Back to basics

"Alfred Dunhill really set the tone for the business; he's the guy who founded it, and he's very much your ‘Gentleman Inventor'", begins Mark Dunhill, Alfred's great-grandson and current president of the Alfred Dunhill Group. From the confident polish of the tale you can tell that it is one that he has told many times, but it is none the less interesting for that.

Originally founded in 1893, by the aforementioned Alfred, the brand has been around for over a century. The group's stores are now present in every corner of the globe - with 40 shops just in Japan for instance - and the men's accessories and clothing chain, in which the Dunhills are no longer shareholders, the brand currently being classed as one of Swiss-based Richemont Group's ‘Maisons', is busy increasing its foothold in the Middle Eastern luxury goods market. Dubai alone has seen the opening of one of Dunhill's larger shops in the Wafi Mall extension, with two others projected for flagship new developments at the Festival City and at the Burj Dubai. Similar launches are scheduled for roll outs across the Gulf region.

Dunhill resumes his ancestor's story with panache, and it is typical of the sheer charm of the man that you cannot help but be swept along by his enthusiasm: "He was an entrepreneur and ahead of his time," says Dunhill, "he was one of the first people to set his stall on the future of the motorcar. Remember that this was the 1890s, when it was little more than a very primitive, very basic box on wheels."

This pursuit of innovation is one that Dunhill is keen to focus on, as this is what he feels is the ‘spirit' of the brand. "You see, his [Alfred's] father handed over his saddle and harness-making business to him, and he sort of said ‘thanks a lot Dad, but I don't want to do that, I'm going to start selling things to these motorists'. And everyone thought he was crazy," Dunhill laughs, "because there weren't a lot of these things around, and the jury was very much out as to whether or not they were ever going to catch on. But, like all entrepreneurs, he was stubborn and opinionated and a bit of a contrarian, and he said ‘no, no, I believe they will, and I'm going to open the first shop to provide accessories for this new mode of transport."

And so Alfred Dunhill Motorities was born, the name is still trademarked for use to define the group's range of accessories. Alfred set out his first store with the slogan "anything but the motor", and, because none of the products existed yet, he spent most of his time inventing, designing and making his goods. "He was constantly leaving the shop and popping off down to the patent office to patent his ideas," says Dunhill.

Dunhill is emphatic that Alfred's customers of yesteryear are the very same type of people that the brand is seeking to attract more than a century down the line. "It is this idea of innovation, this idea of products that are functionally and beautifully made for people looking for something different," explains Dunhill. "Now, if you merge that with the knowledge that his customers were the guilded youth of their time, the free-spirits, we see them very much as our natural customer today."

Although Dunhill may be seeking to promote themselves as a fresh and innovative brand, I suggest that currently the public's perceptions may not be quite in line with the group's ideas, with some seeing it as set-in-its-ways rather than groundbreaking. "Well, what has happened, as often happens over the years," Dunhill replies, "is that our image has tended to stray from that idea of avant-garde products for free-spirited adventurers, to become a little bit more traditional."

Changing these preconceptions is precisely why Dunhill sees himself as being in his current role. "What we're setting out to do now, and what my principal job is as president of the company, is to realign the way people perceive the company with our true DNA."

Dunhill is keen to emphasise that the brand's back-to-basics strategy is not solely aimed at the young. "For me it's really more the young-at-heart," he says, managing to unwittingly describe himself quite succinctly. "It's a question of how you feel in yourself. There are a lot of guys who are now successful men who've just sold their businesses, they no longer need a suit to go to work, they can hop on their motorbike or into their sports car and ride into the country on a Wednesday. They're individualists, and those are our natural customers."

The group needs something to set it apart in today's very crowded luxury accessories market, especially in a region whose high net income consumers are now being targeted by every large premium international brand, but Dunhill is again confident that the brand's history will stand it in good stead against the competition. "We're unique in that we're an English brand, we're a masculine brand and we have legitimacy across a very wide range of products, we can offer our customers with whatever they want in terms of practical luxury," he explains, a reminder that by 1904 Alfred was already offering everything from clothing and accessories to watches and engineered technical devices.

"If you look at those upscale retailers that offer men's clothing, there are few that can claim to have a range that's English and quintessentially masculine," Dunhill says of the competitor stores surrounding us. "For most of them the men's range is a sideshow, or in addition to what started as a ladies' brand, and they are mostly French, Italian or Spanish," he adds.

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