Inspired by English country houses, Jamb's Will Fisher built a unique institution

0:03This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is Will Fisher of Jam, a unique British company that offers everything from 17th century fireplaces to modern-day reproduction furniture. Will himself fell in love with antiques at a young age, working at Christie's as a teenager. He built up Jam piece by piece, starting as a man-with-a-van solo dealer, growing his trade and eventually getting into the reproduction business. Today, alongside his wife and business partner Charlotte Fremantle, Will is a leading figure in the British design establishment.

0:50I spoke with Will about why he doesn't rely on online listings to buy antiques, his hopes for the next generation of connoisseurs, and why, no matter how much jam has grown, he still thinks of himself as a man with a van.

1:10This podcast is sponsored by Hector Finch Lighting. For more than 30 years, Hector Finch has been making British manufactured decorative lighting for the design community worldwide. The brand is known for clean lines, a less is more philosophy, and impeccable craftsmanship. Working with the finest European techniques and materials, mouth-blown glass, hand-thrown ceramics, and alabaster, Hector Finch produces high-specification lighting beloved by designers around the globe. Hector Finch is available in all 50 states and is represented in all major North American markets, and their dedicated team is on hand to discuss customizations and deliver a friendly personal service tailored to the needs of designers.

1:58Visit HectorFinch.com and follow at Hector Finch lighting on Instagram. This podcast is sponsored by Lalloy. This month, Lalloy is hosting a slate of can't-miss design events at High Point Market, including a book signing for Amy Astley, editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest, and a keynote panel moderated by House Beautiful's Joe Salls, with Lalloy collaborators Leanne Ford, Amber Lewis, Anna Bond, Julia Markham, and Gene Stouffer. Learn more at laloyrugs.com. That's L-O-L-O-Y rugs.com. And follow Laloy Rugs on Instagram and TikTok. And now, on with the show. So tell me about your father and tell me about where you grew up.

2:48So I grew up in Lewisham. My father was an artist. My mother was a teacher. so it was kind of sort of two brothers I've got a brother nine years younger and a brother two years older super happy childhood super fun childhood but my parents weren't from sort of money so you know our holidays were joyous fantastic but under canvas it wasn't a sort of you know exotic world it wasn't but it was a brilliant world and i think they really taught me strong values that have helped me in business you know they weren't profligate they only spent what they had i'm making them sound incredibly dull they were kind of they were incredible they were just for the record mom dad they were anything other than dull there was something in me that was different from them.

3:47And there was a kind of kernel of something. And I think they must have seen that because I sort of dragged them to English country houses. And, you know, when we go on back to Caventry, we'd go to, I'd insist that we went to Ragley Hall, which was a sort of extraordinary stately home near my grandmother's. And it was just overwhelming, really. It was sort of sensory overload that I got through being in these environments. And it lit something in me, but I didn't fully understand what it was at that time. And your parents couldn't really understand either, I'm imagining, when you were so young, what was really going on.

4:33I think that age, I mean, maybe it was the beginnings of being slightly, I hate to say it, but precocious child. I mean, when I look back, I slightly cringe, you know, and think, oh my God, what was I like? You know, Lord Fauntroy from Lewisham strutting around English country houses with a huge anxiety on, will I ever own one of these? I mean, it really was like a sort of - That was what was running through you. That was running through my head. It's like, how can I have this beauty? How can I live with this beauty but also how can i understand this beauty i use the expression a lot but for me it's like trying to learn a language and it's there it's like sitting sitting in italy and listening to this melodic beautiful sounds around you and the interaction and desperate to fully you can see that it's beautiful but desperate to fully understand the communication and i think that It was it for me.

5:32I mean, standing in the Gibbs, the great big pink hall with the chimney pieces and being in that world and just desperate to sort of understand and be a part of it. And that was from a very young age. I mean, again, I was a child. There's this tale of you at, I think it was 10 years of age, reaching out to Christie's auction house and saying you wanted to come work there. Yeah, I wrote to Bill Brooks, who's the chairman of Christie's. Literally, by then I was probably about 11. Okay. And basically asking him, you know, that I wanted to come and work for Christie's. and to my absolute surprise back came this letter sort of inviting me for lunch with the board of directors for lunch with the board and i was like oh my god you know there was a bit of oh my god what have i done you know yeah and i remember being taken up there by my father and you know and take it very very sort of earnest and serious about it all you know ready for and being shown that sort of ran and sitting down with the board.

