The Interview: Alistair and Gillian Tusting on maintaining and building a truly British brand

While all eyes are currently on the catwalks of Paris and how the major international luxury brands will reinvent themselves to appeal to a jaded customer, tired of incessant and unjustified price hikes, British luxe leathergoods brand Tusting has quietly unveiled its autumn collection. 

The family-owned and run business has been making bags in the UK for five generations (the business was started in 1875) with each one crafted in its UK factory in a week-long process, using high quality British or European leather. Prices for women's handbags start at around £400 while larger pieces of luggage can go up to £1,500.

Compared to the big luxury houses, these prices are tiny and yet the quality of the Tusting product is as good, if not better. Its silhouettes are clean and the colour palette is refined. These are bags that can be worn, repaired and passed down through the generations. A brand like Tusting doesn't need a big name designer to generate excitement, the designs are truly ageless and timeless.

Based in Buckinghamshire, Tusting has quietly built up an in-the-know and loyal customer base here in the UK and internationally.

We talk to director Alistair Tusting and head of brand Gillian Tusting about the brand's approach to manufacturing, the challenges of maintaining production in the UK and their plans for growth, including a bricks and mortar store

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The Tusting brand must be a rarity, still family-owned after all these years. Can you tell us a little about the brand's history and which generation of family leadership are we on now?

Alistair Tusting (AT): We're now on the 5th generation of the family, with occasional appearances from the 6th generation when we need some extra hands on deck! The origin of the business lies in tanning and finishing leather and supplying it to the local Northamptonshire and wider global shoe trade. The family has therefore always been working in leather, and as the shoe trade declined here, we looked for a diversification – from that grew our leather goods-making operation and the Tusting brand that we have today.

Can you please tell us about the shape of the business today? Where are you based, how many staff and where the brand is sold?

Gillian Tusting (GT): We're based in the North Buckinghamshire countryside, on the borders of Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, just a few miles from where the family tanning business was for over 150 years. We have just under 20 people in the team at the moment, and we make everything we sell from scratch right here. We also pack and ship our bags directly from here, straight to customers all over the world, from Australia to Arizona.

How do you both divide up your roles at the business today? 

AT: Gillian is Head of Brand, looking after the development of the brand, encompassing all the marketing and communications and the whole customer experience. She has a small team that accomplishes all that, while I manage all the operations, manufacturing and finance. We mostly manage to keep from stepping on each other's toes!

There is so little true British manufacturing left. How have you managed to maintain your integrity, and indeed the skill-base, to keep your design and production here?

GT: This is the real challenge for all British makers – it's fundamentally very expensive to manufacture in the UK and recent taxation changes have made that worse. Maintaining the skill base isn't easy either, since for decades in the UK, we've trained our young people to steer away from skilled manual labour careers. However, this means that here, we tend to get slightly older recruits who have re-routed after unsatisfying office jobs. They are happy to learn a skill and then enjoy the work, and see the value in their contributions.

Making here in the UK also allows us some benefits, such as a very short supply chain. We source our materials as far as we can in the UK and Europe, so we are generally not waiting months for materials to arrive. We make everything right here, and we're able to make in frequent, small batches, so we don't live in fear stock surpluses or demands we can't fulfil because something sells out. This allows us to protect our brand value, have really consistent pricing, and gives us great agility to respond to the changing needs of the market.

All that feeds into maintaining our integrity. We are very focused on delivering great value in our offer, and communicating that value clearly, so that customers understand and appreciate what they are getting. Once they appreciate that, they tend to come back for more.

Can you explain the production process to us. Where are you sourcing your leathers and hardware, how is each bag constructed and how long does it take?

AT: The production process starts with the leather – we buy it already finished, from the tanneries we use in the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany, depending on the type of leather we need for each design. We focus on tanneries that have been certified as 'gold rated' (the highest rating) by the Leather Working Group, an industry watchdog that assesses the tanneries and grades their working practices on ethical and environmental grounds. Traceability and transparency of leather production are vital - when made well and consciously, leather is a fabulously sustainable material. Hardware is the hardest… production of the pieces we need has all but disappeared from the UK. We use beautiful Swiss-made zippers but some small fittings do have to come from the Far East.

The process goes like this:

• We cut the leather using metal pattern knives (they are like super-sharp cookie cutters, and they are made locally)
• Every pattern piece has its edges finished with dye applied to all the exposed edges to give a clean finish that blends in with the grain surface
• The pieces are then thinned as needed to enable the weight, strength and seams to be the correct thickness in the finished piece
• The pieces of leather and required hardware begin to be assembled together and then sewn together, which progressively builds the body panels for the bag
• Flat panel sub-assemblies are then put together to create the three-dimensional shape. The interior seams are finished to give a neat internal finish.
• The completed bag is then fully inspected before packaging.

This process will take about a week to complete.

What about the designs? Who is in charge of that, and are there particular Tusting design signatures?

