LIFE
MY FASHION LIFE /Justin Rhodes, founder of Elliot Rhodes
CGJ: How on earth did you get the idea of opening a belt shop? Justin Rhodes: I’ve always loved belts. I remember, 23-24 years ago first discovering this shop in Paris—they’re still there—that just sells belts and buckles, really artisanal. I went in there and thought, I really like this. Years later, I lived in Paris for four years, and I used to go back to the shop from time to time. At the time, I was trying to figure out what to do with myself. I’d been in fashion all my professional career, and I had become increasingly disenchanted. I was cogitating about what I wanted to do, and I’d always had this thing about wanting to be in retail. I’d always wanted to create a world that drew other people in, to make them experience something different. The belt thing felt like it might be the germ of something. People buy shoes from shoe shops and bags from bag shops, but belt shops barely seem to exist... There are a few of us around the world, but not many. The belt, as a product, had become more and more side-lined—you go to a clothes shop, and it’s there in a dark corner, usually dragging in the dust. There’s never a selection, never the size you need, and it’s entirely logo dominated—it’s about having a Gucci buckle or a Boss buckle. It’s just not glamorous. You can buy a £500 pair of shoes, a £1,000 belt, and you have to buy one of the three belts they’ve got to choose from. That can’t be right.
and see us. The product has to be great, the environment has to be great, and the people have to be great, but if you get those things right specialist niche retailers really can thrive. Probably everybody in the country owns a belt, so it’s not exactly a niche product... It’s an essential. If I was trying to sell pocket handkerchiefs that would be different. But there is a genuine functional purpose to a belt. I’m not trying to convince people that they need a belt, I’m trying to convince them that they need more than one, and that it should fit properly. Everyone said to me: “You’re stupid, how can you fill a shop with belts?” so I knew that we were going to have to educate people, person to person, and try to change the perception of a product that was considered absolutely boring. My belief was that if we could help to change that perception, the market could actually be huge.
Have you proved those doubters wrong? Retail is a bit like a theatre. You do your rehearsals, you get the scenery together, you have all the right actors, then you hope to god that when you open that curtain on the first night there’s actually someone sitting in the seats. From the day I decided to do this, we opened a year later. I found suppliers, I travelled around Italy and Spain, sourcing products, designing systems, designing stores, packaging design. Then we opened. In a way that’s the most exciting time—the anticipation is all there. Then you Is there a place for your kind of highly have bills to pay, and it’s terrifying. But we’re specialised retailer? still here almost nine years later, and we’re Fifteen or 20 years ago, specialist retail growing and evolving and improving. It’s that began to go the way of the ark. It all became thing with entrepreneurs, I suppose, where about bigger supply chains, more volume, if everyone thinks it’s a brilliant idea at the economies of scale. It became progressively time then it’s probably too obvious. hard to be a niche specialist business. We went from having very personal All of your belts and buckles are experiences with our shopkeepers interchangeable. Was that always the to suddenly having a very impersonal plan? relationship with no one, probably Yes, that has always been core to what we epitomised by Ikea where the experience is do. I love the idea that a product can be a positive displeasure, but things do seem endlessly reinvented. If you buy a shirt, you to be turning around again. Everything’s buy a shirt. But I can sell you a belt that can cyclical. We live in a world where people be many different belts. Most importantly, can buy products with the click of a mouse, it allows you to choose something that is so as retailers we have to have a really you. I’m a very anti-brand person—everyone good reason for shoppers to actually come should have their own style, their own way 16 Covent Garden Journal Issue 21 Autumn 2013
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