The END is near ...

[st.tully]

Oh my! Budd, the decidedly old fashioned shirtmaker, has a website AND an email address!! I'm not so sure this is a good thing. I have really enjoyed having to hand write my correspondence with dear Mr. Rowley. I truly hope Budd isn't going the way of some other once great shirtmakers.

http://www.buddshirts.co.uk/

[andreyb]

st.tully, quite interesting news!

Don't worry on your hand-written letters to Mr Rowly, though -- it seems that e-mail is handled by Poppy Charles, who is Huntsman's PR lady.

Andrey

[st.tully]

This new Huntsman purchase of Budd has me worried as well. I have always though Budd charged a fair price for outstanding goods - and I think that I have purchased some of everything they offer: shirts, robes, gloves, ties, night shirts and "Buckingham Shorts"! Huntsman charges a grand more than Poole for a suit - I do not understand why, other than a better website than Poole. So, I am quite afraid Budd will have a similar unexplainable high price. Of course I am not a Huntsman customer, so if someone can enlighten me on the extra Huntsman value, I'd be grateful and perhaps relieved.

[jlazarow]

I am sure it would be best for Peter, Patrick, or Poppy to best explain themselves, but as a happy Huntsman Customer, I will do my best to communicate what Patrick and Peter communicated to me. I do order my shirts from Huntsman (as well as some tailored clothing) and when I met with Patrick and Peter in January, I asked them about the Budd Purchase. They said that it will not affect the Huntsman bespoke shirt service, which will still be Sean O'Flynn. Further, it was demonstrated to me that the investment group purchased Budd to be an additional business, more along the lines of how LVMH, Gucci Group, or Richemont buy companies. I have a feeling that their pricing will stay in line, so long as the business makes money, and Budd will retain its special qualities. Richemont has done a great job of that over years and I have faith this team will do so as well.

[jlazarow]

I forgot to say: I think that the Huntsman ownership group is closer to Richemont than how Americans tend to operate businesses is that David Coleridge their chairman is of a Richemont background and understands how to work with valuable branded assets.

[alden]

If Budd is in the hands of Peter, Patrick and Poppy then do breathe a sigh of relief. The business is in good hands.

[storeynicholas]

Richemont? They are the jokers who closed down Sulka - and do you really say that they have done a great job with Dunhill?! To my mind it is a great (but inevitable) pity that the really good, small family firms will succumb to offers that they can't refuse from huge, faceless international conglomerates. There must be uncertainty when this happens; as there must be some resentment when a whole new tier of management is slid in over your head, after you have given decades of your working life to a family firm.
NJS

[Will]

Richemont? They are the jokers who closed down Sulka - and do you really say that they have done a great job with Dunhill?!

+100

[jlazarow]

Richemont? They are the jokers who closed down Sulka - and do you really say that they have done a great job with Dunhill?! To my mind it is a great (but inevitable) pity that the really good, small family firms will succumb to offers that they can't refuse from huge, faceless international conglomerates. There must be uncertainty when this happens; as there must be some resentment when a whole new tier of management is slid in over your head, after you have given decades of your working life to a family firm.

Richemont is also the company that has managed Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, A. Lange & Sohne, Vacheron Constantin, among others. I feel that their strength is in the luxury jewelry space. What I was hoping claim through is that their ownership group is led by a talented executive who has been successful with one of the worlds great luxury conglomerates. I believe that Richemont's failure in mens apparel might be because the parent company does not know the space. Richemont is best known for jewelry. As a parallel I was hoping to demonstrate that the group is led by a smart and experienced investor who is focusing on mens apparel. They are a small group of committed investors who are going to build a luxury group and I for onem believe in them. This group is certainly not trying to build a large faceless conglomerate. Instead they are focusing on wonderful British brands.

[st.tully]

Well, just to be safe, I am tripling my Spring Budd purchase. Huntsman may be a great steward of Budd's personality and quality, but I doubt they bought Budd for purely altruistic reasons .

I am glad to learn more about the folks behind Huntsman. Perhaps I will poke my head in the door next month for a visit.

[storeynicholas]

Many of the firms that you mention aren't British at all and some of them, such as Dunhill, have become just international luxury 'brands'; headed-up, on the PR side, by Swiss executives who reply to inquiries when (and if), they feel like it. Richemont killed off Sulka, believing that the Dunhill - sorry Doon'ill - brand, headed up by snooty, 22 year old, Swiss girls (and do the Swiss do snooty?!), fresh out of fashion school, would replace it.

There is a far cry from the Budd as we knew it, to what it will, eventually, become. The current staff, I am confident, will continue the traditions, until they are, according to age, eventually, paid off and then, I can't help agreeing with the OP, the END isn't far off. It's all a shame really but, I repeat, an inevitable event. Modern life is increasingly about £££; $$$ and RRR$$$ and a nasty, loud shout of - "Bollocks" - to those of us who remember these firms at their best; as they are sucked-up into faceless international conglomerates, which will turn them into machines to produce modish shite.

Am I a Little-Englander? In certain respects, I suppose that I am; where the best is in issue. But I regard it all largely as a lost cause and that is why I choose to live on the beach and go virtually naked; and, all the while, the executives of the internatiional conglomerates freeze their bollocks off in the cold rain and frost.

I would bet, with any takers (who are not otherwise financially interested inthe outcome), £1000 that, within 24 months, from today, Budd and Webster Bros, as shirtmakers, will have ceased to exist in name, according to their current quality (maybe at all): arbitrators to be agreed at the placing of wagers. I might even stretch to venture that the Budd shop will be taken up by a tattoo and piercing artist.
NJS.

[Noble Savage]

The website, in the present form, is however, of a high quality.

[storeynicholas]

What has the website got to do with it - except to enable eventual self-measure 'bespoke' internet ordering? Moreover the firm has thrived for 100 years without a bloody website.

[st.tully]

I will be back in London next month. I will have six days to investigate the situation. I will give a report upon my return.

[storeynicholas]

I will be back in London next month. I will have six days to investigate the situation. I will give a report upon my return.

I doubt whether there is any 'situation' to investigate yet. It'll take a little while: just as when Imperial Tobacco took over the most successful snuff shop in the world (Fribourg & Treyer), moved it out of the glorious shop, at 34 Haymarket, where it had been since the early 18th Century (the shop now sells tourist tat), and then closed it down altogether; or just as Richemont suddenly closed Sulka: the march of the philistine morons, chief execs and all, always gathers more pace.