It’s all in the detail

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Presentation and style have given Jeremy Hackett’s tailoring outfit an edge. He tells Lisa Berwin how he has built on its successes

Spend 10 minutes with Hackett chairman and co-founder Jeremy Hackett and you are likely to feel more than a little underdressed.

The immaculately presented style connoisseur set up the fashion retailer almost exactly 25 years ago with business partner Ashley Lloyd-Jennings. They opened a store in London on what he describes as the “wrong end of the King’s Road” in 1983, selling second-hand clothes bought from markets.

“For the first six months, the shop did not even have a name,” recalls Hackett. “They used to call us ‘That funny shop with the round window’.” Having named a previous shoe business venture after Lloyd-Jennings, which proved unsuccessful, this time they decided on Hackett. “There was no marketing plan behind it, but everyone commented on what a great English-sounding name it was. The name is actually Irish,” he says.

Struggling to keep up with demand, the young entrepreneurs realised they needed to make their own clothes based on the classic English pieces that were proving so popular at the time. They opened five shops in the Fulham area, all specialising in different types of apparel, and even opened a barber shop.

“In 1988, we decided to buy a shop in Boston and rather overstretched ourselves in a market we were not ready for. We managed until about 1992 before looking for outside help,” says Hackett. That year, the retail business was bought by luxury company Dunhill Group, which later became Richemont Group. “This allowed us to open on Sloane Street – probably one of the best moves we ever made – as well as on Jermyn Street and in Paris,” he explains.

Three years ago, the business was bought for£16 million by Spanish investment group Torreal, which saw a great opportunity for the Hackett name internationally, pushing the wholesale side of the business. When it took over, Hackett had about 50 points of sale, including shops, concessions and wholesale. Now, it can be found in more than 500 outlets worldwide.

In the year to March 31, the retailer increased its turnover 30 per cent against the same period last year, reaching sales of£50 million. Hackett says developing the brand and protecting the Hackett identity has been the most important part of growing the business.

Detail and presentation are the oxygen for everything Hackett does, so much so that, in 2005, he even got his own column in The Independent on Sunday, writing about the “finer things in life” under the name Mr Classic. The articles have now been serialised in a book.

Hackett says he acquired these values while working for John Ingram as a salesman at his Savile Row tailor John Michael. “He was emphatic about everything in the shop having his name on it,” he recounts. “I saw how important this was for a brand and, from the very start of our own label, I insisted that the name went on everything. This was difficult, particularly at the beginning, because we were ordering in such small quantities.”

During the Euro 2002 football tournament, Hackett faced one of his toughest challenges in terms of brand identity. His polo shirts designed with the St George’s Cross on them became instant best-sellers. This seemed positive for the business – which could barely keep up with demand – until Hackett realised they were becoming the staple for every English football hooligan.

“We had to curb this and made a decision not to go down that route,” he explains. “It was very lucrative, but would have damaged the brand in many other ways. Richemont Group had many approaches from buyers who would have taken the brand down that road, but thankfully they did not accept, or God knows where we would be now.”

The brand continues to examine opportunities in new markets. This year, it will open outlets in Munich, Geneva and Japan and is negotiating for a shop on New York’s Madison Avenue. Hackett also hopes to open a store in Edinburgh and will have a site in the Westfield centre that opens later this year at London’s White City.

Internationally, he believes there is still strong demand for classic English brands. “In Japan, for example, they have such a romantic aura about England; they love the rules and the etiquette,” he says. “In England, we don’t like the rules and just want to break them.”