UK. Jetting into Cannes on a whistle-stop tour of TFWA World Exhibition, Lulu Guinness looks every inch the quintessentially English handbag and accessories designer.
Maybe it’s the cut-glass accent, the fine breeding (she is, through marriage, one of the wealthy Guinness clan), the signature red lipstick, or the 1950s-style polka-dot jacket she is wearing. Whatever it is, you cannot mistake her as she prepares to meet the journalists who cover the travel retail industry – a sector she has only just begun to exploit, but where listings are being bagged at the speed of a thoroughbred racehorse.
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“You can never have too many bags” and “Put on your pearls, girls” are just two of Lulu’s mottos. Photos by Salina Christmas | ||
But perhaps it’s her truly British love of dogs that really marks Lulu Guinness out from the rest of the chic handbag and accessory crowd. For her beloved West Highland terrier – Waffle the Westie, pictured below right – is one of the inspirations in her quirky designs. He features on both the bags themselves as a recurrent motif and in the latest Lulu Guinness brochure, lying cutely next to her latest handbag creation. (Such is Lulu’s devotion that Waffle even has his own hairdresser, who regularly visits her London house.)
Lulu in travel retail
Whatever it is, the offbeat designs are flying in travel retail outlets. Take a look, for example, at the Lulu Guinness display in the Harrods International department store at London Heathrow Airport terminal one. The unique collection of handbags, purses and accessories doesn’t just stand out by its myriad designs and shapes – a round purse featuring traditional-style telephone numbers, or a handbag replicating the flagship Lulu Guinness boutique in London. The pieces are not only giftable – both for self-purchase and for friends and family – they also, crucially in today’s competitive accessories sphere, satisfy the growing travel retailers’ need for a point of difference in the product offer and for a “souvenir” purchase. If destination merchandise is the next big travel retail thing, then watch these products fly. They are about as English as England gets.
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Perhaps it’s her truly British love of dogs that really marks Lulu Guinness out from the rest of the chic handbag and accessory crowd. For her beloved West Highland terrier – Waffle the Westie – is one of the inspirations in her quirky designs |
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Lulu’s dressing table in her London home – the inspiration behind her new collection of powder compacts, launched this year |
Behind Lulu’s rather eccentric exterior lies business acumen. Though wary of answering detailed financial questions (“I get told off by my Managing Director if I say the wrong thing”), she is acutely aware of the astonishing performance of her products internationally, particularly in the US and Japan. The brand’s turnover now stands at around US$25 million at retail. This fine financial figure is buoyed hugely by a raft of licensing deals struck in Japan, for items as diverse as hats, scarves, umbrellas, parasols, fans, handkerchiefs and flannels.
In the domestic market, four stand-alone stores are trading: as well as two outlets in London, there is a store on Bleecker Street in New York (a red-hot fashion thoroughfare – American designer Marc Jacobs has opened an accessories boutique there) and Japan, in Tokyo’s swanky Roppongi district. As well as bags for all occasions – “from punk to posh”, according to the website – the product range spans scarves, sunglasses, powder compacts (a new venture this year), shoes, umbrellas, stationery, rugs, bedlinen and towels. You’ll soon be able to spin Lulu Guinness plates following a recent deal with British porcelain manufacturer Royal Worcester. Fragrances are handled by Riviera Concepts of Canada, and comprise the signature Lulu Guinness line, with its purple and white striped box, and the new-for-Cannes 2005 Cast A Spell, inspired by fairytales.
In travel retail, handled by industry veteran Richard McGratty, the listings are growing all the time. In just one year since the brand’s channel debut, the sequinned evening bags, whimsical shopfront handbag designs and practical totes have secured listings worldwide. Products are carried onboard major airlines including British Airways (“a champion for us”, says Lulu), Aeroflot, Emirates, Continental, Aer Lingus and Virgin. Airport stockists include Dubai Duty Free, Aer Rianta International at New York JFK, Duty Free Americas in Chicago and JFK, DFASS at Dallas, and at Newcastle (Alpha), London Gatwick and Heathrow Airports (Harrods International) in the UK. A selection of collectible bags and the travel retail collection has been carried onboard the Queen Mary II ship since April 2005 with an exclusive fashion show on each cruise.
Though travel retail’s share of total turnover is estimated at below 1%, the sector’s contribution “is growing very quickly”, according to Lulu Guinness’s equally glamorous Managing Director Casey Gorman.
For details, contact Travel Retail Sales Consultant Richard McGratty, McG Consultants Ltd, tel: +44 20 7431 7743 or email mcgratty@mcg-consultants.co.uk Visit www.luluguinness.com
