My Story

by Jo Malone

  What few people knew at the time was that the fragrance proved so popular with staff that those same executives agreed to use the scent for their sachets of hand-wipes throughout the country. So, if you ever went to McDonald’s in 1995/96 and used their mini-towelettes, you were among some of my early customers.

  These commissioned projects were all part of a busyness that made me understand the imperative of employing a PA for the first time. When Cherie Fullerton came along, I didn’t know how I had coped without her; she proved to be a godsend, able to read my mind before I’d even asked her to do something. I never thought I’d ever require an assistant but I couldn’t have kept on top of things without her, especially since she also oversaw the running of the warehouse, plus the mail-order business we had also established.

  Nor did I ever imagine that I would have to stop doing facials, but I had less and less room for ninety-minute treatments. At first, I tried reducing my facials, going from ten a week to five and then two, but, eventually, the appointments petered out and found their natural end. Treatments had provided the foundation from which we had grown, but the business was now dictating the direction we needed to go, and our exponential growth was sometimes hard to believe, no more so than when Christmas 1995 rolled around.

  Our first full year of trading had been incredible. At the end of each day, Gary would write up a daily takings report and shake his head. ‘You aren’t going to believe what we’ve done today,’ he’d say. It reached the point where we were close to breaking the one million barrier in turnover – a goal that would have sounded ludicrous had we dared contemplate such a figure twelve months earlier, but now, as we prepared to turn into 1996, it seemed oddly realistic.

  We had two new shop assistants by then. Amanda Lacey, who was always ambitious and full of ideas, moved on and, I’m delighted to say, went on to become a facialist in her own right and launch her own brand. Instead, Vicky Martin and Lorna Trevelyan joined the team.

  Those two might as well have been sisters: blonde, beautiful, tall and, more importantly, smart and retail savvy. However frantic things became, they were the level heads that kept the ship steady, while being able to keep it fun at the same time. Laughter was around every corner. I had known graft, hard work, creativity and stress but we laughed every single day and the shop was a joy of a place to be. That atmosphere matters in a small business. Camaraderie, team spirit, and keeping things light, even in the intense moments, are ingredients for success, because everyone then wants to work hard and pull in the same direction.

  On Christmas Eve around noon, as trade started to slow, we let Vicky and Lorna go home. One hour later, Gary and I were thinking of closing early, so he started to go through the day’s receipts before heading to our own festive lunch at San Lorenzo.

  ‘How have we done?’ I asked. ‘Good,’ he said, tapping away on the calculator. ‘So what does that mean we’ve accumulated over the year?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Let’s work it out.’ And so he scanned the books and ran the numbers.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘We’re £362 short of our first million!’

  ‘There’s no way we’re closing now,’ I said. ‘We stay open until we make that last £362!’

  Over the next two hours, a trickle of customers, mostly men looking for last-minute gifts, passed through. At around 3.30 p.m. that trickle became a steady flow and I didn’t look up again for the next hour. I turned to Gary. ‘How we doing? Are we close?’

  I can’t remember the exact amount but it was less than a fiver.

  The shop was now empty but a lone businessman walked in and didn’t really seem to know what he was looking for except to say he needed a stocking filler. ‘What’s the cheapest thing you have?’ he asked.

  I picked up a 100ml bottle of shower gel. ‘This would be ideal,’ I suggested.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Eight pounds ninety-five.’

  ‘Perfect. Just the job,’ he said.

  Gary suppressed his whoops of delight as I finished serving the gentleman, gift wrapping his box and placing it inside a bag filled with black tissue paper. And before he could take the bag, I reached under the counter for a bottle of champagne that a customer had gifted us earlier. ‘Happy Christmas, sir,’ I said.

  He didn’t know it, but his stocking filler had just made us our first million – fifteen months after I had been offered that same amount for the business.

  He was a little taken aback by my generosity. He studied the Dom Perignon label, looked at the two smiling faces in front of him, and said, ‘Happy Christmas to you, too, but may I issue a small piece of advice – you’ll never make your business work if you’re giving things like this away!’

  The following year proceeded along the same upward curve, and it was around this time that our first overseas interest made itself known. America came knocking with a call from Harpo Productions. When my PA Cherie rang the shop to pass on the message, I had no idea who they were. ‘It’s Oprah Winfrey’s production company – they want you to take part in a special they’re doing.’

  Oprah had become the queen of daytime television in the States with her Chicago-based talk show, but it wasn’t until 1993 that the rest of the world knew her name after she landed a live interview with Michael Jackson and it became the most-watched interview in television history, attracting a reported global audience of ninety million. So, three years on, it felt like a pretty big deal when one of her producers invited me on her show for a segment entitled Million Dollar Businesses.

  I can’t remember how they heard about our story, but I assume I must have been quoted somewhere talking about our million milestone. Regardless, Gary and I were on a plane to Chicago one month later, which felt surreal because I’d not even done any local television at that point.

  Oprah was famous for celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit in people, and our segment focused on small businesses that started at home and had built from nothing. Other guests in the green room were a schoolgirl who had created a product that guaranteed crispy bacon in a microwave; someone who made designer hairclips; and the man behind Jamba Juice, which was proving all the rage in California.

