The Eric Musgrave Interview: Simon Carter on 40 years in menswear
This year premium menswear brand Simon Carter celebrates its 40th anniversary. The eponymous frontman and driving force of the business gave up medical studies to dive into the fashion world in 1985. Here Simon Carter, Esquire reveals how Simon Carter Ltd has flourished for four decades.
Do you consider yourself a designer, an entrepreneur, a company owner, or something else?
I’ve always regarded myself as adequate all round, rather than excellent at one area. I’m something more than a proprietor when it comes to business, but not a hardnosed entrepreneur. I know good design when I see it, but don’t have the skill to draw it well. However, having this compromise of composites is probably the reason the business has survived 40 years. Some many brilliant designers are just that - and they fail as they haven’t a clue how to run a business.
What early influences do you now look back on as important for redirecting you from immunology to menswear?
My heart was never in the whole sciences and medical thing. It was a dull sense of obligation and parental pleasing. I’d always been interested in fashion and vintage clothing, and the Kings Road in the early 1980s was an electrifying moment in time. Somehow, I secured a job one day a week at Eat Your Heart Out, a hugely popular vintage store, and from that moment, I was hooked.
People frequently brought in items to sell, and one day someone came in with a simple 1930s motorcyclist brooch. I’ve always been a fanatic about British bikes, so the owners of the shop let me have the brooch instead of my wages. Everyone loved it on my jacket, so I thought: “Aha! Maybe I could have some made and sell them.” I found a factory in Cornwall that could reproduce them exactly in pewter, put my life savings into having 100 made up, then trudged up and down the Kings Road, going from shop to shop, and selling them. That was the start.
Meanwhile, I plodded through three years of immunology, managed a 2:1, then enrolled on the graduate management training scheme at Fenwick in 1985. That taught me so much about retail, buying and how department stores work. I was developing the business in my free time, sourcing old pieces to copy and designing new ones. Eventually I took the decision to quit Fenwick and go it alone. Complementing the brooches, I began with cufflinks, tie slides and stickpins, all made in the UK, before adding small leather goods in 1992 and watches in 1993.
An early Simon Carter catalogue
Since 1985 what have been the key changes in the UK marketplace that have benefited or held back Simon Carter Ltd?
The 80s was a great time to start a business though, of course, you only see that in the rear-view mirror. Suddenly, people were dressing up, wearing accessories, and starting to wear cufflinks in a way that hadn’t been since the early part of the century. I was in the right place at the right time and became known as The King of Cufflinks.
From early on, trade shows were important to find new stockists. Being accessory-based meant that my products crossed both clothing and gift shops, so we showed at (seasonal menswear events) IMBEX / MAB for the former, and (gifts show) Top Drawer for the latter. There were many more indies then, and we had a national network of four agents who really helped to tap into that market.
House of Fraser and John Lewis were both important anchor stockists early on and by 1990 my brand was in Selfridges, Harrods, Liberty, Hof, JLP and around 100 better independent stockists. Japan was my first serious export market, and we established presence there with the support of the BKCEC, a forerunner to UKFT. I did my first trade fair in Tokyo and Osaka in 1989, followed by Pitti Uomo in Florence from 1998 to 2019. Working with an agent/distributor is essential in Japan; one wrong move and you find yourself frozen out of the market for no obvious reason. Today, we supply direct on accessories but have a master licensee who sublicenses for different product categories from shirts to formal wear.
Later, in the late 1990s, most major brands expanded their accessory offer, so the market became crowded and very label-led, which was definitely a challenge. My international business grew through licensing in the 2000s and as new markets opened, the appetite for established British brands grew. My Indian operation is a good example. The most recent change that has impacted negatively has been the decline of the serious independent menswear shop, and the disappearance of House of Fraser as we knew it.
How do you define the Simon Carter “look” and how long did it take you to achieve it?
Today, as the formalwear market has shrunk, we no longer sell suits, and only a couple of styles of double-cuff shirt. The range is shirt-led, with a collection of around 25 new designs each season. The jackets are important, too, and intended to be versatile. We work solely with European mills and always keep quality uppermost in product design. It’s a look that’s easy to wear with good jeans (we sell collaboration Betty Smith denim from Japan in our shops), lightweight knitwear or one of our jackets. I call it a transition look; it’ll take you from work meetings to the pub. A silk pocket square always adds a sprauncy flourish. In effect, we really do top to toe, with hats and scarves in A/W, down to a strong sock business all year round. My customers appreciate quality and design and aren’t dazzled by brands but have a more independent state of mind.
