when I interviewed Michael Ward, MD of Harrods, but also chairman of Walpole. And even then, this is probably a couple of years ago, he was talking about this whole issue around tax free shopping. And obviously without giving any trade secrets away, and I won’t hold you to this, but I mean are you optimistic that you’ll get progress on this issue?
I think I am, in terms of the fact that the government is very keen to try and mitigate the impact of this. You know, Keir Starmer said on Monday, I’m committed to sheltering business from this storm. And so I think this is an easy win for them. I think it makes us, it removes that competitive barrier, and it creates also a great way to just market the hell out of our relationship with America and just go like… come here for the beautiful hotels, incredible countryside, visit the whole country, go up to the distilleries in the Highlands and Islands, visit Harris Tweed. I mean, just knock yourselves out; and we’ve just made it much cheaper for you to shop here as well, which will keep the money then here and really maximize that one in every eight.
Absolutely. Outside of that issue, obviously the tariffs we’ve already covered, but in terms of other issues that the British luxury industry faces – that are in your in tray, if you like, as the CEO – what are some of the other issues that are currently floating around the industry that need to be tackled?
In continental Europe, you’ve got the GI regime, the geographical indication status is extended not just to Champagne and other, you know, kind of food and drink products, Champagne, Parma ham, Parmesan, that kind of thing. It also goes across Limoges porcelain or Calais lace. So where you’ve got a particular geographical center of craft skill, that IP protection that is GI has that. This is such a technical issue, but it’s really… these are the issues facing the industry. This is what we want to hear about.
So much of what we do is trying to stop governments doing crazy things. But this is one that we also feel really passionate about, because why shouldn’t we be protecting Northampton shoe making, and protect the skills that are there? And also it then puts that on the map. I mean, think about all the fights that Champagne has about English sparkling wine or whoever else not being able to call anything, you know, you can’t call it Champagne. I mean that for Northamptonshire shoes or for Savile Road tailoring skills would be great. And it also helps us have that conversation about how special those skills are.
So that’s one. The other thing that we’re really concerned about, and this does come back to the kind of political sensitivities of where we are with the US at the moment. There’s a consultation going through government at the moment about AI, particularly generative AI, which is a part of it, which just kind of rides roughshod over the very carefully crafted copyright and IP protections that we have here. The reason the UK is so strong on brand and so strong in creative industries is we have the best IP protection regime in the world, hands down. And this consultation, in a well-intentioned spirit of looking for new technological breakthroughs and things that can help grow the economy, the way it’s written allows the benefits of the creative labor to accrue to the Large Language Models (LLMs), which, like it or not, are in the US.
And we think that is just bad for this country, because it gives up the thing that we are best at. It just gives it away. So, and of course it’s sensitive because some of the things that the US would want out of a trade deal will be about, you know, protecting and growing their own tech industries. We want a trade deal with the US obviously, and we want it fast, particularly for luxury automotive, which has a 25% tariff and not a 10% tariff, but don’t throw the baby out with bath water.
So care needs to be taken over exactly what provisions get put in this is what you’re saying, basically. And are you trying to make your voice heard, are there channels through to, I mean, whatever the stripe of the government, but to government in order to sort of try and emphasize those points to them?
Yes, there is. And I think this has cross-party support, I think there is an understanding of this. A bit like tax-free shopping, ‘no one succeeds alone’ is also a motto for how we fight our battles. We always build consensus around other interested groups. So you’ll have seen Kate Bush and Elton John out there in the newspapers talking about this issue. And then we also had a front page of The Times at the end of March about the same thing. It’s not just us fighting this. There is some listening, but there’s more work to be done. And we really want big business, scale business, who also have IP issues to just add their voice. Just, you know, just ring up if you have the kind of CEO of a big business that’s used to talking to Rachel Reeves, pick up the phone and just go, ‘look, I just don’t want to say anything publicly, but I’m worried about this’. And I think that’s all it will need.
Yeah, and if I may say so though, I mean, you know, having now followed Walpole for a fair while, I think you guys are very good at being quite frank about things and having a voice. I mean I think sometimes with trade bodies with multiple different types of members, there can be perhaps a little bit of a fear about not upsetting one or the other, but I like the way you’ve got quite kind of frank voice, you know in terms of that kind of external viewpoint.
Good, I’m glad that comes across, thank you.
Is that something that you’ve tried to kind of encourage as CEO?
So it’s something that we’ve worked really, really hard, that idea of kind of creating the community and making sure that we’re bringing together members every week so that they are used to sharing their issues. We never do anything without asking our members first. But if there is a part of it that might have a slightly different view, we just negotiate some consensus.
So I think there is an industry that we have worked hard so that it can speak as one, even though it’s very, very broad. But I think that’s, you know, and that, again, that’s the point that you made earlier about why is an organization like Walpole important.
And the other thing is that we are funded by our members. We’re not funded by government. You know, we don’t have a big government grant, and a lot of other business associations do. The reason we don’t do that is because it means that when things are challenging with government, we are able to hold them to account, you know, without fear or favor. So… I mean, this sector is the most beautiful, joy-bringing, glamorous, gorgeous, happiness-making thing of all. And I think sometimes the frustration of my job – not frustration – is like, I’m very in the weeds of making sure that it’s protected, because that’s how I’m rooting for this. I really believe in this extraordinary sector.
Is that what drew you to Walpole in the first place?
I was drawn to Walpole because I have always believed in these businesses, so I’ve been really lucky in my… most of my career was built in publishing, and I did a 10 year stint at Harper’s Bazaar and Esquire, so, I really got under the skin of the big international brands with Harper’s Bazaar, and then actually with Esquire, the UK luxury brands, the whiskies and the tailoring and the shoes and the cars, you know, it’s quite a… classically, UK luxury is quite male.