  I didn’t see Oprah backstage, so the first time we met was ‘on air’ as I walked out to the all-cheering, all-whooping, contagious energy of a studio audience. As I took my spot on the sofa, I looked out and saw two or three television cameras – a bright red light atop each – and a haze of lights. Strangely, I didn’t feel nervous, probably because Oprah made me feel instantly at ease, but I also discovered that I felt confident when talking about my fragrances, as if I was their best ambassador as well as their creator.

  The interview couldn’t have gone any better, but I don’t think I fully appreciated the scale of that show’s influence until we returned to London. It had been business as usual for maybe a month, until one Saturday when Gary looked out of the shop window and saw a coach had parked directly outside – so close that its front end nudged and damaged our awning. But Gary’s consternation over that slight hit soon faded when he saw more than fifty American tourists disembarking and headed our way.

  In the coming weeks, more coachloads of Americans would stop by and we came to realise that it didn’t only bring another spike in sales, it meant that each of those customers returned home to their different states, armed with product and bags bearing my name. Each tourist was a walking advertisement, spreading a scented ripple across the Atlantic, coast to coast, from New York to California.

  I suppose that’s what they mean by ‘the Oprah effect’.

  SEVENTEEN

  The period 1996–99 felt like being on a merry-go-round going faster and faster, while still having to reach out and spin plates on the sidelines. A million and one good things seemed to happen at the same time, and I started to wonder if life would ever slow down again, which was ironic when you think we had opened the shop to provide us with a little bit more breathing space.

  Sales rose day after day, month on month,
boosted by the mail-order business that Cherie oversaw from our office at the Old Imperial Laundry. With more than twenty staff now on the payroll, we knew that we were outgrowing Walton Street. But one place we didn’t want to outgrow was the flat in Chelsea, so instead of paying rent, we started paying a mortgage after the landlord agreed to sell.

  We stopped trying to second-guess what would happen next. Indeed, I seemed to say the same thing in every press interview. ‘Who knows what tomorrow will hold?’

  What we couldn’t know was that our story in the mid-1990s still had some unknown twists and turns to come. So much of the brand’s future would be influenced by matters of fate, and by the people who would walk into our lives – and our shop – and open up a whole new chapter.

  In the previous eighteen months, and long before my appearance on Oprah, almost every department store in the world had come knocking, offering to stock our product as ‘a niche brand’. We hadn’t proactively pursued any of those approaches because we felt we were still learning the ropes of retail, without having to grasp the more complex intricacies and territories that come with the wholesale marketplace.

  When you’re the new kid on the block, tasting success and attracting attention, it is perhaps tempting if a big-name department store arrives on your doorstep with an offer. Today, it seems we live in a more entrepreneurial age with start-ups and television shows that can bring investment and fast-track growth. But Gary kept urging caution, saying we were setting out to build a brand with longevity rather than be a flash in the pan. Many first-time entrepreneurs can fail if they go too wide too soon, especially without the proper foundations and seeding in place, so we chose to bide our time and wait for the right offer.

  One such offer arrived in September 1996 during London Fashion Week – the year when designers Alexander McQueen and Julien Macdonald bossed the catwalk, and someone coined the term ‘Cool Britannia’ to capture the cultural renaissance in fashion, music, and retail. Twice a year, designers, stylists, and buyers from the department stores descend on the capital, so we had become used to the extra footfall as they heard about our shop.

  Different retail scouts operate in cities around the world, looking for the next new talent or brand that’s trending, and an agency called Agal UK Ltd had alerted its clients to our success. And that tip-off is what led to an approach we couldn’t resist.

  A fair-haired gentleman, looking dapper in a pinstripe suit, walked in and held open the door for a tall, strikingly elegant lady wearing a glamorous brown coat; it was obvious from their appearance that they belonged to the fashion world. What I didn’t know, until they introduced themselves, was that they were two of the biggest names in retail: Dawn Mello, president and chief merchant at Bergdorf Goodman, and her creative director Richard Lambertson – a duo who had recently relaunched Gucci before returning to helm Manhattan’s most prestigious emporium.

  Dawn was an industry icon. At a previous stint at Bergdorf in the 1980s, she had discovered Donna Karan, Giorgio Armani and Michael Kors. Now there she was, standing across from me, the epitome of feminine grace and smelling amazing – always a good sign in my book.

  There was something else she did that I noted, too – she chose a lot of product and insisted on paying. She was Dawn Mello; doubtless she received freebies wherever she went, and yet she didn’t expect something for nothing. Of the many flattering things she and the utterly charming Richard said, only one sentence stuck in my mind: ‘What an amazing space you have created,’ she said, looking around. ‘Have you thought about coming to New York?’

  And that was the question that opened the door into our partnership with Bergdorf Goodman, a store that understood luxury like no one else, and believed in brand-building not just brand-placing. It felt like the perfect fit in every respect. But as great as the opportunity undoubtedly was, Gary wanted to strike a deal that was right, hence why negotiations lasted a good twelve months, into the autumn of 1997.

