Millennials are demanding exclusive bespoke services, and luxury brands like Fendi and Ettinger are listening

With the market for high-end goods getting more crowded, it is tough for brands to stand out. There are the usual limited editions and celebrity endorsements, but a bespoke service is a claim to quality. While luxury brands have been offering tailor-made services for a long time, there have been some new entrants lately. Take Ettinger. The British leather goods company has a long and esteemed history – it was established in 1934. For the first time in its 85-year history, it has launched its first bespoke service. Starting with the product choice, customers can then select leather, colour, stitching details, lining and type of monogramming. Since the result is a bag or wallet designed for the individual, and in part by the individual, Ettinger has – unusually for luxury brands – offered the option to forego the application of its own logo. “We felt this was the right time to do this,” says Robert Ettinger, managing director of Ettinger. “It’s not easy to launch bespoke – you need the skills, of course, but also the right training for those selling it. It’s time-consuming, too. But we looked around and saw [an increasing number of] brands turning to bespoke products. “The fact is so many luxury brands are visible and widely available that it raises the question of what luxury is if everyone seems to have what they make. People associate luxury with exclusivity, yes, but also now with individualism.” Travel like a rich millennial: 4 bespoke experiences in Asia Polls back this up. Research by Deloitte in 2017 found that 40.6 per cent of Chinese millennial consumers were ready to pay a premium to get a product in some way personalised to them, with 71.4 per cent of US millennial consumers saying the same – suggesting that bespoke still has plenty of room for growth regionally. A bespoke service is one way brands can also take on other pressures facing the ready-made luxury goods market – the issue of authentication, the increased demand for transparency, and even the trend of renting rather than owning luxury goods. A bespoke service also provides valuable customer insight – just what is it that customers want – that can offer feedback for a brand’s more “standard” products. Brands like Dior, for example, have long offered bespoke services. Ettinger is not the only brand to have launched bespoke recently. Italian menswear company Brioni has extended its bespoke option to include denim – its jeans are now available personally tailored, with a choice of fabric, stitching, hardware and monogramming. If getting a name for yourself as a specialist maker of swimming trunks is a challenge, Havelock Bay has given itself a boost with the launch of its bespoke service, while tailoring-oriented designer Joshua Kane shows his diversity by extending his bespoke service to include a leather biker jacket made to your specifications. Pink Shirtmaker has undergone a brand overhaul – the LVMH-owned British shirtmaker was formerly known as Thomas Pink – central to which has been the launch of a bespoke service out of its London workshop and new Beijing store (with two more stores in China to follow in the spring, including one in Shanghai). Unusually, Pink is offering a full pattern service with a huge range of fabrics – there are 71 shades of a white, with a recent client ordering in 50 of them – but without a minimum order and priced according to the fabrics selected. People associate luxury with exclusivity, yes, but also now with individualism Robert Ettinger “Pink had got to a sorry situation over recent years and people would question if the company could really do proper shirt-making,” says Pink’s chief executive Christopher Zanardi-Landi. “Launching a bespoke service is a way of showing that we’re capable of the pinnacle of the shirtmaker’s art – and why, having decided to launch bespoke, we haven’t cut any corners. But we also wanted bespoke to be more attainable rather than the once-in-a-lifetime experience that it is for most people. How bespoke high jewellery is created for the super-rich “Most bespoke has an ‘exclusive’ price tag attached but we wanted bespoke to feel like something you could enjoy fairly regularly.” In the atelier: how Corthay’s bespoke shoes are made Brands looking to find a new audience – or retain a newly demanding audience – through a bespoke offer is not limited to clothing. Last year, the Hilton hotel group launched a dedicated online platform to facilitate the creation of bespoke experiences for its guests. And furniture brand Heal’s introduced a bespoke service to counteract the “flat-pack, off-the-shelf culture”, as the company has put it. Luxury car companies like Rolls-Royce have long offered bespoke programmes, but more prevalent now are external design agencies ready to put a spin on a car that perhaps takes it beyond the manufacturer’s comfort zone. For example, Swiss company R-Reforged has teamed up with Ian Callum – ex-head of design at Jaguar – to build specialist versions of Aston Martin’s Vanquish. Aston itself has launched a bespoke garage design service. Technology is likely to bring more brands to finally dip a toe into, if not full bespoke, then at least the personalisation that is so in demand. Online shopping makes it easier and more affordable for luxury brands to do so – both for new start-ups such as Unmade knitwear, Son of a Tailor T-shirts and Hawthorne Lab fragrances, as well as established brands like Fendi – with 3D printing and robotics perhaps taking matters further still. These are the world’s 9 most valuable sneakers – do you own a pair? “Tech is going to be huge in bringing a much more personalised experience to a lot of the things we buy,” adds Zanardi-Landi. “And that’s right for the times. There are more consumers who are more connoisseur-like. There’s a desire to have things that are beautiful and genuine and that allow people to express their individuality but which are also discreet. Bespoke brings all of that.” Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter

Millennials are demanding exclusive bespoke services, and luxury brands like Fendi and Ettinger are listening

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}People associate luxury with exclusivity, but also now with individualism – and companies are cashing in on the demand for customised luxury goods

People associate luxury with exclusivity, but also now with individualism – and companies are cashing in on the demand for customised luxury goods