GT: We are both ultimately responsible for the designs, and we have definitely evolved an identifiable DNA over the years. We draw in design expertise to help bring our ideas to life, and refine the offer - it's a collaborative process, and one we know we want to improve further. We have a broad offer of products because we sell both ladies' and men's personal bags, together with the travel luggage sitting across both sectors. So, there is always a lot to try to keep fresh whilst not losing the 'classic' factor that ensures genuine longevity of style.

The bags are clearly designed and made to last. Do you offer repair services for customers?

GT: The bags are absolutely made to last, and they really do - we know there are many bags still going strong that were made over 30 years ago. It's the very definition of a sustainable product, I think, if it was made that long ago and is still being used! And yes, we are very proud to offer a repair service for our products; we have a steady stream of hard-worked bags coming in for a refurb. Customers absolutely love having their much-loved bag restored to full function and ready for another decade or more of adventures.

It's not perhaps the best business model to have a product with such longevity, in-built obsolescence is probably more modern, but I feel we sell plenty of bags on the back of the reputation gained from the quality of what we do, and it feels a lot more honourable.

What about marketing in general. How do you go about that with a heritage brand? Are there ambassadors and influencers you work with for instance?

GT: 
It’s not always easy with a heritage brand to strike a balance between the ‘oldness’ of the heritage and the relevance we want to portray for today’s audience – but it’s a challenge we’re happy undertaking and strive to be ever better at. Our authenticity and authority in the marketplace, which our five generations of acquired knowledge bring, has led us to do some wonderful partnerships, such as with India Hicks on handbags and Aston Martin on their luggage, and they are a lovely way to be introduced to new audiences.

Of course, we’re a direct-to-consumer brand, so we must use digital marketing channels as well as press and influencer coverage to spread awareness of our offer. There is really no ceiling to what you could spend doing that, and whilst we long for more budget (who doesn’t?) we’re after steady, sustainable growth. Next on the shopping list will be a Tusting bricks-and-mortar store in London, which our customers demand almost daily, but that will come when we can be sure of doing it beautifully and for the long haul.

Meanwhile, we have been very blessed to have been supported completely organically by some very high-profile individuals (such as the Princess of Wales) and that kind of luck is hopefully a result of getting at least some of the above right.

Do you have a loyal customer base and how do you go about acquiring new customers?

GT: We have a very loyal customer base who come and buy again, quite often over a period of many years. They also frequently buy gifts for others after buying for themselves, which I take to be a real vote of confidence. We get new customers by recommendation from existing customers often, and like any modern direct-to-consumer business, the marketing methods (as described above) are absolutely critical to getting ourselves in front of new cohorts.

Are your customers largely UK based or do you have a strong international following?

GT: Our customers are literally all over the world, with at least 50% of our products going to overseas addresses.

What are your thoughts about the luxury industry as it stands? Many of the major houses have been criticised for over-pricing and falling short on quality, do you think this is an opportunity for brands such as yours?

GT: All brands need to be careful of their reputation and some have been rather complacent in thinking that no-one would find out about where their products are actually made, or what they were spending on that. Personally, I find myself very cynical about a lot of them, and their pricing in particular, however, that undoubtedly comes from an 'insider's' postion that allows me to know about the cost of manufacture and pricing architectures. Things are moving quite fast in the media on this though, and it's already pretty uncomfortable for some brands. Ultimately, though, I think this should be good for the consumer.

We believe there is real value in making in the UK and being very clear to our customers that we genuinely do make all our own products in our own workshop in England.

What are your thoughts on British manufacturing in general, what can be done to preserve and possibly expand on what we have?

AT: British manufacturing is tough in that we are always competing against lower-cost producers in Asia and elsewhere. Our society as a whole has rightly decided we need to pay a proper wage for people working in manufacturing companies, but if shoppers don't put value on products made here, as opposed to the lower-cost nations, it doesn't fully work. This is partly why we export so much product – other markets value British-made product more highly than our domestic market does. Our key goals are to maintain our UK production, to be flexible and responsive to the market and to provide excellent service. If we communicate well with customers that there are clear benefits from buying UK-made products, and we make great products, then of course we should be able to expand our manufacturing base. We could really use a bit more support from the UK government, though!

Alistair, please tell us about The Guild of Leathersellers and the role you play there?

AT: The Leathersellers is an ancient City of London Institution whose origin is in the making and selling of leather products. Today, it still has strong links to the UK leather trade which it supports, especially in the education and training of young people to engage with and use leather in all its many wonderful ways. It also has a charitable foundation which focuses its benefaction on young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and more general education. I am a member of the senior managing committee with special responsibility for our engagement with the whole leather trade.

You are the fifth generation to run the business, is there a sixth waiting in the wings?!

Potentially, yes, but they are a bit young yet, and only if they really want to. They would also need to be bringing something new to help take the business forward – there are no shoe-in positions waiting just because they are family!