From coronations to red telephone booths, Watts 1874 is a textile brand intertwined with British history

0:03This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking to leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guests this week are the team behind the British textile house, Watts 1874, Fiona Flint, the creative director, and the brand's managing director, Marie Severine de Caramont Chimay, better known as MS. The history of Watts dates back to the late 19th century, when three architects banded together to start a company that made fabrics and decor for both the church and residential use. Over the course of the next 150 years, Watts' history would be intertwined with Britain's.

0:49It produced garments worn during the coronations of Edward VII, Elizabeth II, and Charles III. Today, it's also a modern fabric and wall covering brand, sold to designers all over the world. I spoke to Fiona and MS about how Watts has survived a century and a half by staying nimble, the ups and downs of doing business in America, and how they walk the line between celebrating their history and looking to the future.

1:26This podcast is sponsored by Four Hands Art Studio. Centrally based in Austin, Texas, their expansive 95 ,000-square-foot art studio produces thousands of art pieces monthly, using the most advanced scanners and 3D printers to reproduce texture and dimension and create pieces that feel as close to the originals as possible. Visit fourhands.com to learn more and apply to join their trade program today. This podcast is also sponsored by Syria. the trusted source for design-forward rugs, furniture, lighting, wall decor, and textiles. Backed by the highest stock rate in the industry, Surya helps designers execute projects flawlessly.

2:13For those heading to High Point Market, Surya invites you to explore hundreds of stunning new designs in their expansive, immersive flagship showroom, Showplace 4100. You can also visit Surya.com today to open a trade account and start exploring exciting product curations that were designed to inspire. And if you're coming to High Point Market, be sure and join me, Dennis Scully, and Business of Homes Executive Editor Fred Nikolaus as we host a live Thursday show from Syria's showroom. Syria's President Satya Tiwari will be on hand to share his plans for the company's future. You won't want to miss it.

2:52And now, on with the show. Okay, so MS, 1874, take us back to the origin of Watts. So six generations ago, my great-great-great-something-great grandfather was called Thomas Scott. He was a priest in the middle of sort of northern England, and he wrote some commentary on the Bible. He sold over 100 ,000 copies, which was big. and he wrote in his diary in something like 1788, there is no better legacy in the world than to leave a well-educated child. And I think he succeeded because following from him, there were three generations of architects. The first one was Sir George Gilbert Scott. He was a very, very prolific architect, designed over 800 buildings, knighted by Queen Victoria, restored Westminster Abbey, buried in Westminster Abbey.

3:45following on from there there was another George Gilbert Scott who we named Middle Scott and as a practicing architect he started what as a design house and at the time it was designing wallpapers fabrics furniture stained glass all to put in the buildings they were designing and of course late 19th century lots of churches were being built and that's why you know we still have a a sister company doing ecclesiastical furnishings and hand embroidery. Following on from that, there was Giles Gibbert Scott, who was also director of What's Between the Walls, and he designed, just to name a few, the red telephone box that everyone knows, Tate Modern, Battersea Power Station.

4:35The three of them, so these three generations, just to give you a few numbers, designed over 1 ,500 buildings, amongst which 204 public buildings, 53 universities, and 43 cathedrals on four continents. I want to learn a little bit about your grandmother, who I understand played a major role in stepping into the organization at a time where maybe business wasn't as strong as it had been in the past, and your grandmother steps in and writes the ship. Yes, so the company was closed during the second world war understandably and then reopened in 1948 and then i mean who wanted to buy some nice wallpapers or expensive silk in 1948 no one people were just trying to live and so the cousins gathered around the table and sort of thought well that's the end of what and my grandmother arrived saying no way it's a family business we're going to do something with it and um she just i think she always said she started um just writing christmas cards to all client list to say, you know, we still exist.

5:41And, but you know, what saved the company is the coronation of a queen in the early fifties, because we did all the bespoke silks and hand embroidery, and it was a big order that brought cash back into the bank. So this is why we survived. Okay. So when, when you refer to God save the queen, it was referenced to the queen really saved Watts. And then is it about, and Fiona, I don't know when you arrive on the scene, first as a young teenager, if I recall. I actually arrived at the tender age of 18, straight, almost out of school, and answered an advertisement to be a secretary. So I arrived. By that point, of course, they were in their current residence in Tufton Street behind Westminster Abbey.

