Christopher King wanted to design something that completed every step in a manner that proved his respect for a historic process which has been refined by families in Italy for generations. He wanted to see what would happen if he found the very best craftspeople, made sure they had the absolute best materials, and ensured that if anything he designed was dissected and examined on an incremental level, then the exceptional quality of his work would be patently obvious.
“I knew that I wanted to get into fashion, I knew I wanted to build a really big brand,” Christopher King told me. “And from doing all my research and talking to friends who were part of some big brands, leather goods and were always the leader for them. It’s kind of what kept them in business.”
The founder wanted to put his time and energy into something that would grow over time. He looked at the numbers, thought about minimums for a run of production, how to determine sizing and prepare for the logistical considerations made inevitable to any brand due to returned products. The second part of his decision was made in the face of a fact people sometimes forget; that any of the specialties which make up the fashion industry are difficult to break into.
The really high end fashion brands, the ones whose names are reminders of greats who often worked a century ago, or any atelier that manages to successfully and regularly produce runway-only designs, are often not making money. When fashion is a fine art it is very often supported by licenses and/or much lower tiered price-points. King wanted to do something straightforward, he’s not really into balancing acts, so he decided to focus on products that consistently made money across time but to separate his brand’s offerings by making exceptionalism his trademark.
King is six foot three without shoes, and anytime he found himself sitting in the second set of seats in a car, it bothered him how little attention seemed to be paid regarding the comfort of those in the back seat.
“I always just felt that, as a consumer, that I could make something I bought a little more functional,” the designer explained, “I always say ways to add innovations. So when I started, it was a little bit by business decision and a little bit by fate. That’s how I kind of look at bags. Like, when I’m carrying something and I really wish there was a zipper here. Or, I wish I could store something here.”
I asked for an example where he’d gotten to scratch that itch with his work, if he’d give me an example where one of his bags exceeded his fantasy about utility being treated with equal respect and reverence as style.
“My Toiletry Bag,” King told me. “I put a really comfortable handle on it, and the reason for that is because when I’m traveling, I don’t want to bring too many bags.”
When creating this bag King thought about how such a bag was actually used.
“You take your belongings out,” he said, “you put them out in your hotel room. And now you can put in some cash, maybe a backup battery charger, some headphones or a camera. Because now you have this stylish bag you can carry around.”
A Heraldic Artist
Putting your name on something you’ve made, a product or a line that you sell, it ties the maker to the product in a very definite way. So when he decided that his brand name would be his own, King wanted to be certain that the moniker would stand for the level of quality he expected from himself.
“I knew that I wanted the world, when they heard, ‘it’s by Christopher King’, that it would be known that it was made with only the best materials,” King told me. “That they were the absolute best quality, and that there was a soul that made this product. So, when it came to the logo, I didn’t just want to have a designer sketch something, I wanted something really unique. And I have British roots, so we sought out and found a gentleman named Neil Bromley, one of the last known heraldic artists in the world.”
Like anything made by this brand, the logo (or logos, as there is one for the men’s bags and another for the women’s and we will come back to this in a minute) it was crucial to King that they were of substance.
“I wanted to make something that was unique,” he explained, “something that was obviously a play on ‘King’ and the name Christopher King and thinking about how to do this we decided to make this beautiful crown.”
Bromley’s first illustration was hand painted on vellum, a mark of quality which very much mirrors that of his brand. Please understand that there is no detail unconsidered, no step disregarded in any Christopher King design.
“I have that first drawing hanging in my house,” the founder said. “It’s like a trophy.”
As King showed me images hanging on his office walls, I could see in his face how much reverence he has for craftsmanship, how much he cares about supporting the work of great artisans. That is the heart of what he does. Christopher King makes a point of sourcing the very best materials for the greatest makers so that they can create work of the quality most only fantasize about.
“He is so talented,” King said of the artist as he showed me a series of Bromley’s illustrations at various stages as he told me about the process. “These are his versions that we ended up having vectorized. It became hand painted. And then we had to figure out how we could turn them into something that we could create.”
He hired designers who used some super high tech scanners to ensure that all the details, Avery color, could become part of a vector drawing. The result is the crown logo you’ll find on his men’s bags. Then King decided to figure out something just as elaborate for his women’s line.
“We had male crown,” King explained, “and you know, throughout history there was also a female crown, and that idea kind of separated the products for me between men and women. And Neil was really cool, going through the steps and designing it all. And I don’t want to spoil it, I want people to discover it, but there are some hidden things in the logo that are really wonderful.”