6:44And all of them, sort of you can imagine, mildly amused and talking to me in a sort of way, asking me what my future plans were. I remember after lunch, Bill Brooks handing over to everyone. It still had been 70-something, 1970-something, handing me this gargantuan cigar as they were all unwrapping cigars. I looked him horrified but almost I have to say it wasn't until I left afterwards and had the epiphany that he was obviously not going to offer me he was just having fun he was just having fun oh I better not you know and when we left he said you know when you're 16 if you if you still have the passion you still write to me and I will give you a job you know in the summer three-month recess.

7:32And he did that. He was good to his word. And I worked there for three years in a row. And for me, Christie's, when I worked there, you know, I was obviously I was 16. I was a super humble porter. But people like Ed Dolman was there, who later became the sort of big cheese, pretty much of the whole outfit and been working alongside him. Nick McElhatton, who later became chairman. So in many, many years later, I didn't, you know, when I was to have an auction then sell everything that we owned, I already knew these people and they were known to me and I was known to them. Put it this way. They knew from the sort of stories of Chris's, I wasn't short on passion or determination to sort of make this work.

8:16Well, and we can talk about this, but I mean, I think part of what was also going on for you when you were young is that you knew that school wasn't an easy environment for you? Should we say that? School was always a struggle for me. I mean, I'm of a pre-ADHD, I was diagnosed as dyslexic, but literally got a diagnosis and that was it. And good luck with that. Yeah. You definitely have that and we wish you well. And then sort of told I was hyperactive. So it was just sort of, you know, those two worlds. And as we all know, hyperactivity and dyslexia, it's not a great combination, really. And one day when I think I would have been, I think I was about eight or nine, a new child came to the school.

9:13And it was a chap called Sam Aerosmith, who sort of literally, it's Sam, God bless his soul. He was sort of the most charismatic of individuals. but at that age he always slightly looked like he'd been dragged through a bush backwards and I got invited back on a play date to his house and suddenly we arrived at just the most magical magical house that I'd ever seen in my life and it was a sort of really it had been a whole house cut in half but even the half remaining was so significant it's more than you could handle and it was set in london but in an acre nearly of of of walled garden but inside it it was as if a bomb went off in my head it was so beautiful it was all in a way that i've been trying to find and understand was located in this house and my eyes were everywhere and my heart racing.

10:23And it's like, not only was this kid kind of amazing, but he lived in this extraordinary, extraordinary house. And the house belonged to Warner Daly. Warner Daly was his stepfather and Rose Daly. And Rose was a phenomenally talented, I don't want to say decorator. She was really, she was a restorer, but complex things like 17th century leather screens. and she was a master with color and a master with surface and distressing. And Warner was just a force of nature. He was not short on eccentricity. And he loved, he had this fascination for sort of British culture class. We'd spend a lot of time sort of dressing up in different, we'd go to Eton.

11:14I went to a sort of normal state school and we'd go to Eaton and we'd go and buy at their, they'd have their boot fair and all the kids would sell their handmade shoes, suits. So we'd go and literally get dressed to the night in all these rich kids' clothes and sort of head out back to the world. That's sort of really feeling full of ourselves. um but warner warner had a kind of irreverence and an infectious excitement and a desire to teach anyone who wanted to learn so we had one of the clubs we had was the kippin rough club so it was all about sleeping on the streets because he'd slept on the streets for years And this was the training for you.

12:06This was the training. We had one summer where for the whole summer, he gave us shovels. And in that beautiful garden, he got us to dig trenches. And can you imagine, Rose, how she must have been going mad? And we dug six-foot trenches all the way through and built wooden structures above. And on the last day, we went down in his own 2CV6 van. It's like, come on, everybody. We've got to get down to the fruit market. And we're like, why are we going to the fruit market? And we went to the fruit market and he got all the rotten fruit and shoved it in his car. And the car absolutely stank. And we went back and this was in this sort of baking hot summer and we had an epic fruit fight.

12:54You had a war with all the rotten fruit. So it was sort of both forever exciting to be around him. Yeah. But then there was the whole depth of the house and how layered and beautiful and eclectic. And it's interesting how individual collecting is and the things. He was sort of arms and armor that were a sort of big part of his collection. Taxidermy that I love. Far more eclectic than me. I'm a very sort of singular, I'm very English. Irish furniture dealer. He had a lot of sort of beautiful continental furniture. And I can just remember that sort of visceral feeling of standing in the drawing room on my own in absolute quiet whilst Noel was there, just in awe of the beauty of it.