6:29And this was immediately exciting for me because I just loved the whole concept of the decorative nature of what they did. And so when we arrived into the 1970s, all we had was five ecclesiastical, well they weren't ecclesiastical, five ecclesiastical colors, although the designs were not ecclesiastical. And in the 1970s, I always had to refer to MS's grandmother as Mrs. Hall. And she took the brave step to transform these designs into silk. She also moved the production from both in Suffolk, but she moved the production. That was another brave move. And it was an exciting time. The next exciting thing that she did, which was very strange.

7:24She introduced the clerical outfitting department. So strong steps that shaped the future of the ecclesiastical side and also the secular side of the company during the 1970s and so on. Within the context of the wider design business, interior design business, you have to remember that at the beginning of the 1980s, we have Laura Ashley. Laura Ashley was the first person who moved beyond the sort of, if you think about the 1970s, you've got Osborne and Little in all that sort of pop art type, orange, blue, et cetera, et cetera, rather flat patterning. And Laura Ashley went back 100 years into the 19th century attics and we all wore spriggy muslin.

8:14But, I mean, it was good because she opened the door to period design. so I was there and then I went to art school and played around with being at Watts while I was at art school being a student and so on and so on then I went and got married and then I went and lived in Botswana because my husband works for overseas aid and so I then wound about back in the UK around about 1985. And this was, again, not very changed, Watts, but a moment where I think it was more external forces that prompted us to imagine that we could set up a secular company and be a force in that particular world, rather than just continuing under this rather the mixed brand of secular and ecclesiastical, are you a bishop, are you a designer?

9:13Was that the first question that you asked people? Are you a bishop or are you a designer? We need to know. As they came down the stairs into Tufton Street. Have you been to Tufton Street? No, no, I haven't. Oh, you have to one day. Okay, so you come down the stairs and it's a question, and actually the desk, you come down the stairs and the desk that was the best place to sit because it was the only place I'd had any daylight. You just checked out the legs. were they a bishop or were they a designer? It was were they wearing a cassock or anyway. So this was, again, a very brave decision. And it happened in 1987 that they decided that we decided.

9:52Emmett's father by that time was very involved externally, but always there to lend a hand and put his words of wisdom and can we afford it? No, but let's do it. On the finance side. Yes, always. And so we set up Watson Co. Furnishings. Dreadful, dreadful name. I've never recovered. I wasn't asked because I was in hospital having a baby at the time. So it was taken, yeah, it was chosen by my father, who's a finance person. So, yes. So we were never called Watson Co. Furnishings because it's absolutely horrid. But so awful. What was so awful in your mind about the name? So Watson Co. Furnishings, that didn't...

10:29Well, it's our trading name. Right. But, I mean, we don't trade under it. Yes. I mean, who wants to be called furnishings? Who wants to be referred to that way? Such terrible. No, so it's actually, it's a company name, and then we trade as what's 1874. Right. Okay. So that was a very big moment, 1987. Set it up. And I actually can remember to this day the first order that we received under this, as a new company. And it was quite late on, and your father was in the showroom. and obviously your grandmother, and it was eight rolls of Bellini wallpaper. And it was so exciting. So, so exciting. It really was.

11:10So to your point, Fiona, at the time, so when you fully established this business, setting aside the name that you disliked terribly, what was the offering on hand for this business? Minimal is the word. We had five fabrics, which, an ecclesiastical color. And a few wallpapers. A few wallpapers and some fabrics all in ecclesiastical colors. Well, the wallpapers weren't. Right. Anyway. So that was it. So the first intention was, of course, to expand the product. And the first collection that I made was based entirely on the early wallpapers, which were by Bodley. And those are five naturalistic designs, stylized naturalism.

11:55And I made a pattern book. The first pattern book was called Hawcross. Horcross is a very well-known church in Staffordshire, which was designed by Bodley. So what we did, these papers had been in existence as hand-blocked papers. We converted everything to screen. That was a very big exercise. But the possibility of running a hand-blocked collection was out of the question, completely out of the question because of the very heavy labor toll on production in that respect. So everything moved to screen. which actually was a, in hindsight, everyone will agree, screen print was a very flat approach and detrimental to the designs entirely.

