SPREAD AROUND 1,000 square metres of prime Notting Hill real estate is an impressive display of vintage artefacts connected with the great outdoors. There are waders so enormous that they come up to my neck, chair frames crafted from antlers, faded hunter’s bags from Kenya. I could be in a museum, but I’m not. In fact this is the site of the leather designer Bill Amberg’s latest retail venture, which is why, alongside the various
objets, there are also a lot of bags.
“I have attics of this stuff,” Amberg declares. He has just returned from an Egyptian adventure and in the past 20 years has trawled the world to build his collection.
Amberg is that rare creature, a heterosexual designer who inhabits the neurotic and narcissistic fashion sphere (although he also undertakecommissions for private jets and yacht interiors). There is nothing effete about him or his distinctly mannish accessories, and he appears to have arrived on the fashionscape almost by accident.
The trouble is that although his sheepskin papooses and “minimalist” bags have become urban classics, no Amberg product has yet achieved the cult status of a seasonal “must-have”that would underline his brand’s status and bring his other projects into the public eye — although a recent collaboration with the hip girl-about-town designer Katie Hillier, and a new concept store, might just achieve all that.
“Bill Handbag”, as he is affectionately referred to despite his considerable physical stature, is a Hemingwayesque figure who is devoted to the quest for self-sufficiency. He grows his own vegetables — “I have just planted six varieties of Italian lettuce, summer squash and purple flowering broccoli,” he says — and according to his wife, Susie Forbes, formerly of Vogue and now editor of Easy Living magazine, he spends hours poring over seed catalogues. “His philosophy is that if you can buy it in a shop, then why bother to grow it,” she says, “although sometimes I wish he would just put rocket and iceberg on the kitchen table.”
A strong believer in the importance of rural communities, Amberg went on the Countryside Alliance march and thinks nothing of rising at 4am to go crawling through the undergrowth on a hunting trip.
He is, one gets the impression, far from squeamish, and he eyes me warily when I reveal that the Times fashion team has placed an editorial ban on fur, asking sardonically whether we would feature his cowhide bag: “After all, you’d eat rabbit or steak.”
Amberg is proud to be known as a “good shot” whose designs reflect his abiding interest in hunting and fishing. His shooting holdall was so cleverly proportioned that Bergdorf Goodman asked him to create an exclusive line. Indeed, the smart set (Elle Macpherson is a good customer) love his style-conscious range for their shooting weekends away, although you can imagine him grimacing at such a faddy idea.
Were it not for Amberg’s lifetime fascination with the possibilities of rawhide, it would be hard to imagine him getting caught up in the rarefied world of celebrity endorsement. But leather has long been his thing.
“'It’s a material that can be polished, moulded, stamped and sewn,” he enthuses as he darts around his shop, lifting up examples of waxy hides and delicate calfskins.And that is precisely what he has done, turning what began as a hobby into a £2 million global business.
Since establishing his company in 1984 he has consistently challenged preconceptions of how leather can be used as design fabric. For example, there is the leather wendy house — made for his three daughters — that stands in his garden: “Oh, that,” he says. “It’s made from leftover scraps. You just oil it to keep it waterproof.” Or consider the pièce de résistance in the basement of his new store — a gorgeous cherry-red leather floor.
Amberg was always good with his hands. He grew up in Northampton, hub of the British shoe industry, and from an early age was encouraged by his mother, an architect, to make wallets for his sister from spare bits of leather. Today two thirds of his business is luxury commissions and he has a burgeoning corporate client list. His 22-strong design team was recently responsible for the stationery and furniture at the hip new Bulgari hotel in Milan, the luxury refit of Asprey, which involved stamped, monogrammed leather wall plates, and the menus for both Alan Yau’s Hakkasan restaurant and Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen.
The bags have come a long way since Amberg first knocked on Liberty’s door with two canvas-and- leather samples stitched up in a studio in Rotherhithe. There are 12 lines and about 50 styles, including a bespoke range in an overwhelming choice of colours and fabrics, from shargreen (ray skin) to python.
Functionality is at the centre of Amberg’s design ethos: secret compartments where shoes or a laundry bag can be stashed away are a recurring feature. “I hate the idea of travelling with too much bag that has not been properly filled,” he says, “so most of my travel bags are measured exactly to hold a pair of trousers or a change of clothes.”
Despite his protestations that his bags are unisex, most of the Amberg collection has an undeniably masculine feel about it. There is a marked contrast between his utilitarian merchandise and the collaboration with Hillier to produce the Lady Hamilton range — bags with funked-up metallic tassels and sassy brogue detailing that are undeniably softer.
“Yes, her designs are more feminine,” he admits. “They provide a different perspective in the shop.”
While evidently pleased with the result of the Hillier partnership, Amberg is mostly preoccupied with longevity and functional details — priorities that he attributes to the demands of the Japanese, who form his biggest market, accounting for some 30 per cent of his bag sales.
“Russia is another new market for us that is really taking off,” he says, “although at the moment the men’s side is doing much better than the women’s range.” The Hillier venture could change that.
So what about future projects? “Well, there’s the dogs’ accessories that I’m hoping will launch this autumn',” he says. I am surprised. Is this eminently practical and sensible designer really going to pander to pampered chihuahuas and their chi chi owners? Or will his dog collars be distinctly on the butch side? We will have to wait and see.
“Bill is very much a man’s man,” says Susie. “He loves spending time in what I call his voodoo hut because it’s full of dead things from exotic destinations. There he can listen to old records, drink saké and escape from girls and their Barbie dolls.”
- Bill Amberg’s new flagship store has opened at 21-22 Chepstow Corner, London W2 (020-7727 3560)