13:47And he could see that you reacted that way. I mean, he could see you were excited about this world. He could see that I was driven mad by it. I mean, and that you were a highly special child. Problem child. But what was it? He would literally he'd include. So then it would be guys and it was open to everyone who's going to get up at five in the morning and come to the market. And we get up at five in the morning and have our torches and all go down and all be looking for treasure, you know, and it was kind of amazing. He'd educate. This is this. This is that. And then eventually Sam and I ended up having our own market store in Greenwich.

14:29And we used to buy things like old flintlock pistols and bits of this and bits of that, bits of chain mail, bits of anything, bits of furniture. And he'd dump us down that five in the morning and then he'd sort of come back with a bacon sandwich at whatever time it was and see how we're getting on. And I loved the economics of it as well. You know, I really got it. I loved, so did Sam. And we'd deal in old money. So we'd pre-decinized money. So we'd sort of, in shillings and pence, and people loved all that sort of stuff. Anyway, one day he came back with his bacon sandwich. And there we were with a council being loaded into the back of a truck for being underage in charge of being taken into sort of child custody.

15:16But I think it's all these things in a way that build up that whole, this magical world. But the difference he made is he turned it from an academic study into something that I realized could be vocational and could be something that could be the rest of my life. He also took me in. So in the summer holidays, he was a runner. So basically, we're talking about the new world of the internet. In those days, a runner was the man, you had your car, man or woman, and you were the artery of the business to buy something, sell something. So we would go, again, leaving early in the morning, load the car, the gunnels on the roof rack with things, and we'd head up into town and we'd go and buy and sell and trade everything.

16:08And he'd cut me in deals. Do you want to buy this with me? You know, it's kind of so fun and inclusive, you know, but also not only was I learning, but I was learning about our industry. I was learning about the Pimlico Road. I was learning about Bond Street. I was learning about South Kent and Kensington and all these different parts of the world and putting together in my mind the map of the whole geography of the antique trade, which I could use years later. So he really did. He built me an absolute blueprint and showed me how and what to do. I mean, the irony of it is, in many ways, although I still think of myself as a man with a van, you know, I'm quite a simplistic character, you know, the buying and selling and trade.

17:01I enjoy that. I enjoy the honesty of it. I enjoy the rush of having something and then passing it on and looking for something new. It's just never really left me. It's interesting the different people and what they bring to you. because I've been, I think my life has been blessed and my life has been made by the people that have touched my life and what they've given me. And each set of people who've come in have given me a totally different skillset or a totally different perspective or a totally different passion for something else. But I remember the deal, the first deal when I was on my own, not working for anyone totally as an independent and i was in the then as a friend of mine used to joke guy called conrad butlin used to call the van rouge the red van and buying something for 80 pounds and selling it for 160 and it was just magical greatest feeling in the world yeah Greatest feeling, everyone.

18:07Yeah. Okay. So all of this leads to you see a path, as you were just saying. Warner gave you this incredible blueprint for what a business could be. How did you take the steps to ultimately start to really get into the business? And we'll talk about you getting to Pimlico Road and all of that. But even before that. So it started with other little jobs. So there was a sort of catastrophic and calamitous happening in a way with Warner and Rose got divorced. And that was so seismically sad and tragic at the time and so unseen for me. But it also meant suddenly that access to Warner with his new wife, it was gone.

18:58Oh, okay. So it was suddenly there I was, Annie the orphan, Right. Of the antique world. So suddenly Warner was out of the equation. Okay. And by that point I was sort of. And how old were you? I think I probably would have been about 15. So I hadn't quite yet started working at Christie's. But luckily in a way I'd written to Christie's and had that set up as a next venture. and I just didn't feel it was appropriate to see him or could see him in a way. So I then got other jobs, but he was a brickist and it was a fireplace shop in Greenwich and that was it. I started to buy and sell and again there, all for him.

19:48I met people who'd then be huge figures in my life in years to come. There were two extraordinary runners. They call themselves totters george and billy who were two big cockney guys and they came knocking on the door i'm tiny george the lion was like six foot god knows what and billy was six foot tall well hello son where's the where's the governor i'm like i'm i'm the governor and they literally fell about laughing on the floor i mean i was you know 16 years of age they're like we want to speak the organ grinder not his monkey go on boy get the governor and i was like no no i am the governor anyway they drove off thinking oh we're done with this anyway three days later they came back with the van of the same goods and i ended up buying the entire van off them but there i really so there i learned how to um buy and sell again talking about individuals and the esoteric nature of our passion for me it was always fireplaces and before working with him you know warner would buy a fireplace he'd sell it to me and then i'd sell it through the local newspaper you know i'd restore it sell it through the local newspaper they just absolutely great it was an obsession there's something about it that it's not just that it's the most important architectural feature.