12:40Our advantage was that we actually had block print to work from. So we had the genesis of a printed hand block print to create the artwork with, which was a good starting point. So the first wallpaper collection, then we did a fabric collection. And here we went to the Pugin designs. Another major coup that MS's grandmother achieved was to persuade a certain person to give Watts five Pugin designs, which were designed for the domestic apartments of the Houses of Parliament. This was in the 1970s. So somehow she, and they were wallpaper designs. She persuaded this gentleman to give her these designs.

13:30And so these were the designs that we used for the first fabric collection. And actually at that point, the House of Parliament was a major client of ours. Everything in the House of Parliament has to be by Pugin. It has to have the rubber stamp in terms of a design credibility of Pugin. And so there we were equipped with these five designs. So then, Fiona, what I want to understand now is this turning point for the business. And when some of the designers that we know have worked with Watts today, when do they start to discover you? So strangely, the 1990s, we had extraordinary orders. I mean, extraordinary, given that we had no brand awareness and so on and so on.

14:20So I'm not quite sure when we were this quirky little firm stuck in a basement in Westminster. I mean, it really, really was. We did a lot of work for Andrew Lloyd Webber's house, Sidmonton Court. But why they came to us, I still don't know. We worked for Gabano Keefe, Madame Schlumberger's apartment in Paris. We worked for Regensburg again with Gabano Keefe. I mean, very big projects that we were doing. And, of course, we then tumbled along and were invited to be part of Decorex. Decorex was run by, it was the first sort of trade fair as such, and it was run by this wonderful man, Fred Keeble.

15:06And the first, we decided this is what we needed to do. We need to be part of Decorex. We should tell listeners who might not know what Decorex was. Decor-X was the first serious high-end interiors event in London. And I had a husband who was working increasingly on contracts overseas. We had elected to stay in England as a family. I had two small children and I decided I couldn't cope anymore. so I said to uh we had a meeting in the boardroom in Tufton Street and I announced that I was going to leave and I was going to go and live in the country and so Mrs. Hall then sort of decided after you know a few moments of reflection well that's great Fiona marvellous we've got a space problem why don't you take what's with you and this is what she said and so okay right fine That's what you feel like.

16:06Go and find a house with a barn where you can put watts. This is, if you think about it, it's storage, it's dispatch, it's admin. In those days, you had staff. You didn't have laptops. And it was a completely different ballgame because you actually had to have seats and so on. And people didn't work from home. They all turned up and things like that. So we decided that that perhaps was quite a good idea. and so I went off and found a house too far away in Herefordshire 160 miles away so and that's where we still live now and so we moved there and in fact to support the business what I then did which was suggested by actually George Spencer Sally Metcalf who was running George Spencer at the time who for some reason I knew and she came down to see me and she said Fiona what you need to do is you run need you've got all this space you need to run a storage facility for other companies and so then we subsidized our life the company everything else by becoming a storage facility for five other companies and that's what we did then in 1995 we decided that we had to take the move to go somewhere other than the basement and that we needed to create a showroom so then the decision was and and emmess's father was really involved in all this you know i'd march around london behind him he's up here i'm here and uh and looking for premises because the question was did we go onto a street or did we go into what was then a fledgling design center design center lot less expensive obviously obvious advantage facilities so so that worked and i think it was obviously the right decision.

18:02Now, thankfully, the harbour held its own amidst much adversity in the first years. There's a very strong tranche of companies in the bottom like Colfax, etc., etc. And it was good because it did. It survived. And now, of course, it's the envy of everyone. It's the most extraordinary building and a great community as well, a really great community. So we were there and then in 2000, we actually decided we needed a sister company to appear as if we were growing and so on and so on. So we bought… Create the look of growth, if not the actual growth. Okay, I like it. Add another brand. So we bought Belinda Coot, which was a tapestry company, and took on a very much larger showroom up on the third floor.

18:54And that was fine. But you did a really interesting project at that time, like for Burj Al Arab, which was the first egg star hotel in the world in Dubai. Yeah, I mean, 2002, we were working. I think that from an aesthetic point of view, the world was moving into its moment of beige and plain and textiles and so on and so on. And so we were becoming increasingly unfashionable. I mean, we've never been very fashionable, let's face it, but increasingly unfashionable. And at that point, we majored on exhibitions out of England. So at that point, I think it was very soon after that that we did the first Maison Objet in Paris.

