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June 4, 2015

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Bright future for British satchels

When a buzz about neon-colored leather satchels swept the 2010 New York Fashion Week, few fashionistas who coveted one were aware of the humble beginnings of the Cambridge Satchel Company.

For the journey that took the brand to the Big Apple started with founder Julie Deane making school satchels on the kitchen table of her home.

Domestic concerns were also the motivation for starting the company, Deane explained while in Shanghai recently for a forum of female entrepreneurs organized by e-commerce giant Alibaba.

“I needed to raise the money to move my eight-year-old daughter from a school where she was being bullied into a school where she would thrive and be happy,” said Deane, at the city event that also featured Arianna Huffington, chair, president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group and Marissa Meyer, president of Yahoo.

Deane graduated from Cambridge University in 1987, and had been a full-time mother for eight years when, in 2008, she came up with the idea of making traditional leather satchels for schoolchildren aged 12 to 18.

“Sometimes people say if you stop working, your brain just disappears — and that’s not true,” she said.

“I love to find faults in things and discovered that people bought poorly made schoolbags and threw them away after a short time.

“I’d looked for a leather school satchel like those I had when aged between 12 to 17, but those very British hand-made bags had disappeared about 20 years earlier.”

Deane invested just 600 pounds (US$920) to get the idea off the ground. The business plan was simple: to bring back the classic leather satchel that had once been popular among British schoolchildren but had fallen out of favor.

She drew her first satchel design based on her memories, though incorporating changes for a modern market.

“The big difference is that I started to offer more colors,” said Deane.

At the beginning, she turned to a craftsman who still made satchels at a reasonable price and begged him to produce bags for her new business.

She handled all marketing work herself, targeting magazines, blogs and websites with a stream of e-mails.

One caught the attention of designer Erdem Moralioglu who ordered a bag, and then the Italian edition of Vogue became the first fashion magazine to feature Deane’s bags. Deane admits that she was surprised that her satchels struck a chord with fashion-conscious editors and bloggers. She attributes their appeal to high-quality tradition given a quirky makeover.

“Having them made in Britain with a very high degree of skill and craftsmanship ensures they will last for long time. They’re real classic bags with a modern twist, with joyful colors instead of simply brown. That’s what makes them relevant still today,” Deane said.

“There’s an element that British people recognize from old films, just seeing a familiar shape. But then they’re shocked at seeing them in outrageous colors,” she added.

Labels like Comme Des Garcons and Vivienne Westwood came to Deane and wanted to partner with her company to produce limited-edition collections. After 2010 New York Fashion Week, where editors and bloggers were pictured with her satchels, American buyers from Bloomingdales and Saks wanted to stock these quintessentially British items.

The company is now a handmade-in-Britain worldwide phenomenon, employing more than 100 people and selling to more than 120 countries.

In Shanghai, Cambridge Satchel bags are carried at Lane Crawford, Galeries Lafayette and IT.

Deane is committed to preserving British manufacturing. Despite pressure to satisfy demand through an overseas production model, Deane insists that each stage in producing every bag takes place on British soil.

“Our bags are very British and should be made in Britain,” she said.

She now has her own factory in Leicestershire to produce the bags and uses it in a drive to re-skill British people; taking on apprentices, seeking to engage disillusioned young people and encouraging people to embrace craftsmanship.

“Our quality is much better, and as the company grows we introduce new sizes, styles and samplings all done in our own factory,” she explained.

In 2014, Deane became the first woman to be named Entrepreneur of the Year by the European Business Awards. She is also the ambassador of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust for keeping alive traditional British crafts. And last year, Deane receiving an OBE for Services to Entrepreneurship.

The kitchen table beginnings of the Cambridge Satchel Company must seem a long time ago. Though with Deane’s continued emphasis on craftsmanship, perhaps not.




 

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