21:20I think for me, it also is about the sort of the smell, the allure of it, the whole, you know, it's kind of magical. So I then, by miracle, I got into university. And I got into university to read history of art. I did my A-levels. They went spectacularly wrong. But I'd had such a lucky interview at Manchester. So on a kind of default, I went to Manchester University with big ideas that I'd start seeing who was trading what I'd buy and sell this I'd do that none of it happened the wheels came off I just immediately left untethered I think I had four hours of course work a week and I just went wild basically and it was one of those moments in my life of of the sort of extremists of the greatest joy and the greatest pain.

22:19I met more kindred spirits in that time than I'd ever done. So it opened up another world to me. But it also broke me because I realized I couldn't operate on the same level as other people in terms of concentration, in terms of being. At this point, my wheels were spinning and left to my own devices and left with nothing to actually really get my teeth into. I go into the library and literally it was like a panic attack, you know, trying to navigate it, trying to work out what to do. It was the same feeling in a strange way of a similar anxiety to being in an English country house, except there was no joy.

23:10There was no excitement and thrill. I wanted to learn. I simply didn't know how to. And it meant so much to my mother that her boys should go to university because for her, an education was something that you could never have removed from you. And yet there I was, I'd been given the opportunity and I just couldn't take it and I had a catastrophic end of year where basically I was ungraded in every single exam and I kind of left before I was pushed I suppose and I remember that horror terror of going back to my mother father and the horror of having to tell my mother and fun enough I chose to tell my father first and my dad was amazing he said darling you you have to lead your life not our life we prescribe for you and i told my mom and she was like understandably so upset as i would be if it was one of my child children you know and it was at one of the top universities in england And then my luck changed again.

24:32And this is the amazing thing about life. You never know when the smallest or something can be the moment that's going to be your in. And I became a forklift truck driver at an antique warehouse in Bermondsey. And it was amazing. I was there. I could get rid of my energy. I was the man ascribed to unloading, loading the trucks. But they also gave me a little bay in the corner where they said, look, you can buy and sell your own goods from this corner. I was like, this is great. So suddenly I had no overhead. Right. I had a salary, had a forklift truck, which trust me with my, if you've seen me drive, I don't know how.

25:25This is awesome. They entrusted you with a forklift. The crazy thing, the accidents I had on that forklift truck, the crazy thing, this is the 80s. We weren't even sent off for a test.

25:39I drove that thing for about four or five years. And again, I was off. The wheels had traction. Right. It was a very vibrant time in the antique business. But also I had a commercial advantage because I was the first one into every truck with my forklift unloading it. So I could, how much is that? How much is that? So even if I didn't buy it, I was learning what things were, how much they were. And suddenly I could buy and sell and trade and build up the capital, because obviously I depleted my capital at the university, and slowly build the money I needed to sort of set up on my own one day. And that's what you did.

26:24And that's what I did. And all of it was brilliant when I look back. You know, the days of the Warner era, the 70s, the 80s, they were different. You've no idea the energy in the business then. Americans would fly in and they'd have two 40-foot Artics waiting for them in Scotland. And they would drive all the way from Scotland down through England, sometimes buying entire shops and putting them on the truck and moving on to the next one. You know, the business was a light with energy. You know, now is a much harder time to make it, to get into this business, you know, and to make a living.

27:18We're taking a quick break from the show to remind you about Lalloy. Just this month, Lalloy announced their newest collaboration with renowned interior designer Leanne Ford, plus all new seasons of home textiles from Amber Lewis and Chris Loves Julia. You'll want to see all those online or in person, and you can at High Point Market. Learn more and make your High Point appointment at laloyrugs.com. That's L-O-L-O-I rugs.com. And don't forget to follow at Laloirugs on Instagram and TikTok. And now, back to the show.

27:59so let's talk about you having this great experience miraculously the forklift driver position puts you back on the right track yeah right yeah and you get on a path to eventually building some capital as you were describing yeah and being able to to have your own shop and and pursue a lot of different businesses which which we'll get into i think where i was very lucky is there was a particular guy, Naimanotsi, another mentor. And he and a guy called Alessandro Stefanini and Ceste Delana, they wanted, when I set up on my own, they kind of made me their man in London. And they bought me this van.