19:37There, we exposed ourselves completely to a completely global audience. And that was a really important time. At that particular point, through the generosity of someone, we were given a showroom space in Paris. It was a very interesting moment. And as MS has said, we were fortunately specified for the Burj Al Arab, which is an incredible tower in Dubai. And then another big job that we did at that point was Preston Field, which is an incredible hotel in Edinburgh. So Prestonfield, Edinburgh, there's James Thompson, who is the most renowned hotelier probably in Scotland, without doubt. He bought Prestonfield, which is this incredible building in the middle of a field in the middle of Edinburgh, literally a mile and a half from the Royal Mile.

20:28And then you did that project in America, Cloisters. Yeah, we did a huge job in Georgia.

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21:18Well, so, and that's what I'm curious about, Fiona. So when do you come over to the United States and when did that start to really happen for you? Well, it was the early 2000s because, as I say, the Americans, wonderful Americans, would arrive and be looking for interesting boutique companies to add to their showroom. And I think we popped up first with Christopher Highland and went through a few years like that. Then we moved over to Christopher Norman. But the key thing was that each of those were independent showrooms. And I didn't want to have the responsibility of having to equip a much larger company that would then demand to be equipped there, 10, 18 showrooms all around the US.

22:09because the input for us, the expense of having a major presence in all these showrooms was going to be completely ruinous. Well, so I'm so glad that you mentioned that. So I want to talk about that more because I think what you're talking about is the challenge that so many companies in the fabric industry have, which is that you want to be in these multi-line showrooms to get the exposure. But to your point, the sampling, the fabric samples to hang, the boards, the wings, however they set themselves up, somehow there has to be some meaningful representation of you there. And it is quite a substantial investment.

22:50And then if you want to be in multiple markets, it's whatever that investment is, times seven to be in some of the major markets. So you're not doing that today. No, I mean, we decided we needed exposure across the States. And somehow, I identified the showroom in wherever, like Dallas and so on, that I felt that we should appear in. And I literally used to go to America. And I'd arrive in the evening in another city, visit the showroom, get on the plane, move to the next one, and so on. And so did set up, and we were in eight showrooms, you know, San Francisco, LA, Atlanta, Dallas, Washington, New York, Boston.

23:37So when was this? So when were you hanging in all those showrooms? In 2000. 2005. So you went around, you introduced yourself to all these different showrooms, you got yourself into the ones you thought were the most important or significant. And then what? You fell out of love with the whole idea? 2008 happened. So the global financial crisis comes. And so many people crashed. And so many people crashed. Yeah. And so that was a critical, critical moment. And it was a big moment because the showrooms just didn't keep going. I have to say that, for example, in Atlanta, we started off with Ainsworth Noah.

24:13Then I moved to Jerry Pear. Then I moved to Griselle and Man. and they all found us far too difficult to deal with. Our product line was too formal. Too formal. At that particular moment, it was far too large and informal. This was because you were all still wrapped up in beige. So it's our fault, the Americans. Yes, of course. Okay, so we just had the wrong notions about color and pattern. Yes, you didn't understand us at all. No, well, and we were so anti-pattern. Yes. Right. This was a problem. We stuck out and we were unsellable. Everyone, we were attractive because we were different as decorative part of a showroom.

24:56But actually, the reality was each SKU did not sell and generate the income that he was going to demand. That was from Dan Mahoon, whatever his name was. From Dan Mahoon. Yeah. So he said. He said, no, Fiona. By that time, we were in New York. Okay. And he said, no. No. It isn't working. It's too hard to sell. Yeah. It's too hard to sell because it's too specific. And it's not what people were looking for at the time. So at what point do you decide to pull out of these showrooms? Because, I mean, you're not in all these showrooms now. Well, I don't think it was a question of us pulling out. I think they told us to go.

