"JOINING THE DOTS" - ADVENTURES IN PROVENCE

"JOINING THE DOTS" - ADVENTURES IN PROVENCE

I'm often accused of subliminally joining the dots which, as a regular touchstone, relates initially to places.

In the early 1990's I sold my Marketing/Branding advisory business to a City of London Institution  - Worth Investment Trust where the rationale was to  invest in non-quoted stocks relative to historical luxury brands hopefully with the benefit of the cachet of Royal Warrants, my previous experience in Brand extension being the key.  This business then joined forces with the Edmond de Rothchild Bank in Rue Faubourg Saint Honore - Paris where there was a similar philosophy concerning luxury brands where I have to say the French were much more organised and supportive of the crafts person, the ethos and culture of fine workmanship in every aspect of beautiful things being made to be used in the home or worn.

The French organisation that creates this support is named Comite Colbert and I have to say that the British effort to mirror this custodianship unfortunately pales into insignificance by comparison, possibly because we as a nation have allowed all those delightful old brands, crafts and workmanship to disappear - the  Pearson Group/Financial Times are the major contributors to the British Custodians - Walpole.

Whilst working in Paris with the French end of this joint operation, I was asked to review whether a variety of French brands, some of them not necessarily old, might be susceptible to beefing up that particular brand and extend its profile overseas with a continual hint of 'French Chic'.  One such brand was Cacharel, being  named after the local name of the garganey (Anas querquedula, a small duck) in the Camargue (cacharel, standard French sarcelle d’été).which was formed in 1962 in Nimes as a fragrance brand and subsequently fashion, the fashion then dropping away and the fragrance just jogging along  although Cacharel scarves have forever been in demand.

1991 economic downturn in the Western world caused havoc with investors and  Worth Investment who was working with  non-quoted stocks elected to exit this sector and I followed the bath water!

Of interest, in the late 80's, prior to selling out, I was predominantly in the business of creating marketable brands that were topically in tune with the market place here in the UK but at the same time tapped into 'what was coming'.  To this end, I had created the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady Collection, I had organised through partnerships the funding of the creation of the TV series 'Thomas The Tank Engine' and I had, through my ever attendant antennae, sensed a desire for all things French influenced by the success of Peter Mayle's book 'A Year in Provence'.  On the premise of 'have bag will travel' I took myself off to Provence staying in Arles and visiting the Camargue delta of the Rhone with its etang/lakes, the wild white horses, the pink flamingos, the desalination drying beds, the gypsy festivals, Django Rheinhardt and the fabulous Provencal fabric designs by Souleido, all of which were influenced by the fabrics worn by the gypsies who over the centuries had come from India with these traditional Indian designs such as the  paisleys.

Arles was famous in as much that Van Gogh lived down there, Christian Lacroix was born there and Terence Conran had a home there.

Of interest, Cacharel is the Provencal French word for a duck that lives in the Camargue - so we start to join the dots.

From my daily clipping I noted that Cacharel from predominantly adverts for fragrance over the last 20 years  has changed it's profile and increased the fashion element I suspect because of some canny investment from private equity?

Flipping back to my activities in Camargue, we created a brand design programme which involved wallpaper, fabrics, bedding and the like and at the same time we put together a cross merchandising programme using some of these created designs for everything that could be used in the kitchen and managed to sell the whole concept in about 1987 to Boots Cook Shop, they having purchased an old high street brand - Timothy White's in the 60's- where they had had a concentration on cook shop items.

Debenhams picked up the bedding and home furnishings and we even managed to convince them to do some Camargue fashion, which at the time was being run by Angus Munro, who over the years moved on and for a while ran Matalan.

The delight for me is that I have been able to retain a memory aided by some phenomenal archival images on everything I've been involved in over the years, but more critically also everything that has appeared in the same category.

I hopefully will forever be able to 'join the dot's with anecdotal reminences from around the globe.