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| January 2004 |
| Tableware International |
| Vessel of Life |
Nadia Demetriou Ladas had no formal design training and very little retail experience before opening a contemporary ‘designer’ tableware store. Four years on, her creation, Vessel, is claimed to be “the most extensive and comprehensive collection of contemporary design in London”. Susan Fenton asked how she did it.
I started this shop because I loved beautiful things, not because I had any great ‘vision’ of what the store would become,” says nadia Demetriou Ladas, owner of upmarket tableware store Vessel in London’s Notting Hill. “It was more a case of ‘these are a few of my favourite things’. I had a real appreciation of design and I had fallen in love with glass. But, although I’d worked as a buyer for a store, I didn’t have much retailing experience - I didn’t even know what a ‘mark-up’ was!”
The Vessel story started when, after stints in journalism and marketing and as a law student, nadia developed an interest in art glass during a trip to Sweden with her then boyfriend Angel Monzon, a furniture designer. After starting her own collection of glass, she met a Japanese retailer who liked her taste in glass and took her on as European buyer for her Tokyo store. “Then the opportunity to buy this store came up and I just went for it, headfirst!” continues Nadia. “My parents were a bit sceptical and other people said I was brave, but I wasn’t i was just acting on my instincts, which is one of my central tenets.”
The store took off and today Nadia and Angel, the artistic director, who is now her husband, employ four staff and boast an upmarket clientele that has included Elizabeth Hurley and Robbie Williams. The 100sq m store is on two floors - upstairs is the ‘retail’ side while downstairs is the ‘art’ side, with one off pieces retailing for hundreds or thousands of pounds. Suppliers include Venini, Salviati, Iittala, and Orrefors in art glass and Rosenthal (“a fantastic company and much underrated’) and Driade in porcelain. Nadia also stocks designers like Bodo Sperlein and Ron Arad. Primarily, says Nadia, the range is focussed on functional Scandinavian and Italian art glass, though she would like to give more space to design-oriented companies from Japan, China and India (“we tend to be rather Eurocentric”). Her overall aim is to stock only products that meet Walter Gropius’ definition of good design - items that have beauty, quality, function and affordability.
Though Nadia attends the Frankfurt trade fairs, she does so to meet supplier’s’ creative teams, not to place orders. And she admits to not much liking suppliers’ sales representatives. “I try to avoid dealing with them. All they want is to open doors. They think this is good for the brand but they are mistaken - I’ve seen Orrefors displayed alongside a lot of other stuff under ‘Murano glass”! It won’t sell if you do that and it will just damage the brand. I hate it when reps try to sell you something hideous because they don’t understand what your store’s about.”
What are Nadia’s own favourite products? “It’s rather embarrassing because I haven’t got a full set of anything at home, although my husband would love to have a dinner service for every week of the year! But one thing I can’t do without is Hackman saucepans - they’re so well made. And the £180 silver tea strainer from Ted Muehling’s silver collection is exquisite, I treasure it. It makes a mundane task so special.”
her favourite designer is Lena Bergström, who supplied the initial inspiration for the store when Nadia met her in Sweden through her husband several years ago. “She totally epitomises what we’re about - she’s capable of designing across the board, for all price ranges.”
Although the store is modern, nadia says it is not ‘faddish’. People want tableware that will last more than just one season. I like to spot the classics of tomorrow, timeless products. I hate it when we’re described as being ‘trendy’ - that’s not what we are. We’re contemporary, which is different from being trendy.” Though Vessel claims to be unique - ‘the authority on contemporary tableware’ - Nadia concedes that there is some rivalry, with Skandium, another London-based store. “They also specialise in Scandinavian glass and are as knowledgeable as we are. I really respect what they do, and they do it with knowledge and love. But at Vessel you can find smaller, unique suppliers, which Skandium does not stock.” Department stores tend not to be competition, she says, because, although they sometimes stock similar products, they do not merchandise them the same way. ‘The problem with department stores is that they have to be everything to everyone. That’s their strength, of course. But, because they are scared that their ranges might get ‘old’, they throw the baby out with the bath water, which means customers don’t get much choice.” Good merchandising, she concedes, is a challenge, especially when there is not much space. “ If there was room we would have big table settings like the department stores, but we approach it graphically, putting items from different ranges on the same table. I credit my customers with enough intelligence that they don’t have to be force-fed a ‘look’. Store display should be inspired, it should involve nice music, nice smells, a nice ambience.”
But you can’t succeed just through merchandising, she adds. “What clinches a sale is an enchanting story. Only this can persuade people who would otherwise spend their money on clothes to start collecting art glass.”
