While at Sundance, we stopped in this cute boutique called Mary Jane’s [they’ll be more detail on this store when we do Places to Shop in Park City in a couple of weeks] when I spotted these glistening, tan handbags. They were quite large which is a prerequisite for all bags I purchase, but the craftsmanship resembled one of immaculate detailing. By destiny the designer and owner of the accessories brand, Basil Racuk, happened to be there allowing us some one-one to chat about his history in fashion, how bespoke alters the customer experience, and why a story tends to trump volume any day.
Tell us a bit about your history fashion.
I started this line about eight years ago, because I wanted to get back to using my hands. I come from the Seventh Avenue background, and I got kind of tired. So started building things, and these are the result of what happened from here. These are my men’s bespoke bags. I opened a shop in San Francisco a few years ago and quickly pivoted to women’s. The collection is really rooted in the idea of Northern California and craft of Northern California which was big in the 60s and 70s. In the ensuing years, what’s happened is now you either get design or you get craft, but you don’t really get both, and you don’t get me. Meaning you don’t really get somebody who gets those things; who you can work with to create something.
Many people don’t recognize a differential, but can you give an example bespoke vs. non-bespoke?
This is a real good example of something that can happen in the bespoke world. You can have me hand paint something. You can have me extend something or shrink something. It’s all up to you; the idea with what I’m doing is that the product is a byproduct of our experience.
What does that do for the customer experience?
I’m giving the reins back to the customer and saying, “It’s your world, it’s your bag and it’s your experience. You can do what you want to do.” Obviously you can buy stuff off of a rack, but if you want something custom, you can, because we have the work space inside of the retail space. That’s the general idea here. It’s not something very old. Like you think about it, like a hundred years ago, Prada and Gucci were doing this.
Yeah, but they don’t really anymore.
Right, and you don’t find it in the States. When you do find it, you’re going to find somebody who is a great craft person, but who isn’t necessarily a designer at this level.
Do you see that people are reverting back to the old way of wanting both great craftsmanship and design, not being a trend but more of a lifestyle?
We hear about it more. I think the idea is definitely out there. Like I think today it’s been editorialized for the last few years for sure. The question is, if people want it, where are they going to get it? Do you know what I mean? You have like all these companies that are out there now. I’m tired of them. They are saying, we’re bespoke. But it’s like, you’re really not, because it’s made in China, so don’t try it. I think people want it though. To answer your question, yeah, they want it but they can’t have it because they don’t know where to get it.
So where are things at right now?
I’m in this interesting situation now where I’ve got the collection. It’s all set. I’ve got the retail space and this year for me is about marketing. You know because 2016 is all about this because people do want it, and I think that the thing I have to be careful with is, if all of a sudden I have this deluge that say, Anna Wintour decides that I’m her next best friend. That would be a problem because I make everything myself. So it’s not a volume proposition. It’s quite the opposite. It’s about person to person. So we have a couple of people who sew with me and they are old friends. They have been with me for a long time. We just did a big Banana Republic national launch for holiday and that was crazy because my work space is literally this big and it’s three machines on a cutting table and four people – in Banana Republic time. So we are up to our eyeballs in stuff. It’s crazy. You know ordinarily, it’s just me and I’m behind a machine and it’s fine, you know and I’m building my customer basis.
Yikes, those decisions must be difficult.
On the one hand, you want to get the volume and build, but on the other hand, is it true to story. And I tend to go towards, “Let’s do the story.” I don’t have to have all the money, which I don’t, then let’s just build the story and have a good time with it.
So the material that is used, how is it sourced?
I have a distributor in California who I work with. My perimeter is that it be domestic, that the skins be domestic. I go off the ranch once in a while cause he will show me some sick skin out of Italy and I’ll be like, “Just give it to me, I need it.” This week, actually we just bought them upfront. That stack there, is actually a stack of leathers that are my stock skins. So you know if you want to go rustic, you can. But if you want to go Tribeca, you can go there too. So I’m giving you those options because not everybody wants to look like Roy Rogers, you know like my male customers are hedge fund guys. They are you know people who can go to Prada, can go to Bottega. They can go to Hermes. But the point is they are coming to me because their buddies are like,“What’s that?”