25:30Okay. So it was more you were politely asked. Asked to leave. Yes. Okay. So I think what then happened was that 2008 arrived. Right. And then we sort of boiled down to, I think we, Christopher Norman in New York and LA. And the person who was really, really good was Lambeth in Washington. We had a real, real devotee there who came to England, loved Watts, mad about the late 19th century. And she did everything she could possibly do to push us. So those were the sort of lasting showrooms as it were from the big fallout but then we uh struck up with um design what was it called design design oh design for near yeah okay and he was very nice he did make me go to plainville part of the rite of passage to be able to join is to have to fly to plainville yes that was an interesting one anyway I did that and then we were then of course in his showroom in the decorative art center uh in New York and actually we we loved them and we were there for quite a long time and gradually everything else sort of um fell apart and I think our attentions by that time had had gone from America and were very much investing in different markets and so on and so on The Russian market really started in the mid-2000s, whatever, 2005, and so on and so on.

27:12And that was a very big market for us. Classical decoration for the big C. Okay. When did you get the sense that the American market, that the taste or the desire for much more pattern, maximalism on the upswing, when did that start to show up in your world? When did the Ken Falks and some of these other designers that you've worked with? Oh, that's not totally recently. Yeah, I would say a couple of years ago. So we decided in about 2016 that we should just jack out of everything and just go direct ourselves to individual designers. Because there was this growing moment where designers that were in New York were beginning to appear here.

28:01Projects were beginning to be out of US. And the whole thing just felt more accessible. But also, over and above that, we didn't feel that we were truly represented, and it was detrimental to go through a third party. They didn't understand us. So when you say, because this is, again, this is a struggle that a lot of companies are trying to figure out. Are we better off on our own and just have our own outside sales reps and trying to do it because we can more effectively tell our story and it's harder to communicate that? And you're one of often many in a multi-line showroom, of course. Well, that's it.

28:37A multi-line kills a small company in some respect. Is that how you feel? Well, I don't entirely mean that. I think it's very true that each showroom is there and the bottom line is each skew has to work. But I think beyond that, the nature of our product, the emphasis on bespoke, the emphasis on the potential, because we are selling potential very often in our line. You can't see it, but you can have it, and it's fabulous when you do have it. And that just isn't the way an American thinks. They want to see it, buy it, go. Right. Okay. So you're saying that what you're showing people is merely a jumping off point to what they can create for you from a bespoke perspective.

29:25Yes. And I think that that's something that still holds true. And I think that that is something that is very, very important to our sort of DNA. Incredibly important. So, and various clients that we were working with, so I would go there and everything else and I'd actually go and visit clients and so on and so on. And the, okay, it didn't manifest immediately into sales and so on. But that relationship between you and that interior designer sitting in New York with his project was far, far more tangible than working through a showroom. Right. And so we decided, I remember very well, we had a lovely board meeting in Lille.

30:06Do you remember? Hot days, sitting in a cafe. It's a very good half French and et cetera. Board meeting in the cafe and you decide what? Ditch America. Ditch America. Ditch all the multi-line showrooms. Be out on your own. Yes, totally. And you were discovering that many designers were already coming over to the UK, showing up at the Chelsea Harbour Design Centre, and so you had that access. But you also had some relationships that were going because of, I assume, orders that had been placed through the showrooms. Yes, I mean, the sort of well-known companies that we've been working with for years, and it was a much stronger connection if we went direct.

30:43And we'd far rather send them a box of samples and kit than dilute the whole thing by hanging up 20, 100 SKUs I used to have to hang up back, you know, like that. So expensive. No, of course. And, of course, you can never see them either because they have this ridiculous thing where it's like that, you know, and you look at the edge. No, no, no. Well, preaching to the choir, I mean, the way that we display fabric is horrible. Don't you think today that maybe the word custom is not so scary as before, perhaps? That's very true. And also maybe as Watts, we've done a lot of work to make it more accessible and show people that it's, you know, this is what we love doing.

31:27You know, we've got our own studio and, you know, and we work very much, you know, project-based. So to that point, MS, tell me what you've done to make it more accessible. So what have you done to help people understand your process and how easy it can be? Because you're right. I mean, the custom nature is often what sort of trips people up and they want to be able to customize, but it's really understanding. I think we lead by example. so the passmontry we've been working with the same company based in um egypt since about 2000 the year 2000 we love them they do without doubt i could say the best passmontry in the world that we have never held stock so effectively every single item that we make is custom it's odd because we have this mentality, which I keep trying to throw out, that for us, we say, oh, this is stock, as if this is a major moment.