![]() “It has become a global brand because of globalization-it’s not because we’re that clever,” he says. ![]() Of the brand’s international success, Kelvin is modest to the point of being dismissive. MUST-READ: Exclusive FASHION DESIGNER interviews He still loves selling-he recently spent a couple of days hustling at Ted Baker’s Fifth Avenue flagship in New York. During his early Ted Baker days, Kelvin sold shirts all day and slept on the shop floor at night. He spent his teen years working in his father’s Tottenham blouse factory, idolizing football players and admiring the “sharp detail” of ’60s gangsters-his first style inspirations. “I look at people, what they do, where they’re going, their attitudes.” Kelvin’s keen eye for style dates back to his childhood, when he helped out in his grandfather’s menswear store. “I can just feel things-I have a sense of fashion,” he muses. Ted Baker boasts a robust design team, but Kelvin is always the sartorial starting point. More on the success of Ted Baker London on the next page… “You really love us.” Ted Baker’s womenswear success is built around a simple principle: The clothes and accessories-including this summer’s floral fit-and-flare dresses, textured body-con frocks and clutches in juicy fruit colours-make women look and feel lovely. “That store is outrageous!” hoots Kelvin about its profitability. This is headquarters for the brand, which has stores in more than 34 countries, including an already beloved Canadian outpost that opened two years ago at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. The airy second floor overlooks the atrium, where staff sit at picnic tables enjoying the free noontime meal of grilled salmon and quinoa salad. We’re having lunch at his office, a sprawling Camden compound whose nondescript brown-brick exterior belies its inside charm: Outfitted like a Ted Baker shop, it’s all warm and vintage-y, with mismatched orange chairs, glass lamps and bookshelves. MUST-READ: Catch up with DSQUARED2’s Dan and Dean Caten ![]() (A green circle on the floor beside his desk indicates the “Hug Zone.”) “I just love these people,” he says of his team. He talks in paragraphs, calls out warmly to staff as they walk by and proffers compliments, jokes and hugs-lots of hugs. He needn’t have worried: That shop is now a global mega-brand worth $1.2 billion.) In person, however, the invisible man is a complete chatterbox. (“If it had failed, I would not have been able to handle it,” he once told The Telegraph. MUST-READ: 5 FASHION DESIGNERS to watch in 2014Ī similar reserve informed Kelvin’s 1988 decision to found his business, then a single Glasgow shirt shop, under the moniker “Ted Baker,” rather than his own name. Ray Kelvin is known as fashion’s invisible man: He rarely gives interviews, and in all of his online pix, his face is obscured by a teapot, a large bass or, in one memorable 2011 shot, the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) award he was given by the Queen for his service to the fashion industry. Please verify your bill before you leave the store because once you're are gone, it's too late. To bad because I am general sales manager myself and I'm always very accommodating to customers. Anyways, next time I will be spending my money somewhere else. I believe their corporate vision is not based on long term customers. They had nothing to offer except driving the 12hrs back and forth. He was actually very haughty over the phone. I asked him if I could go to a local store or get a gift card but they were not open for any solutions. He told me that he could see the mistake but the only way to have my refund is to drive back all the way over there. I called the manager ( Jonathan) but unfortunately he was very unhelpful. This morning I realized that he overcharged me 88$ us on a pair of shoes. I drove back to my place the same day which is in Canada, about 6hrs away from the store. The salesman was very nice but he made a mistake on my invoice. I went to the Ted Baker Woodbury store yesterday and bought for 865$ in half an hour.
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