As the recession begins to bite, there can’t be many more challenging
places to find oneself than bang in the middle of the retail sector. And
make that the luxury goods retail sector. Aren’t we supposed to be ditching
the £800 dress habit, the once ubiquitous It-bag and the £400
investment heels which are beginning to look less like an investment and
more like a rip-off?
In fact, these are precisely the kind of items you’ll find in a branch of the
high-end, highly discerning boutique Matches. Dotted strategically around
the affluent neighbourhoods of London (Richmond, Wimbledon, Notting Hill),
Matches branches are filled with tempting pieces from Lanvin, Azzedine Alaïa
and 3.1 Phillip Lim.
But if anyone is capable of finding novel ways to entice increasingly cautious
consumers, it’s Tom Chapman, an affable 45-year-old who, with his
wife, Ruth, 46, founded Matches 21 years ago. Today they juggle their roles
as retailers, e-tailers and, more recently, manufacturers and art dealers.
By understanding that London is a series of small villages – with customers
preferring to shop close to home rather than driving somewhere and getting
stuck in traffic – they have built up a mini empire comprising 14 womenswear
and menswear stores, a successful website and franchise shops for Diane von
Furstenberg and MaxMara.
We’re seated in the Natural Kitchen, an organic café that’s just a stone’s
throw from the Marylebone store. While hungrily tucking into his carrot
cake, Tom is firing off a list of projects that he has planned to woo his
clientele. Being a multi-channel retailer is clearly important to the
Chapmans. “We could sit around and wait for the customer to come to
us, but actually we’d much prefer to go and get them,” he explains.
The Matches website places emphasis on developing a personal customer
relationship, and currently represents 18 per cent of the company’s annual
turnover. In fact, such is the website’s impact that, thanks to one
wealthy online customer, Matches travelled to Le Richemond hotel in Geneva to
present a “pop-up” shop. Sales during those two days exceeded
£100,000 and it has, unsurprisingly, provided the template for subsequent
events. The most recent was a shopping evening and dinner for 200 women from
Linklaters law firm hosted by Kim Hersov, Harper’s Bazaar UK’s
editor-at-large, in the grand surrounds of the British Museum.
“With Tom, it’s all about devising new and energetic ways to go after the
consumer,” Hersov explains. Aside from the arrival of more pop-up stores
(Dublin and Warsaw are next), there are artist collaborations, which will be
held three times a year at the Marylebone store; Editions, a limited
collection (hence the title) of specially created, one-off pieces from a
roster of big-name designers; and Matches’ expanding in-house label, Freda.
The Chapmans’ passion for retail is highly infectious. Tom’s enthusiasm is
such that at times it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by the incessant
whirring of ideas (each one more ambitious than the last) and a design
curiosity that encompasses everything from Gio Ponti plates to the Art Car
Boot Fair, more of which later. Speaking in measured sentences, Ruth is the
antidote to Tom’s ebullience. While not a natural lover of the spotlight,
she is just as passionate about the Matches empire, especially Freda, which
she has overseen since its launch in 2005, appointing Nargess Gharani from
Gharani Strok to head design there in January of this year.
“The label came about because, although there was no shortage of great
statement pieces, hunting down those slot-in wardrobe essentials proved much
trickier,” says Ruth. Fans of Freda return season after season for the
cashmere knitwear (around the £300 mark) with its quirky detailing,
perfect-fitting trousers (£285), versatile day-to-evening shifts and the odd
bit of sparkle. “I really want to take Freda wholesale [ie, to sell it as a
stand-alone label in department stores],” she says, “but first we need to
ensure that the production is perfect.”
What is interesting from a retail perspective is how the two continue to
engage their customer base while also diversifying the brand’s appeal,
attracting a wider demographic. This is, in part, thanks to the special way
each store connects with its habitat as well as the couple’s sensitive
approach to each project. Both of them are keen art lovers, but the decision
to turn the Marylebone High Street store (an area of London which has
recently been colonised by hip East End galleries) into an artistic
showspace with moveable shop fittings could have seemed forced, in the way
tenuous link-ups often are. In the capable hands of Karen Ashton, however,
respected curator and producer of the phenomenally successful Art Car Boot
Fair, the idea paid off.
“Right from the very beginning, I said that I didn’t want it to be like walking
into some naff restaurant where there are pictures on the wall and prices
beneath them,” says Tom quite emphatically. “My only criterion was that this
is ultimately a retail space and the artists involved have to feel that they
can coexist with the clothes in this environment.”
The Art Car Boot Fair involved big names such as Sir Peter Blake and Tracey
Emin, but remained open and democratic – exactly how the Chapmans envisaged
their Marylebone art project. “I didn’t want this to be just about £10,000
paintings,” says Tom. “There had to be interest from serious collectors yet
it also had to be accessible.”
The concept began earlier this year with a collection by Young British Artist
Abigail Lane, who created an imaginative circus-themed installation. This
week sees the launch of a collaboration with illustrator Natasha Law, sister
of Jude. For Law, the appeal lay in the chance to “explore another type of
medium. I really loved the idea of painting the walls and sketching a story
of tangled figures around the shop space.” Not only will Law’s prints and
paintings be available to buy on the web, but her exclusively designed print
scarves will sell for an affordable £110.
Equally interesting is the aforementioned Editions project, which is scheduled
for the end of January and will be repeated each season. Each item will
appear in a catalogue not dissimilar to the sort you find at auction houses.
There will be a limited number of specially commissioned pieces, from a
white sleeveless waistcoat that Joanna Sykes has created right up to the
exclusive, super-luxe £8,000 crocodile bag from Balenciaga.
So, do they ever feel swamped by the amount of work they take on? On a
personal level, they have just finished extensive house renovations (with
all the horror stories that this usually entails). Both confess to being
control freaks although Bridget Cosgrave, fashion director (and the woman
who cherry-picks from the collections for Matches, along with menswear buyer
Stacey Smith), is positive about the firm she joined ten years ago from
Harvey Nichols.
“It was a breath of fresh air moving here,” says Cosgrave. “The Chapmans
respect my aesthetic and give me an amazing amount of freedom to just go out
there and get on with it.”
Certainly, one can’t help speculating how working together, living together
and bringing up three children might at times feel a little claustrophobic.
“Actually,” says Ruth rather sweetly, “working together can be the best and
worst thing because we share all the excitement, but when something goes
wrong it’s harder to switch off.”
“We have a rule,” says Tom. “We don’t talk shop after 8pm, otherwise I’ll be
up all night worrying.” For him, the worst part of working with his wife is
that, “She notices everything, every little detail.” One wonders how
she has the time.
www.matchesfashion.com