And so I had a really deep understanding and I would be at the distillery or I’d be in a factory or in a tailor as part of my job. And I thought, these people are genius. They’re quietly getting on with building things that people absolutely rave about and love in every corner of the world. This is fantastic. And then I didn’t really think anything more of it, I went off to run my own business and then very much out of the blue, I got a call to say that they wanted a CEO for Walpole. And I immediately thought they wanted me to look at my Rolodex and see who I could recommend. Until my husband said ‘no, you dummy, it’s you they want!’ And I went OK, sorry. And I went ‘brilliant’, because actually this is a sector that must not be a sleeping giant. It’s a sector that needs the recognition it deserves. It is absolutely 100% the jewel in the crown of this country. And I’ve seen… somebody working in the warehouse, to somebody stitching a shoe, to somebody creating the most marvelous dreams with their marketing and brand campaigns. And then to one of the CEOs kind of making the strategies that make these businesses work. This would be the privilege of my entire life to be able to go out to bat for this sector and just get it the recognition that it deserves. And eight years later, I’m still so excited to get up every day to just do that.
And also I think in terms of going out to bat and thinking back to what you originally said about the six men who met for lunch, I also understand that you’re trying to do more to promote the idea of women in luxury and to give women more opportunities in luxury. Can you tell me a little bit about that and about how that’s kind of playing out?
Inclusive Luxury is a big platform for Walpole, so yes women, but actually every underrepresented group because ideas don’t come if you’re just putting the same input in all the time, you know. And it’s an industry that is creative and thrives on creativity and also has a very broad customer. So I think we kind of need to reflect that in the people that are running the businesses. But from a personal point of view, coming from a publishing background I’ve been used to working with a very female-oriented workforce. And then I came in 2017 to Walpole and I was suddenly the only… I was turning up to a lunch with CEOs and I was probably the only woman in the room. And like, that was very weird. I hadn’t really experienced that. So I went and bought myself a suit. So, I would look the part and they wouldn’t think ‘who is this person in a dress!’.
But I thought also let’s change something. Because when I was talking to the CEOs individually, they were going, this is really frustrating; we have great programs in our businesses for promoting women. We’ve got great childcare, great maternity benefits. We don’t want to lose women at that stage, we want to bring them to senior management. What can we do? So the intention was there. It just wasn’t filtering through.
So I put in a program called Walpole Women in Luxury. Imaginative title, you see what I did there? Did what it said on the can. Which was just about aiming for gender parity at kind of senior level. And when I did a little bit of research, it actually wasn’t as bad as it looked. It was about 30%, probably at senior level, but gender parity was a goal. And I think, you know, thinking about the program and everything we’ve done, we are on target for that. I think it’s just radically changed. But I think inclusivity has radically changed on every level. It’s a conversation that is no longer a kind of ‘any other business’ conversation. And I think that’s really important.
Yeah. Well, I think also the businesses actually judging themselves on it. It’s not just like a page in the annual report now. I mean, a lot of metrics, a lot of KPIs, it’s become a thing, isn’t it?
And it’s your sense that it’s actually even more important for luxury businesses, because luxury means you are the best on every single level. And if you’re not, you know, if you are not doing that, then how can you say that you’re the best?
Yeah. But also a business that’s truly global. It’s like hospitality. I mean, it is, you know, it’s a global audience. There’s no country which couldn’t potentially have an interest in a British luxury brand, just a love for that brand. So I mean it’s truly global and I guess the industry needs to reflect that as well?
I think it absolutely does and it needs to be committed. We launched the British Luxury Sustainability Manifesto in 2020 and one of the pillars was around people and inclusion and then we’ve kind of evolved that and we ran the first Inclusive Luxury Workshop earlier this year, which is just to give every business the skills to be able to think about this topic. Because it’s not easy, you know, you’re busy running your business. You perhaps, how can you be more intentional in a way that helps you do the right thing. So I think it’s crucial.
And I think the other thing that’s really interesting is this idea of London as the shop window, the kind of showroom of luxury, it’s such an important place to keep it successful, back to that point about not being complacent. But one of the things that always comes out in all the surveys that we do about the strength of London, from a luxury customer point of view, is that it’s the most inclusive city in the world. So unlike any other luxury capital, you see people from every single part of the world here and actually in store as well and you know retail or hospitality environment, again you’re seeing people, you’re meeting people who speak different languages, who are from different geographies and shows that Britishness is about inclusion.
Excellent. So for my final question, I’m going to ask you to get your crystal ball out and give it a little rub. Let’s look five years hence, what for you is a successful Walpole gonna look like? What achievements do you hope you can chalk up on the board in that time? When we’re looking, like I say, five years hence – 2030 as it’ll be. Goodness!
Well, I mean, things like worrying about IP protections being sold down the river in a will to unlock the opportunities of AI, I’ll have forgotten that, because it will be a dim and distant memory, it won’t even be on my radar anymore. Same with GI, same with tax free shopping. We will be number one without a shadow of a doubt, head and shoulders above any competitor luxury market in the world for inbound visitors.
The thing for me in five years’ time is about that tangible recognition of the sector. So if I wave my magic wand, there is the Prime Minister in five years’ time saying, ‘this is our most important business sector. These are brands with heritage, they’re brands with innovation, they are brands that are responsible for hundreds and thousands of jobs up and down the country. We need to wrap our arms around this sector; because whatever we do, this is the best of us’.
And that kind of top public recognition of the heavy lifting that British luxury does for this country would be my dream come true.
Helen Brocklebank, thank you very much indeed for being my guest today.
What an absolute treat, Martin, thank for you letting me talk about my favorite subject!
