Quentin Mackay has worked with some of the industries finest professionals and has been the mastermind behind three of world's greatest accessory brands. After being whisked away after graduation to work for Tanner Krolle, then Loewe in Spain, he joined Samsonite and launched the infamous luxury Black Label range that we all know and love. Now, Quentin's long awaited personal project has taken the form of a deluxe handbag and accessory collection, which has launched in Browns and Harvey Nicoles for it's first season AW09.
Quentin Mackay: I've always had something creative inside me. I always liked different things like sculpture, fine art and sewing etc. I was the only boy in my sewing class at school, which is where I met my first girlfriend. So from that early age I was interested in making clothes. My grandmother was a seamstress and she gave me my first sewing machine when I was thirteen. She always said, which I've tried to carry through to the first collection and the subsequent collections, "always be a thinker and never accept second best". That was her motto in life. So, when I left school I did a bit of graphic design and various other jobs of course like everybody else. Then I graduated, but I didn't really enjoy graphic design, and that was at the time of the mighty apple Mac. You were either a copy and paste or a computer whiz kid. And if you weren't a computer whiz kid at that time, you were an outcast of the graphic design world. Anyway, most of my projects in graphic design were sort of fashion orientated; I even designed clothes and so on to put it crudely. My girlfriend at that time was on a fashion course so I spent loads of time on the fashion course as well. So when I left college I didn't pursue a job in graphic design, I came up to London, which was about 15 years ago and I saw a job advertised for somebody interested in the arts and crafts. I applied for the job, and it was to work for Tanner Krolle, this was in 1994. It was to be taken on in the Tanner Krolle that was then owned by Chanel, to be trained under a master craftsman about leather usage to make the beautiful products that they did. I interned at the R&D department under the master craftsman and stayed there until 1996. At that time I knew I could design so I tried to put some things together and decided that I was either going to tour around America or I was going to go to college. Going to college was based on the last year of the grant, and I got the place in college and then the grant, so I ended up going to college. I actually went to De Montford University for the first year and with my first project my lecturer said you wont be happy here, you should apply to London. So I applied to London and I got into the second year of the Menswear course at St Martins, where I had a great time. And for my final collection I did four menswear outfits and three women's wear outfits and accessorised them all. The collection was called LL vs. L, and that's who I am. I'm quite a dandy silhouette in my clothes which I enjoy, but I also very much like the little bit of bling on top! Everybody loves a bit of bling, you know, the icing on the cake! So I was spotted by Loewe in Madrid and taken straight there to Spain to be a General Accessory Designer. I stayed there for two years and then came back and became creative director of Tanner Krolle, when the brand had been sold in 2001 and bought back by English owners. After that I went to Samsonite where I spent three and a half years as a Creative Director re-energizing the brand and creating the Black Label. In September 2008 I left and started this project. This project was meant to happen with Samsonite and they were going to back it to the sweet tune of $12 million and everything was going ahead, we had a CEO, a business plan, then the brand Samsonite was sold. The new owners did not want to go over the project. In hindsight, it is better how it happened. If I had been with Samsonite, it would not have been done my way. So my theme tune now is the Sex Pistols version of "I did it my way"! The project is 100% mine, and it is much smaller as a result.
Maria Zazovsky: Were you constantly thinking about your own project when you were working for Samsonite?
QM: I've been thinking about my own project since I left college. When I was at St Martins I walked into Browns Focus one day and was wearing something I made. The buyer asked me where I got that from, and obviously I said, "I made it". She then asked me. "Do you have a collection?" and I said, "Yes", which I didn't. She said, "Do you have production?" and I said, "Yes", which I didn't. So I went home, made a collection, they bought it, and I produced it all myself. It was a very small collection, and that funded studies and a little bit of party life through college for two years. That was great because Browns is Browns, Browns Focus is part of that. When I went to Loewe I sort of cut that off. I always wanted to carry on with that but I went into three very venerable brands, who were all kings in their respected categories. Due to the plan with Samsonite, I was so mentally prepared to start my own brand I decided I had leave and I was going to start it rain or shine. And here I am today!
MZ: What would say is the philosophy behind the brand, or the driving force behind the collection?
