Excellent 12 minute video of quality makers at work

[Mikewilliam5]

Interesting thread. To give context I wonder how much the great makers of the past charged? What did Chippendale charge and how did that fit into the scale of incomes at the time? Personally I think that it's a good thing that there remains a market for the very best quality hand made, or at least individually made, furniture. The slow economy can thrive alongside IKEA.

 

[MIGNAL]

I'm not sure the 'all hand tool' thing will have that much relevance to the client. That's the kind of thing that excites other makers but is pretty irrelevant as far as the client is concerned. All they are really concerned with is obtaining a very high quality, fairly exclusive, extremely well made piece of furniture. Reputation and perception out-guns everything.
I think I have some experience of this type of thing in the Guitar making world. Guitar Players, even those paying in excess of £5,000, aren't a bit concerned what tool types have been used in it's making. I know of 'one man' makers producing around 50 instruments per year (that's a huge output) and there's hardly a hand tool in the entire workshop. There's a power tool and jig for everything.
In near 10 years of professional making I haven't been asked once what my approach to making is. I've never even heard the subject mentioned once on forums (by Players) either. The issue doesn't even register in their brains. Flip over to the people who actually make Guitars and the subject comes up fairly frequently.

 

[custard]

There will always be people happy to part with extraordinary sums of money for beautiful things.....To the super-rich, this D&W stuff is probably a bargain compared with a Warhol or a Moore. But no less desirable and every bit as necessary.

I take your point Silas, but the super rich buy antiques, they don't buy antique reproductions.

The problem with the repro business is that there's no original design component, so the price quickly becomes commoditised.

 

[Graham Orm]

Interesting thread. To give context I wonder how much the great makers of the past charged? What did Chippendale charge and how did that fit into the scale of incomes at the time? Personally I think that it's a good thing that there remains a market for the very best quality hand made, or at least individually made, furniture. The slow economy can thrive alongside IKEA.

I'm pretty certain Chippendale died bankrupt. Though mainly due to (rich) slow payers I think rather than low prices.

 

[custard]

I'm not trying to trivialise the problems in starting and developing such a business, but it certainly exists for those who have the talent to be able to both create fine furniture and develop the right relationships. Price is probably often less of an issue for the purchaser than the woodworker who may often look to more mass produced items to create a price reference.

Terry

Terry, I agree in part with your comments but in practise there are some enormous hurdles to be overcome. I've seen seriously talented makers ground down by the difficulties of trying to make a living designing and making fine furniture. They earned poverty wages for a few years before realising they'd never be able to afford a mortgage or give their families a decent life as a designer maker, so they chuck it in and become a shop fitter or go into the fitted kitchen trade. Still pretty arduous and perilous businesses by the way, but at least with a chance of a decent income if you get it right.

The problem with the economics of being a sole trader, pure furniture designer maker is that it's a broken business model...the numbers just don't add up. To make it even begin to work requires a significant adjustment, taking on several paying pupils to subsidise your work, having a spouse with a "real" job to pay the bills, achieving international recognition for the design component of your products, etc etc. Without something like this up your sleeve becoming a designer/maker of fine furniture is basically to accept that in a good year you'll get minimum wages and in a bad year you'll go under.

 

[Grahamshed]

It is nice to know people still produce work like that even if few of us could afford to pay for it.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

It was inspirational to see the craftsmanship employed in producing such a beautiful piece.

Thanks for the link.

Neil

 

[Silas Gull]

Incidentally, has anyone watched the Theodore Alexander vids on YouTube? These features give the impression of craftsmanship on an industrial scale, which sounds like a contradiction in terms until you stop and consider the size of the talent pool from which the company can source their artisans. On one hand it's awe-inspiring, and on the other it's depressing that, as Custard put it, such ability and output becomes commoditized , which in the eyes of some, may well diminish its value.

 

[Drudgeon]

I'm surprised that people seem to find it hard to believe there are people out there that can pay for work like this.

I have spent most of my working life in Central London, working on large period houses mainly in Kensington & Chelsea, and the money they have in this area is out of this world, the guys driving Range Rovers tend to be the poorer ones, people regularly spending 1,2,3 million pounds renovating a house, and then furnishing it with all the bells and whistles.

There is easily a constant supply of people with the money, and once someone has something made, and shows it to their friends, they want one, and so on. The money I see spent on these houses is outrageous, gold plated basins, guilding, anything and everything, they won't all be attracted to bespoke handmade furniture, but it wouldn't take many.

And when you think about it, people have quoted over 200 hrs for the corner seat, so if that was an average (ish) job timescale, plus design etc etc, means that you probably only need 7-8 jobs a year to mean you are working 50 weeks, which when you look at it, is not that much work to aquire.

 

[custard]

Drudgeon, I'm glad you've made those points. I don't think anyone doubts that there are some ultra wealthy people out there. The question is this, if you've set up on your own as a designer/maker, working from a barn in rural Devon or from a rented bench in Hartlepool, how are you going to sell your furniture to a hedge fund manager in Chelsea or a Russian oligarch in Kensington?

That's not a flippant question by the way. In truth it's probably the single most important question confronting the British designer/maker movement today.

