“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything”
Mark Twain
This weekend that has just passed I wore some of my favourite watches, my genuine authentic totally real, totally still have the receipts ones. A Grand Seiko, the first limited edition for Australia, with a magnificent pink dial. I had on also my Seiko Alpinist, a totally righteous green dial and elegant sports watch that looks more like a PP Calatrava. And my 34 mm Rolex oyster perpetual which I bought after I sold two other watches I never wore. Beautiful watches I hope to always own. God willing.
I mention this because of my initial quote above. Which is to say that when I wear things that aren’t real I have to spend my time telling everyone that compliments my “less than real” items that they are in fact not the real thing because, as Mark Twain suggests, it’s a lot more taxing on you if you are deceptive. When you wear something that is real you don’t need to explain yourself, you just take the compliment and move on. If it’s not real you feel compelled, well I do anyway, to fess up lest you should be caught out further down the line for saying nothing, and subsequently your character is called into question.
Having a few fakes has been actually really interesting to think about over the past 12 months. I have some real Cartier sunglasses, I have some fake ones that I take to the beach and don’t mind if they get sand in the hinges. I have a real Loro Piana cashmere snow jacket, I got given some super clone Loro Piana loafers from a Chinese contact. I love both very much, the real and the unreal. In fact, the real ones are totally unreal! Sometimes anyway.
This week I received some magnificent new silks from the looms in Italy, I know they are real because I have the dockets to prove it and I have seen them getting woven and I am friends with the people that work in and own the looms. And on that front I sleep easy at night. I also know that we cut those silks here in our own workroom, so I have had a personal relationship with them before they even hit the website as finished product. I run my hands across them to test for the grain, I watch our designs go from vector graphics to a finished woven product, I select the colours from blankets woven for us to choose from and I am chiefly the one responsible for tying every bow tie that leaves our Studio. So on a Mark Twain level, within that scope of our business, I don’t have to remember anything, because it’s just my truth.
And how often in this modern world do any of us get to speak to the person that actually made our products? Doubtless that if you went into Hermes there’s almost no chance you will be meeting your leather artisan that put your bag together. Needless to say that you also won’t be able to distinguish the real thing from the Chinese artisan that’s making an exact copy concurrently. At Cartier, you are also unlikely to meet your stone setter. In fact the only one’s I think you might still be able to meet are your bespoke shoe makers across all the remaining artisan crafts out there at that level. Shoes seem to still be a very personal level when you get to the bespoke level.
It is for this reason that I still love small business and I love artisans and I still try to support them wherever I can.
I will continue and hope to be that person for you moving forward and I hope you will forgive me that I wore a few “less than real” items these past twelve months, trust me, I am working on it. I keep asking myself how I can justify it since every day I strive to be the best at what I do. But the lines are so blurred these days, our boxes are from China, our rose gold hardware, our cotton bags, our cardboard carry bags and many other items that are integral to the experience for our customers. That might be the reason I felt okay with it. Maybe it was being told that so much of what was from luxury brands was in fact made in China irrespectively. Or that Chinese workers occupied factories in Italy.
It might also be that years ago I would turn up to Hermes in Sydney and walk in like a human being would ordinarily do, that I don’t like lining up, and that I don’t like the kinds of people that flocked now to the branded status items like Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Cartier and the like. Nothing wrong with these brands at all, it was what was happening at the consumer level. Seeing some unusual cat walking out top to toe in status symbols from ill gotten gains, I must admit, I was being a snob, but I didn’t want to be a part of it. On one occasion two years ago now I believe, I was in Cartier in Sydney and the cash machine was loudly counting cash whilst next to me a CHAV looking man with tattoos from his feet to his neck was using said cash to buy his girlfriend a new bracelet. Just saying. It’s not Cartier’s fault. It just leaves an impression on you, that’s all.
So where does that leave you and me? I don’t know. I’d like you to know I intend to keep making here in Australia using the finest Italian silks, along with some Japanese and English ones too - and that my point of difference will be that I won’t get too big for you, I will answer my phone, as I am your servant, here to make silk into your favourite accessories.
And, with hope, I will do as Mark Twain suggests, tell the truth, and have no need to remember anything.
New silks are online. Text me if you need something made - +61413140994