Oracle Retail Week Awards: Ted Baker's Ray Kelvin speaks after Outstanding Contribution award

Ray Kelvin is one of retail’s mystery men - as the real-life figure behind Ted Baker, the almost Gatsbyesque persona of one of the industry’s best-known fashion brands, he remains a bit of an enigma.

However, the success of the business he founded more than a quarter of a century ago is anything but a mystery.

Kelvin may have eschewed the limelight throughout his career - including never letting his face be photographed in full profile - but it has allowed him to focus on what comes naturally: creativity, strategy and an enviable ability to run a business that engenders loyalty in employees and customers alike.

And this year his retail and brand-building flair have been recognised with Oracle Retail Week Awards’ Outstanding Contribution to Retail prize.

“On a personal level I would rather it was given to the company rather than the individual”

Kelvin is undoubtedly a larger-than-life character, with a wit and quirky style that’s so obviously reflected in the Ted Baker brand.

But, in keeping with a man who has built a business around an alter ego, there is a modesty to him too, which plays out in a slight unease of accepting such an individual accolade. He says: “On a personal level I would rather it was given to the company rather than the individual.

“We’re more for winning customers and looking after people who work in the company.

“But of course it’s nice because people respect the award. I’ll maybe not show it on the [awards] night, but I will be embarrassed.”

That personality trait is part of the reason why he decided to call the brand Ted Baker rather than use his own name.

“From the outset it was a case of me not being able to say ‘I’,” says Kelvin. “Ted allowed me to not say ‘I’ but to use his opinion to create and design and develop the business.”

Kelvin says he didn’t want to name the brand after himself for fear he would be known as ‘Ray Kelvin The Bankrupt’ if it collapsed. Instead, he borrowed the idea from a friend who had used the name Ted Baker to further his career in the US.

From that point in 1988, the combination of Kelvin’s creative flair and business nous created a brand with worldwide appeal that now trades in 30 countries.

Later this month the business is expected to reveal pre-tax profit of £38.5m for the year to January 2014, up from £28.9m the previous year.

Despite his reticence, Kelvin is no stranger to receiving accolades and in 2011 he was awarded a CBE.

And in fact he turns out to be keen to reveal a little of the self-deprecating man behind the persona.

“I think people might think I am an inadvertent snob, and I am to an extent”

“I think people might think I am an inadvertent snob, and I am to an extent,” he says. “But it’s more about the fact that I’m quite a big personality. Publicly I can be overbearing maybe, so I tone that up without showing myself too much.”

That said, how much of Ted Baker is really Ray Kelvin?

“I suppose to a certain extent it’s one and the same but it’s something I don’t readily admit to,” he says.

While he is publicity shy, Kelvin is extremely hands-on in the business. “I am the product director of the company. Ted appointed me,” he says. Kelvin prides himself on creating a product that he believes is three times the quality at a third of the price of similar products. He believes that the brand’s success hinges on the cut, quality and style of Ted Baker’s unique product.

“I am a designer at heart,” he says. “I’m a bit of a visionary and with Ted’s help I understand what we’ve got to do and build the strategy. I’d say I am a product developer who can add up.”

Kelvin reveals that he didn’t pass his maths O-Level, but when he entered the world of retail he sharpened up his skills. “They put a pound sign in front and suddenly I could add up,” he says. “I enjoy trading, I enjoy strategy and believe it or not, I enjoy logistics. I enjoy detail.”

Enigma machine

It is his enthusiasm for business that helped Kelvin through the first few years of the company’s development, which he recalls as the most difficult period in its history.

Kelvin used his own money to finance the business and at times couldn’t pay the bills or his staff’s wages. Kelvin protected himself back then by not allowing himself to get too close to people.

“I had to make a lot of tough decisions,” he has said in the past.

“It was very difficult at times and as soon as we got past the post and started doing really well, and started making enough money, I decided to become what I’m about - that’s being a hugger and a lover, and not a shouter and a screamer,” he told Retail Week last year.

But Kelvin’s blood, sweat and tears paid off when in the 1990s amid the acid house scene Ted Baker’s brightly coloured shirts caught the eye of young men looking to make a statement.

He took the money off the back of those shirts and hasn’t looked back. He launched womenswear in 1995 and started opening more stores.

In 1990 he bought out backers Goldberg & Sons, and the business became fully privately owned in 1993. A year later Kelvin launched a wholesale business in the UK.

Almost 10 years after founding the company Kelvin had built a respected brand with bags of potential. He then made the decision to take Ted Baker public. Kelvin retains a substantial stake.