  When it came to deal-making, my husband would prove to be one shrewd, tough negotiator who held his ground. On the other side of the negotiating table sat the equally shrewd Vicki Haupt and she, as the general merchandising manager, had been charged with doing what was right for Bergdorf. The great thing about Vicki was that she didn’t flex any corporate muscle and treat us as the minnow. She remained conscious of how big this deal was for us, while also aware of the points where she could concede ground and where she couldn’t budge. Gary, too, had his no-compromise points – and that was how we reached a potential deal-breaker.

  ‘We want to use our own packaging and gift bags,’ said Gary.

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t give you that,’ said Vicki. ‘We’ve never done that at Bergdorf Goodman. It has to be your product in our bags.’

  But this opportunity was about increasing our visibility and Gary held firm. ‘I understand the history and prestige, Vicki, but we have one chance to get this right. You’ll have other chances, we won’t. The department store that allows our packaging will be the one we sign with. That’s our non-negotiable; otherwise we can’t proceed.’

  He wasn’t bluffing. This was our only means of self-promotion outside of London. We could picture it: shoppers walking down Fifth Avenue, carrying our cream-coloured bags tied at the handles with a bow, emitting a hint of the scent inside.

  We were confident that other stores would come knocking if this deal went south, and therein lies a key point for any entrepreneur entering into negotiations: the worth of your brand, and the vision and principles you hold dear, should not be diminished by the size of the giant sitting opposite.

  Vicki offered a compromise. ‘Okay, we’ll agree to put the product in one of your bags which we’ll then slot into a Bergdorf bag. How does that sound?’

  Bearing in mind that it was a concession no one else had previously won, we were happy because we suspected that once customers had our bags then they wouldn’t be too concerned with the store’s, possibly even dispensing with them – and that’s what transpired after the first few months.

  Gary never once thought small on our behalf, and that belief – together with the product – is what got us into Bergdorf Goodman. He negotiated the whole deal, including floor space, commissions, the lot. Come spring 1998, we were ready to take the quantum leap from Walton Street to Fifth Avenue.

  Bergdorf Goodman sits in all its gilded splendour on one whole city block in Midtown Manhattan, between W 57th and W 58th, a site once occupied by the Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion. A majestic store – nine storeys high, with mansard roof and a marble and stone-clad facade – it is one of retail’s ancient monuments. I hadn’t fully appreciated that truth until I first stood outside. Only then did it become obvious why, in 1952, Time magazine called it ‘Fifth Avenue’s finest’ – and it still is.

  I looked behind me and saw Tiffany’s across the street, and immediately pictured Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, window shopping, peering into a glamorous new world through her own reflection, realising who she was and what she wanted. As a big fan of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the non-conformist Holly, I took this location as another positive sign. I had only ever viewed America through the television screen so it felt quite surreal to be standing on the street where they filmed a scene from one of my favourite movies.

  Gary and I stepped inside Bergdorf Goodman, and the whole place seemed to shine, from every reflective surface to the crystal chandeliers; its opulence conveyed a captivating charm, and its sense of history, fused with modern-day luxury, was breathtaking. This was the store where every luxury brand longs to sit, and no wonder.

  On our first visit, Vicki, along with Pat Saxby, the vice president of the cosmetic and fragrances division, provided a tour and that’s when we first saw the spot from where we would trade: a little windowless rotunda at street level. It was only a 100-square-foot space, much smaller than Walton Street, but it was ‘a land grab’ that we would maximise. In the year it took for the deal to be finalised, though, we had some seri
ous work to do to put us on the radar of the American consumer before launching.

  Through a PR agency, we secured some great coverage in Vogue, Harper’s, and Town & Country, but we were acutely aware that a few well-placed articles – even my favourite one, calling me ‘The Wolfgang Puck of Fragrance’ – were never going to trigger sufficient demand when we were essentially coming from a standing start. Unlike London, and outside of the Oprah fan base, we didn’t have a pre-established client base or any word-of-mouth wildfire burning. Very quickly, we realised that we had to get product into people’s hands – ‘seeding’.

  Via my network of clients and friends in London, I had about fifty names of people in the fields of entertainment, business and politics on the East Coast, so I spent one evening writing to and calling each of them. I offered ten or twenty bags of product and asked if they would be willing to give them to friends as hostess gifts or birthday presents. Each person I approached agreed to help. Fifty ‘influencers’ distributing product among their social circles was a subtle way of getting our brand talked about. I hadn’t forgotten how clients in London had placed bulk orders for corporate events and dinner parties, leading to an influx of new customers – and that was the kind of seeding we were looking to replicate, albeit less organically.

  Another plank we laid, with the help of our friend Susan McCone, was a trunk show held at her shop Jonal and Co. in Madison Avenue. Today, Susan is a reverend who runs a church in Connecticut but, back then, she was a fashion designer. She promoted the event and I pitched up with a trunk filled with product – the equivalent of a pop-up today – and I sold out after a week. Long before our gift bags started walking out of Bergdorf Goodman, they were walking out of a little shop in the Upper East Side.