Inside the Simon Carter Mayfair store
As House of Fraser moved away from brands like mine, I decided that opening stand-alone Simon Carter stores was the way ahead. I had opened a small shop (and I mean small) in the Quadrant Arcade off Regents Street in 1996 which had an equally small showroom above, but we soon grew out of there and opened in Mayfair’s Shepherd Market in 2001, adding stores in Chiswick, Bow Lane, Blackheath and Crystal Palace among other locations. Today we have four branches. They sell only Simon Carter with the occasional guest brand or collaboration such as our Alan Paine knitwear that’s co-branded for us.
What have you tried that didn’t work?
I’ve always felt that we should do women’s accessories but every time we try, the response is tepid. Bit of a mystery. I think that having done menswear for 40 years, there may be a bit of a sense of being pigeon-holed.
Simon Carter pictured circa 1994
How did you manage to continue the business with your co-director Wendy when you split as a married couple in 1994?
It was a challenge to navigate at first, as feelings were raw, but we’ve always been such a great team and respected each other that we came out the other side stronger. Wendy is superb at running the machinery of the business while I am more front of house, so our skill sets have always been complementary.
How easy was it to take the Simon Carter brand in to licensing and then take it internationally?
My first license was for ties, back in the early 90’s. Remember when ties were a thing? At the time, my accessories were selling very well in House of Fraser, so they agreed to buy the tie collection, and that bulk order gave the licensee the confidence to proceed. Shirts followed and then suits. I’ve had a master licensee in Japan for over 20 years, and his role is to find and manage sub-licensees for various categories. My business in India spun out of being stocked at The Collective, a small high-end department store chain there. The brand performed well, so their owner, Aditya Birla, approached me for a full brand partnership. This is design, production, retail, franchise. It may well be my legacy as there are 15 Simon Carter shops in the best malls in India now and it’s continuing to expand.
A Simon Carter store in India
How many people has the company employed at different times in its development?
It started with simply me in 1985, with a leather Gladstone bag of 100 pewter motorcyclist brooches, trudging down the Kings Road knocking on doors. It felt a huge move, two years later, to employ an admin assistant. Thereafter the staff levels grew to a peak of around 20, including all the shop part-timers, and it’s remained static there for a few years now. We needed to slim down during and after Covid but then we opened our Piccadilly Arcade shop so added to the payroll again.
Tell us about your involvement in the wider industry, such as with UKFT, The Twenty Club, even the V&A…
I’ve been a non-exec on the board at the UK Fashion & Textile Association for nearly 10 years. I keep thinking I’ve outstayed my welcome and someone will have a quiet word. It’s a remarkable organisation that has grown hugely under the leadership of Adam Mansell, and its remit has widened to include training, green initiatives and industry lobbying, as well as supporting individual members. It’s now the go-to for government liaison and I’m very proud to be involved.
I love a good networking dinner and The Twenty Club is just perfect for that. We meet four times a year at Home House and it’s good to gossip and share the trials and tribulations of the trade with a sympathetic audience.
I continue to mentor and support start-ups and feel that I gain more than they do. I’m always impressed by their energy and new way of looking at the world. I’ve been a patron at the V&A and am always attracted by the interface between art and design.
Simon Carter current collection
Which persons or companies in the industry have impressed or inspired you over the past 40 years?
One of my first career breaks was being asked to produce a jewellery collection for Next in the mid-1980s, just as it was launching and transforming the fashion landscape. The range, loosely based on Russian Constructivist art, was for men and women. Next was very much George Davies’ business; very seat-of-the-pants, exciting, bold. He truly had a vision and had the strength of character to take everyone around him on the journey. In the past two decades Simon Wolfson has built a retail giant on those early days.
I’d have to add Sir Paul Smith to my list of heroes, even though it’s been very annoying over the decades to be on the cusp of launching a new design or product only to see that he’d just done it.
Tell us about your private label business…
It’s always been a bit under the radar, but over the last few years our bespoke business has grown enormously. We’re lucky to work with some extremely good clients, across many areas, and I derive great satisfaction from helping to design and produce really great products for others. Part of the success of this side of the business is that we de-risk it for potential clients; everything is free up to the point of placing an order, even including samples. Between me and the rest of the team we have well over half a century of experience and customers value that.
Are you looking forward to the next 40 years of running Simon Carter Ltd?
Oh, how we laugh… However, I look at Bernard Lewis still popping into River Island most days in his late 90s. I just hope I’ll still be relevant.
If you were starting again tomorrow, what would you do differently?
Not much. I stand by every product I’ve ever produced. The only difference would be that I’d charge twice as much and be taken four times as seriously.