“When we went public nothing changed. I could handle it and manage it,” he says. Kelvin wanted to use the float to build the business and be able to reward his loyal team.

And he has proven his ability to lead a publicly listed company. “The share price is up 100% on last year,” he points out, which must be keeping shareholders happy.

Kelvin says that the float also enabled him to make sure his family were financially secure. He had two young sons at the time and all his wealth was tied up in the business.

“I’d say I am a product developer who can add up”

Ray Kelvin, Ted Baker

In the past year Kelvin has added to his family with a new baby, his first daughter, and Ted Baker has celebrated its 25th anniversary.

He’s being interviewed days after returning from a seven-week holiday to Australia and New Zealand with his family - a lengthy time away from the business, something he rarely does - which he spent fishing, his favourite pastime. He says he also went to watch a friend play in the Australian Open - he’s referring to Andy Murray.

Legend has it that Kelvin beat last year’s Sports Personality of the Year at a game of table tennis days after Murray was crowned Wimbledon champion last year.

The globetrotting has not been limited to pleasure though, and Ted Baker has ramped up its international openings.

The brand has relaunched its website and sales are growing fast. It has been focusing on opening stores across the globe, with the potential for more significant expansion in the years ahead.

In the past year Ted Baker has opened a store in Dubai as well as expanding its estate in European markets including Spain, Holland and Germany.

The retailer has also been bedding in the four stores it now operates across China, while enjoying the brand awareness its Fifth Avenue store in New York has brought it among US fashion fans.

Kelvin admits that launching stores in China was no mean feat. “To anyone else trying to open shops there I would say proceed with caution. It can get quite hairy,” he warns. “I’m surprised at how difficult it is to do business there with the bureaucracy and rules and regulations.”

He cautions: “The set-up side is very, very onerous and so is getting product into China because everything has to be tested.”

Kelvin has 13 members from his UK team - “a baker’s dozen,” he jokes - in China to “get under the skin of the business and the people”.

But once these stores, which he says are showing encouraging early signs, have had time to bed into the market, China could be important for Ted Baker’s growth.

Kelvin is also eyeing Russia, where his grandparents came from, as a new territory but says he is still looking for the right partner to open stores.

Since international expansion is important for Ted Baker, the board’s experience in this field got a boost after Andrew Jennings, former chief executive of German retailer Karstadt, joined as independent non-executive director.

Despite all the new openings Ted Baker has fewer stores than perhaps might be expected - it trades from 41 UK standalone shops, and 22 stores plus seven outlets overseas. But each one is unique - the Fifth Avenue store, for instance, is decorated with an art deco theme and a giant digital clock, while the Bluewater branch is based on a fictional county called Tedbury.

Kelvin hesitates when he is asked which his favourite store is.

He says: “That’s like asking me to choose my favourite child.” But eventually he succumbs and reveals it’s the Sydney shop in Australia - for the moment at least.

The Australian store’s theme is ‘lost property and the London Underground’, exporting Ted Baker’s London style across the world to the 2,500 sq ft branch. “All the tickets and the tills are real from the Baker Street lost property office. It’s fun - a great store,” he adds.

With each store requiring such attention, how does Kelvin ensure the Ted Baker personality is reflected in every design?

“Through continuity of people in the company,” he says simply.

“If you have the same people doing it then it’s in-bred in them. “It’s about caring and loving people, and making sure while they’re in the business they have a good time and they enjoy it. Hug them. It’s not hard at all, the difficulty is asking them to leave.

“Once they get through their three-month trial they become lifers,” he says.

Kelvin has a knack of holding on to talent. Many of his directors have worked with him at Ted Baker for more than 20 years and it’s hard to find someone at the London St Pancras headquarters who has been there less than five. But Kelvin says the company is still hiring fresh talent as it expands.

“We’re not a soft touch. We’re a serious business,” he says. “We respect people and I personally care a hell of a lot [about them]. But I can be difficult. I am particular and I can be hard work when I need to be. But I think that’s respected.”

For an entrepreneur and fashion designer who has built a business that is almost doubling sales every five years, Kelvin’s “hugger and a lover” approach is clearly delivering results.

So what does Kelvin think Ted Baker would wear if he were a real person? “A Ted Baker Tight Lines suit, a polo neck, a trilby - no feathers included - brogues in his own colour and odd socks,” he says. And Ted’s pants?

“Ted wouldn’t talk about that,” says Kelvin. “Modesty prevails.” Like Kelvin’s face, that must remain a mystery.