“One day I remember having some leftover brown suede leather in my apartment and somehow this idea popped my mind ‘What if I made leather bow ties?’. Literally the next day, I took this piece of leather to the tailor down my street and I told him to make a bow tie from it. After that, I got some suede bow ties produced and the feedback was amazing.”
One year later, 21-year old Dutch business student Milad Saleh decides to make it official and starts L’Homme de Cuir. Currently the first and only company in the world selling suit accessories made of real lamb suede, the brand focuses on handmade ties, bow ties and pocket squares in premium French lambskins.
How did you start your own brand and what is the inspiration?
“I began on my own, so I could make quick changes in the initial stages, where you need to take a lot of decisions that are primarily based on personal preferences. Before officially launching, I remember wearing this suede bow tie at a Halloween party – I dressed up as Leonardo Di Caprio from The Great Gatsby – and I managed to sell three of these bow ties to total strangers! I didn’t even have a website at that point, so I took down their phone numbers and texted them the next day to discuss how I would deliver the products to them. There are some things you don’t forget easily, and your first ever sale is one of them. L’Homme de Cuir officially launched this Spring with its own e-commerce and it has now almost sold out of its entire inventory. Buying a L’Homme de Cuir product is a statement of luxury and elegance, as it drives inspiration from the old streets of the mid-20th Century Paris and the sophistication from these French gentlemen. That’s why the slogan is ‘Pour vous, Monsieur’. We want to compete on quality, not on price.”
As most start-ups, you started from scratch. Your company now gathers its fabrics from all over Europe: the leather is French, the packaging boxes are German, the sewing threads are Italian, while the inner textile lining of the ties comes from London. So how did you manage to set up your supply chain, one of the most insidious challenges for a firm?
“Setting up a smooth supply chain is not easy at all. Just when you think you’re finished, you realize that you are far from finished. Just when you think you have found the right supplier, you realize that you were wrong. The minimum orders from suppliers are usually very large, but expos and fairs are great ways to find small production companies that are more than happy with small orders. I would be lying if I said that I haven’t lost a big part of the company’s budget on silly mistakes. Not having any written contracts and trusting the wrong suppliers or manufacturers have been very costly mistakes of mine in this journey. I have learnt that the most important thing is communication: make sure to state your expectations to the people you work with, not only related to products, but also in terms of relationship.”
The feedback from the customers so far is positive, but being a first-mover with any product is always a risk, and it puts you in a vulnerable position, especially in such a competitive industry. Do you have any advice for young entrepreneurs like yourself?
“Probably the biggest challenge for any entrepreneur is motivation. You should therefore be passionate about your brand, talk about it to anyone you know, ask for advice to anyone that could help you, and most importantly: believe in your idea. Some people will tell you that it will not work out and will discourage you from continuing. At some point you will make the worst deal of your life and lose on a big part of your investments, which I did, but all these steps bring you closer to that bit of success. A step closer to a stranger who wants to buy your product, to that first store who wants to sell your product, and to that first real investment opportunity.”
by Francesco Viola