QM: I'll answer in terms of brand principles first, relative to my grandmother's tagline in life. I am person who is quite sickened by the "luxury" word. I find it is used as a catchphrase these days, a filthy six-letter word, that people use so unscrupulously. You just have to get on Ryan Air and they say, "Tuck into our luxury hot chocolate," or luxury magazine covers, luxury this, luxury that, luxury everything! It is devalued. So for the principles of the brand I wanted to say, "This is not luxury". I call it deluxe, but it is whatever you want to call it: prestige, high-luxe, uber-luxe, whatever. It's more for the stealth/wealth consumer not masstige. All this terminology! I brought in all the elements that make a real luxury product. I wanted to stand in front and say this is real luxury and behind me was a real pedigree product. If you took that product apart, you would find it is made up of the best components. If you have a structured product and a soft product, you are more likely to say that, that one is luxury and the other one is fashion. Luxury has a lasting, classic structure associated with it. I like to think of my collections as more classic-contemporary. The Ball and Claw collection that I have done, is going to stay as the eternal collection, the top line of the brand. For spring/summer 2010, there will be some softer collections coming in. I wouldn't say they are more commercial but more user-friendly, which adds a certain level of commerciality to it. The Ball and Claw bags are real "ladies" bags, the lady with a dark side. Each product is numbered in The Ball and Claw collection but the other lines will not be. From the creative point of view, I have always been quite a structured designer anyway, architectural if you want to call it. I also have personal goals myself that I have to overcome, and one of those was soft design; which I think I have really achieved in this next collection. The inspiration for The Ball and Claw...is really impossible to answer really. I think to a certain degree everyone is creative, but there are a few people that can metamorphosize that creativity into something on paper and take that through to a finished 3-D product. I think everybody sees something in something. So my inspiration can come from talking to someone, or seeing something and three months later it might come out. I think for fashion designers there is a lot of inspiration that is closely relation to film, books, the mood of now. The mood of now is quite 20s and 30s, because of the economic slump. Everyone is harking back to the great depression, when hem lines got longer and things like that, when people were trying to cover up and umbrella their dark mood. The Ball and Claw collection was inspired by a piece of furniture my grandmother had: the old chip and dale furniture had the ball and claw feet. I like that, I'm very British; I like the old world. I'm also a designer of opposites, I like black and white, old and new, hot and cold. That's why I said it is a classic-contemporary collection.
MZ: Are your bags aimed at a specific type of woman?
QM: It's my wife. My wife is the sort of woman I think would go and buy my bag. She was a model, she was doing catwalk about ten or twelve years ago, we now have two children, so she gave that up. She is a consumer that I aspire to see with one of my bags, when she goes out people always ask her "Where did you get that from?" and so on. She's a great clotheshorse to have around.
MZ: How would you say you go about designing? Do you have days where you just sit down and work or it is less organised than that?
QM: I have never been much of a sketchbook keeper. I have to shut myself away. I do have sketchbooks and I do scribble occasionally, but I'm not someone who zealously scribbles and tries to fill out all the pages. I'm the sort of person that mentally prepares myself for a week, then I go and shut myself away for three or four days and will do a collection. I've never been someone who can freelance for many brands at the same time because I really like to get into one brand. Live the dream, wear the t-shirt, and read a book! So it is the same with my project, if I am going to do the best I think I can do I have to shut myself away. However, saying that I will listen to music (Radiohead & Classical), and music is amazing: how different your design could be depending on what you listen to.
MZ: When you came out of St Martins was it hard to find work straight away?
QM: Obviously there is a certain amount of luck in life, but I wouldn't say luck was the main factor because I worked really bloody hard at college. And it really paid off. I guess it is tough these days, it is tougher at the moment. I would say it's not as bad as people make out, but of course the press want to drive people into a state of utter misery. I think the swine flu at the moment is the best thing that could have happened in the world because it took the economy off the front page. So now everyone is not constantly writing about doom and gloom, the economy has started to recover. If you look at all the big designers you may think they just came out off college and hit big time. But John Galliano was working in brands for eleven years; Alexander McQueen was there for ten years before he got his own brand going. There is a lot of groundwork to do. This has also been a massive learning curve for me. I've always been in big brands where there is somebody for everything. So I've never been so close to the production process, the ordering, and the sales and I am learning.