28:45And whenever they turn up in the UK, I'd be there and sort of driving them around. That was another learning curve. I went from being their driver to suddenly after the year, I'd saved up the money to pay them the van back. And they also showed me this extraordinary world that I wasn't a part of, of sort of dining at San Lorenzo, sort of wonderful restaurants that my parents and I, that we never sort of went to. And I remember one evening in San Lorenzo's and we're sitting around and I said guys I've got something for you and they're like what's that and I put an envelope on the table and it was all the money for the van and they burst out laughing they thought it was hilarious and they'd never expected me to pay them back but it totally changed our relationship and suddenly instead of me being the driver I was included in deals I was trusted in this I was And Naimanotti, who became probably one of my closest friends ever, what he taught me about marble and this whole other side of the antique business that I never would have had access through, through not having an Italian involved in my life.

30:05It was amazing. So I'd sort of gone off on a path very much of being a runner. So I was buying, selling, buying, selling. and I really hadn't formed an idea of the identity I'd created for myself and then I started I did three antique fairs at the antique show at the decorative fair one was amazing one was a spectacular disaster and one was okay and I thought do you know what I mean this is a lot of work anyway when I was having a coffee there were a load of dealers standing around and they're like oh i said what are you talking about they said oh there's this big building we're going to take on and someone's just let us down and we need somebody to take the space and then i was like oh they're like hang on a minute why don't you take it i was like no i don't want i don't want a shot i'm a runner i don't i'm a man with a van i'm a man with a van i don't i don't I don't need it.

31:06Anyway, suddenly it was like, well, you really should have this shop. And it was in a kind of industrial building off the Fulham Road. And I was like, maybe I should have this. Maybe it is time now because the world was starting to change. The whole running world was starting to change. and I needed the next journey really. So I ended up in 2001, we opened the shop and it was called Core One, but it kind of worked. And suddenly instead of owning these things sort of in, in isolation, I was putting things together and realizing that actually without me knowing I'd evolved my own style and my own trade of dealing that almost had been unbeknownst to me.

32:03Obviously, my apartment where I lived and the things I loved, but not in terms of putting together an identity. And that identity felt very strong. It felt very powerful and very enjoyable. And what was it? So what did you discover was your identity and all of that? I suppose at the time it was a sort of very much surface related, but it was an edge. It was a slightly different edge to what we do now. It was a slightly broader church. And I think it was a really funny moment in history because it was more eclectic to how we are now. You know, there were sort of some things of mid-century. there are some things of sort of, you know, anything that we perceived to be of interest and anything that sort of gave, that excited me, really.

32:55Yeah. Yeah. And it was much broader than what you were looking at. It was much broader because after that, really, the journey really became focused on the English country house. Yeah. And it was a sort of return. it's almost as if I'd slightly broken from the road and there were things that were of interest and mid-century things and different but actually my heart was yearning to go back from where I'd come if that makes sense and that's kind of where I returned you know and where I've never left really I suppose what it is it's finding things and objects that have the integrity of design of classicism but invented through a modern eye so not super modern extraordinary quality of manufacture extraordinary um materials you know things that have a fundamental sort of integrity to them i suppose so the shop to your surprise and it sounds like everyone else's surprise actually does pretty well the shop did really well i had found myself at that point on more and more planes doing more and more miles finding less and less things and also had built together a sort of collection of extraordinary people around me over the years of people who are able to make, people who were creatives.

34:34And it started to be a time when suddenly I kind of wanted to be a creative myself, I suppose. And people were coming in. We had phenomenal plants. And they'd look at something, and it would be something on its own, a singular item. And they'd say, oh, have you got two of these? Have you got three of these? and it'd be like, no, sorry, we haven't. And I was like, well, why haven't we? And why can't we do this and make this? And it was a time when reproduction was kind of a really ugly word in a way and almost representative of a sort of pedestrianism. and it started to occur to me why can't we use these people that we know who are extraordinary things and why can't we if we have the things in our hands try and replicate them and make something of equal integrity and equal quality without compromise why does it have to be this way that that's what it is and it's good enough.

35:50Why should anything be good enough? And why isn't it that when you walk in a room, why should it sit out and be clearly uncomfortable in its space? So we set about trying to make things that would sit seamlessly into our environments and we achieved it it took years and years it was a slow process i traveled the world i set up a whole sort of supply chain of different people and this is the other thing i think for us as a business and one of the things i'm kind of proudest of is loyalty. Most people I work with today, I've worked with for 25 years. And those relationships, those understandings, those building of other people's businesses along with your own, that kind of means everything to me.