Mark Maidment, creative director of Ben Sherman, talks about shirts, suits and being first down the pub
How long have you been at Ben Sherman?
I’ve been here eight years. It’s a long time isn’t it? A brand goes through all sorts of phases and when I came on board the brand name had started dipping, which was very sad – but now I look out there and I think there’s nothing as exciting as Ben Sherman right now. We’re a brand that’s coming back up from a lull; we’re halfway back up the mountain.
You’ve certainly come a long way since the button down shirt of yore. How did you engineer the transition from shirt staple to lifestyle brand?
When I first came here, all we were known for was shirts. But actually if a brand stands for something more than just a product category – and we do, we stand for the music connection, for youth culture, for working class heroes – then you ought to be able to apply that spirit to other categories as well. Even now, if you go to the average guy on the street and you say “Ben Sherman”, they’ll think of the button-down checked shirt, which is still fantastic, but we now also have a great reputation for knitwear, outerwear, suits…
Suits? At Ben Sherman?
We did cause a bit of a stir on Savile Row when we first set up there. But if you think about it, we have always been the smarter side of mod fashion, as opposed to Fred Perry who was always more sporty. Not that I don’t admire Fred – people always think we’re enemies, but we’re not at all – but a Fred Perry suit doesn’t really make sense. With Ben Sherman, the working man’s shirt brand, you can sort of imagine how a suit might be quite slick and smart. We’ve been on Savile Row for18 months now, and it’s like we’ve always been there.
It’s certainly a far cry from the days the brand was unwittingly associated with skin-heads. Was it difficult shaking off such negative connotations?
People might think it’s a cop out, but we genuinely don’t really comment on it. It’s not something we ever chose – yes we were adopted by those groups, but we would rather people focused on what we’re doing today. It’s all about new British modernism. We have found that if we just don’t focus our energy on all that other stuff it sort of slowly melts away and becomes a part of history. When you look back at our links to the mods, Two Tone, ska, Britpop – all of that was so much bigger and more impactful.
Tell us about those covetable union jack upholstered armchairs and teapots adorning stores…
We needed an interior identity, and I came up with this concept which we call ‘Mods in the mansion’, which is based around those working class guys who suddenly get rich and end up buying a big place in the country. It’s a very simple concept, and very British too. You imagine these guys – Liam Gallagher, say, or Roger Daltrey – coming from a very working class background, living in a mansion, and you mix the two in your design. So you take old antique furniture, or a teapot, and stick a union jack on it. Because of the number of people we have coming in wanting to buy this stuff, we did think of selling it – but that would take away the mystique. Plus we also suddenly thought, we’re not in the furniture business, we’ve enough to do!
How do you bring about change in a brand with such a strong heritage?
We often look at other brands that have a great heritage but have needed to adapt to stay in the running – the Mini, for example. Here you have a very beautiful old car which no one was buying. Now they’ve redesigned it you see it everywhere, and the spirit of Mini is alive and kicking again. The purists will say the new version is horrible, but the reality is that most people are pleased. Even Paul Weller has swapped his old Mini for a new one. And the same thing is happening with our shirts: I’ve had people contact me who were seriously flipping out that we don’t stock the original straight-hem shirt. I admire them, because that’s the spirit of mod – they really, really care about their clothes – but it’s kind of extreme. And while they’re banging on about it, we’re not getting new consumers in. Of course you have to keep the essence – if Mini had designed a 4×4 that wouldn’t be right – but it does have to adapt.
Have you always wanted to work for Ben Sherman?
It’s funny, because when I studied at the Harrow School of Art I was actually in the same class as Christopher Baileys, from Burberry. Now Chris is a lovely guy, but I do remember I enjoyed a beer more than him – so when I made my clothes I always used to use overlock the seams, which meant I could get down to the pub when it opened. I’d come back five pints later and Chris would still be there, painstakingly taping every internal seam – and I always thought that’s why he ended up at a luxury label and I ended up here. Those things you do when you’re younger are a good indication of what you’ll become, and Ben Sherman suits me – a bit more working class, a bit more down to earth. This was made for me.
What did you do in-between college and your dream job here?
I started at Duffer of St George, where they paid me in clothing. This was more exciting than money, because the Duffer store on Shorts Gardens in Covent Garden was where everyone who was anyone went. Working there helped me realise that there was a place in this industry for me, because it was a laddish brand with amazing taste. From there I went to Diesel, and from Diesel I went to the States, and then – well, it just shows you can be a product of your environment no matter how strong-willed you are. I went there in the late 90s, when hip hop was massive, and there was point in time when I looked down and I was wearing a black velour tracksuit. Can you believe it? That day I said to myself, “Mark you’ve lost your roots.” I shut the blinds and I watched Michael Caine movies all weekend to reinvigorate myself and suddenly I was back – into my slim trousers and my fine knitwear and my desert boots and on the plane home. It made me think that during wars, when people do such horrific things, it’s just because they’re in an environment where that is seen as OK. Not that I’m aligning wars with black velour tracksuits, but it did freak me out.
And now you’ve seen the first Ben Sherman store open in Covent Garden. Is it good to be back?
I have a massive passion for Covent Garden and the discoveries I made there. As a child, I used to pay a pound for a travelcard, come up to London and walk around. I discovered those little alleyways around Covent Garden, and that was where I learnt about men’s fashion. Duffer of St George, Diesel – we opened that Diesel store on Neal Street when I was there 15 years ago and that position made Diesel as a business. So I’m really proud to be here. It really is like nowhere else in the world.
Tags: Ben Sherman, button-down shirt, Covent Garden, Diesel, Duffer St George, Mark Maidment, Mods, Neal Street