Makers & Brothers
Wednesday 14 August 2013
RIVERDANCE brought Irish dancing into today's world giving it a modern edge – and brothers Jonathan and Mark Legge are aiming to do the same with Irish crafts and design.
They showcase them from their uber chic website www.makersandbrothers.com which they describe as a "curation of everyday design and craft". The enterprising pair have based their business simply at The Shed, in the grounds of the family home in Blackrock, Co Dublin.
They say apples never fall far from the tree and with their father being architect, Peter Legge, it is clear that the boys were brought up with good taste and design in every element of their lives.
After leaving school, Jonathan, now 32, went to DIT where he did a masters in design products on furniture design before attending the Royal College of Art in London, and where he is now based as a design consultant.
Meanwhile Mark, who is 30, went to UCD where he did a Master's in marketing at the Smurfit Graduate Business School. "One is coming from a more business-ey background and one is coming from a more creative background," says Mark.
"We always had this idea of having a shop. I had done a thesis on a design shop so during the summer of 2009 we said we might aim to test the market and maybe open it just for a month in December.
"The recession had hit – I had just finished work and I had time on my hands. So, I spent the summer looking for vacant units around town and we found a place on South William Street. Jonathan, being on the design side, sourced all the products, built a small website and created a little identity around it."
"I live in London, and did when we were starting this," says Jonathan.
"Because we had this idea and we wanted to work together, we were only doing this to see if it would work. There was no real definite intention after this to open a shop. We wanted to open a business that wasn't just restricted to an Irish market, that we didn't have to open shop after shop, that there were other ways of doing it. But we knew if we were looking at doing it online, no matter where we wanted to go, the local market was important to us to start with," says Jonathan.
"We are an Irish company, the idea was to promote Irish craft and design, and to source it really well. Then we just wanted to test the idea of our edit, what we liked, we wanted to be sure a local audience were interested in the same things we were interested in. That was the thinking behind doing that December pop up.
"It went really well for us, everything we bought sold. We had stripped out the room in South William Street, painted it dark turfy brown and put in some lighting. It was a really good exercise, because we saw what it was like to work together."
They realised that having a shop was very time-consuming. "There was a lot of time spent just sitting there, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when no one comes in," adds Mark. "We shut up shop at the end of December and parked the idea for a while. I went travelling for 10 months and Jonathan went back to work in the UK."
"We came back to the idea." says Jonathan. "I suppose it was always in the back of our heads because we got a lot of good feedback.
"Then the Crafts Council wrote to us, which was a nice bit of initiative, and said if we were thinking of doing this again to talk to them because they would like to help us do it. So, we thought, if people are really interested in this and if there is an agency out there to help us, let's write a proper business plan and also review what we did the last time, what was good about it and how can we do it better."
They started developing a detailed online model and developing the website at the heart of the business. The physical side of it would be doing 'little pop ups' which they have done in New York and London.
"We also did an event in Brown Thomas, so the physical side of our shop is more event-based, and the day-to-day of the shop is online."
It is going really well, they both say, explaining that most of the business would be with the UK, Ireland and the US, "and there's a weird spike with South Korea," adds Mark, "lots of packages going out there – a funny little oddity which we have noticed."
He goes on: "Jonathan would have good contacts from college so our sourcing isn't done at craft fairs. When buying, we are looking six months ahead and we have to have a combination of products, because you could end up saying: 'S**t, we've just bought a load of wooden stuff!'"
Jonathan adds: "Also, because online is very visual, you need to also think about that when you are buying stuff. There is lots of stuff we are looking for, for instance this summer we wanted to develop a linen beach towel, so we found a company similar to ours called 31 Chapel Lane, a young couple, who set up a linen company, and they were very open to ideas."
Jonathan says that at the moment they are focusing on redesigning their website, so there is a lot happening in the background and they will start uploading this month.
"It will be a lot fresher, a lot easier to navigate and a lot more fun to move around. From the customer point of view, the transaction path is a lot easier. There will also be options for gift wrapping and to buy gift cards because we've been noticing that a lot of people are buying to send gifts onwards – they're not just buying for themselves," he says.
What sells really well?
"Items that are picked up by other blogs, say in the US a blog that might have 100,000 people reading it every day. If your product gets featured in that blog, it will drive a lot of traffic to the website," says Jonathan.
"We had a light fitting by Andrew Clancy featured in a US blog and we had a lot of sales of that design. It does depend on what products are picked up. Enamelware has sold very well and a beautiful carafe we did with Jerpoint glass has been a good seller this summer. We had lovely little espresso mugs which sold very well, chopping boards also move well".
The products are all made from exquisite materials, from alpaca to linen, horn to silky woods, and all of the finest craft work. Look out for wonderful knitted animals by Claire-Anne O'Brien, as well as her knitted bow ties. There are also great three-legged stools by James Carroll, and some beautiful Abbeyhorn long-handled French mustard and fruit spoons.
www.makersandbrothers.com
First Published in the Sunday Independent