In this respect, Nadia believes Vessel is unique. “I don’t think there’s anyone who knows tableware like we do. Vessel is much more than these four walls - it’s about the relationship with the suppliers, the knowledge we can convey about the history and culture of the products and the access we offer to more products than you can see here.” Nadia was referring to the store’s willingness to order in other products from the ranges it displays. “About half of our sales are from requests rather than from walk-in trade.”
What sets Vessel apart is its level of customer service, says Nadia. “We get a lot of very demanding customers, but we aim to turn their attitude around so that when they leave the store they say a genuine ‘thank you!’ i love interacting with customers - I find it really rewarding when they say ‘what a lovely store’, and of the 30 clients I spoke to on Saturday, 20 said it. That makes it all worthwhile.” Getting good staff is easier said than done, she says. She gets most of her staff from the Royal College of Art, where graduates have a real interest in design. But casting her net further afield has not yielded good results. “Nine out of 10 CVs are rubbish. I deliberately asked candidates for one vacancy to write to ‘Nadia’: only two had the initiative to find out my last name, and only one of those spelled it right! Also I was gobsmacked by how badly people communicate: if their CVs are badly presented how can they have the visual sense to be able to merchandise products? And if they can’t spell or write properly how are they going to have the communication skills to sell a £5000 vase with any authority?”
Employees’ training starts on their first day, when they are asked to do nothing except start reading a collection of books on glass and ceramic history and production. Another part of the staff’s education is annual trips abroad to glass-making areas such as Venice or Orrefors, where they can see glass being made and eat in restaurants where they can see how tableware is used in a formal setting. “They need to know how Italians eat a four-course meal.” The result, she says, is that “we have the most knowledgeable staff in London. People often assume that a member of staff is the owner, and this is the acid test of good staff.”
The store’s prices, she says, are comparable with those charged in department stores for similar items. “We have a reputation for being expensive, partly because of our location in upmarket Notting Hill and partly because we don’t sell in great volumes, but I don’t think it’s true. We’re certainly always cheaper than Harrods.” Nadia doesn’t believe in holding sales. “There’s no place for sales in art glass. Holding sales means you have made bad buying decisions and I learned very quickly no to make those decisions.”
The store’s location gives it a captive market of well-to-do customers but it is not immune to economic recession. “People say recession doesn’t affect high-end retailers but that is rubbish. Exports to the USA have dropped off, and when City bonuses are slashed we know about it. But conversely, if a City worker has lost a huge bonus, while they might not go on holiday or eat out so often, they do tend to spend more on products for the home.”
Nadia says it would be hard to find an equally good location is she were ever to open a second Vessel. “Notting Hill has affluent customers with an interest in design. There are other areas where there is money, but where people have no taste. And there are shopping areas with large tourist populations but where people don’t want to spend a lot of money. I’m not interested in volume, I’m interested in quality.” But Nadia has no desire to open further branches, because the potential return would be small compared with the cost and increased administration. “But,” she adds, “I would dearly love to have a store three or four times the size of this one, with different sections for oriental products, children’s products, even pet products. There are so many areas that we don’t have the space to cover in depth. I’d also love to do more with flowers and to have food somewhere, perhaps a cafe providing delicacies as a value-added offering, rather than as a money-making proposition in its own right.” As well as the retail side of the business, wedding lists and contract work is doing well - “we get approached by a lot of architects and interior designers, and restauranteurs are starting to realise that if they serve food in a modern way they should use modern tableware.”
Exhibitions of designers’ work remain a major feature of the store’s activities, and one that gets it a lot of publicity in design-led magazines. Nadia says: “We were only a year old when we did our first collaboration with prestigious designers and now we act as a catalyst for promoting good design - we’re not just a retailer, we also stock museum-quality pieces. It’s nice to be in a position to invest in artists - they might not sell much now but in five years’ time their work could be a really good investment.” Featured artists have included Nigel Coates, Simon Moore and Anish Kapoor.
Because of the focus on personal interaction, Nadia does not plan to use the Internet for online ordering. There is already a thriving mail order business and vesselgallery.com website, currently being developed, will aim to create an ambience and story rather than sell products. “Our business is about dialogue, about educating, and encouraging people to come into the store.”
What is Nadia’s aim for Vessel? “I want Vessel to be a model for what retailing should be. In the same way that people know who the names ‘Kylie’ and ‘Madonna’ belong to, without needing to know their surnames, I would like the word ‘Vessel’ to portray who we are, without needing the description ‘the tableware store in west London’.”
So what do Nadia’s parents think now after their initial scepticism? “My customers say I have great taste and that’s vindication - it’s nice to prove myself to my parents!”
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| Susan Fenton |
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