In the USA during the 1980's and 1990's it seemed that an answer to that question had been found. It was the "gallery system", where a small number of prestigious galleries that had previously concentrated on art and antiques admitted just a few contemporary pieces of furniture from designer/makers. For a few years it looked as if it was a sustainable business model as it gathered credibility because a number of American museums decided they should also get in on the act and started buying contemporary furniture for their collections.

Unfortunately it all started to peter out, the museums decided they'd bought enough and the owners of some of the most supportive galleries either died or moved on. The crash of 2007 didn't help, and if you talk to many American makers today they believe that it was a brief, wonderful bubble that has now largely burst, leaving just a few active galleries and a minute handful of private collectors.

The other problem with the gallery system was that to work for the gallery owner, paying astronomical rents in Manhattan or San Francisco, they had to pretty much triple the designer/maker's selling price. Which catapulted ultra expensive prices up into the art world stratosphere. This in turn made many designer/makers unhappy that they weren't seeing these incredible selling prices and soured a lot of previously good relationships.

What's really left today is a business where the wealthy client goes to a big name architect or interior designer and deals exclusively with them, they pass the job on to a contract joinery business and the occasional furniture item that's required within the brief will be subbed out by joinery company or the interior designer...after a competitive tender that again ensures there's not much meat left on the bone for the designer/maker, even if the designer/maker is one of the lucky ones that gets to be on the tender list in the first place.

 

[Graham Orm]

Incidentally, has anyone watched the Theodore Alexander vids on YouTube? These features give the impression of craftsmanship on an industrial scale, which sounds like a contradiction in terms until you stop and consider the size of the talent pool from which the company can source their artisans. On one hand it's awe-inspiring, and on the other it's depressing that, as Custard put it, such ability and output becomes commoditized , which in the eyes of some, may well diminish its value.

Wow, spectacular stuff on a huge scale Silas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je_rkQ1UUQc
Looks like China or HK? Many VERY skilled people there.

Have a look at their website. Pages and pages of high quality furniture.
http://www.theodorealexander.com/Produc ... c8f7558a1b
Their outlet locator covers half a dozen countries including the UK. The one with the most outlets by far is Russia. I can't find where they are based, but all the workers in the video are Oriental.

 

[Drudgeon]

Hmm, I'm really confused w ith the Theodore Alexander furniture, is it hand crafted individual furniture, or mass produce d furniture (albeit high quality) made by hundreds of poorly paid workers in the far east? If I was going to purchase and own a piece of furniture of that quality, I think I'd like to know the person that made it, there's something that makes me feel slightly uneasy about tat, but maybe I'm just being silly?!

Custard, you make such a great point, how do makers get their furniture out there and ultimately in the homes of the wealthy? I'm afraid I don't have the answer, I guess exhibiting in various shows/exhibitions etc is the only logical way, that way the maker can get to meet potential clients, along with professionals like architects and designers that may then also put some work their way, but what is the cost of even doing that? The fact that you would need to have spent sufficient time making 'show' pieces, then the cost of the how itself, transport, accomodation away from home, time off work... And all this outlay when the income is already short?

The bottom line, as we already know in truth, is that being a designer/maker is a 'lifestyle' career, (I think this is the term used on dragons den! Ie: you do it for the love, and hope to earn enough to scrape by, how many furniture makers (I am not one by the way) do you know with a flash car and plenty of money? I've met a few furniture makers through my job and none of them fit that bill.

It is very sad and I obt know the answer, but we live in a throwaway society that cares not for craftsmen/women of any description.

 

[bugbear]

There's a power tool and jig for everything.

I was under the impression that most of the precision work on "hand made" electric guitars is courtesy of a small router (either normal or even Dremel) and a jig or guide; is that correct, or an incorrect stereotype?

BugBear

 

[Bluekingfisher]

Interesting thread. To give context I wonder how much the great makers of the past charged? What did Chippendale charge and how did that fit into the scale of incomes at the time? Personally I think that it's a good thing that there remains a market for the very best quality hand made, or at least individually made, furniture. The slow economy can thrive alongside IKEA.

Unfortunately Chippendale died in poverty, undoubtedly because most of his business was produced for the wealthy and aristocracy, who lived their own lives in debt and expected everyone else to do the same. I guess some things never change.

I suspect that the one piece was not made by the one man/woman rather shared and worked on as the area of specific area of expertise was required. Not quite a production line but probably far quicker than one individual working on the one item. :?:

 

[Shrubby]

Theodore Alexander factories are in Vietnam
google it and you'll see how massive they are
Matt

 

[Mr T]

Obviously top quality work. However I suspect that when the camera had been put away they got the machines out (or am I being cynical)!

I think the key to perennial discussion about selling your work is presentation, as the video shows. Doucette and Wolfe have chosen to emphasis the craftsmanship which I think is more the trend in the States where they like period styles. Doucettes make reproduction stuff so they have to play up the skill side of things. In the UK and Europe the emphasis is on design so makers over here tend to emphasise the designer side of designer/maker. But whatever the emphasise it's about presentation. What may appear a slick design company employing lots of people may just be one bloke in a workshop or a craftsman lovingly hand cutting dovetails may be a factory in Vietnam.

Chris