Never Any Synthetic Fibers
Before any conversation with a designer a good writer does extensive research, and during mine I kept reading about how the Christopher King brand never used synthetic materials in any of their products. This is not something that happens very often, even in luxury brands with the highest of price points use synthetics. And to be clear, there are plenty of textiles made of extruded plastics which are of high quality, or which serve a specific purpose, but there is absolutely a noticeable difference between the way a natural and synthetic material feels. In fashion, we’d call this the ‘hand’ of a fabric; how something feels when it is touched. It felt important, when we spoke, that I found out why this commitment mattered to him.
“One of my passions, besides my work, is I love to cook,” King said. “The fastest way to cook the best meal is to start by finding the freshest, best ingredients. And then another thing that I like about food is that when you put too many ingredients in something, you ruin the flavor, what it’s supposed to taste like.”
When he was building out his Italian factory this analogy was on the designer’s mind.
This made sense, especially when I thought about the pride with which Italians prepare their meals. It came to him because he found himself having the same conversations over and over as he worked towards achieving his goal because so many people kept telling him that what he wanted was impossible. But Christopher King is the kind of person who, when told something he believes in is impractical, he doubles down on his original position. Hearing “impossible” made King even more certain that what he wanted to do was the best, and perhaps the only way that it should be done.
“It was like, then we’re doing it,” he told me. “One of the things that I’m most proud of is that we use 100% natural materials in every single thing we make. In fact, the padding that we use on handles, and that we use in some of our shoulder pads, is medical grade 100% cotton. Some factories, maybe most, will line a leather with some type of synthetic polyester blend. But the taping, the threads, everything we use is 100% natural. I like to call my business the circle of life, like I use what God has left us on this earth. It’s my personal preference.”
Thinking again about his own experiences as a client, King told me of his frustration when he’d look at a beautiful bag, something made from an exquisite leather or crocodile, and then discover that the interior was lined with something synthetic. Or pick it up only to learn that the handle was some sort of plastic.
“It’s something I never liked,” King explained. “So, we use medical grade cotton. There is a latex farm we use, all of our handles for our bags are made with molded natural latex, and it’s an incredible thing to see. And our lining, I always joke that the inside of our bags are made more beautifully, with higher quality materials, than most other bags you’ll see.”
The quality and attention to detail in his work is never only about the exterior. It is just as rigorous throughout each design, from the pipe stitching to the way the lining connects to the bag itself. It does not matter to him that no one is likely to see this, that the bag would literally have to be taken apart for someone to truly understand how extensive his vision of quality is; Christopher King only wants to make bags that are as close to perfect as human hands can make them.
More Than A Hundred Component Parts
“There are a million brands out there and a lot of factories,” King told me. And then he used a phrase which he has coined that really encapsulates the company he has created.
“I call it ‘luxury with soul’” he explained. “I’ve found these incredible artisans, who I am highlighting in part of our new website, in a section on the factory where you get to meet all the people that have helped to make this a reality. Because to me, they are more celebrated than a celebrity client. Because without them, there is no brand, there simply is no ‘Christopher King’ vision without these artisans. We need them. There are about 100 and 160 now components that make our duffel bag. And I always say, pound for pound, if you were to take the weight of our materials, the quality leather, the gold plated solid brass, we are the most expensive product, probably in the world. And I say this with a very humble heart: I know wholeheartedly that I make the best duffel bag in the world.”
If you wanted to buy a natural diamond, most Americans would find one that was GIA certified. King often thinks about this, and how he wishes there was a similar grading system for leather, how often he finds himself thinking about creating a way of creating one himself.
“When you buy a bag from me,” he explained, “you’re getting that GIA certified high end D color, flawless cut, VVS clarity, because it’s the finest quality of leather. It’s the finest interior natural suede. Because again, I didn’t want the brand to be about me, I wanted it to be about the quality of the products. And while someone might not love my designs or love the colors that I selected, I definitely want every person that comes in and looks at our products to fall in love with the quality of the product.”
Christopher King Signature Colors
When the founder mentioned his colorways, I had to ask about them. I already understood how much thought he put into literally everything, But when I had looked at his range of colors, I’d seen how his palette was made up of tones I suspected he had named. They tell a sort of story on his website, or in person, and I wanted to know how a man who needed everything to be the best, if he was going to put his name on it, settled on these specific options.
“I was with my team in Italy, picking colors, looking at all these options that they’re bringing in,” King told me. “And I’m like, I don’t want to just pick a color from a book, that felt so uninspirational. This is not creative, it is not exciting, and if we did it that way then we’re just like everybody else.”
As an aside, Lovely Reader, when King tells the stories about his company and its origin, his eyes light up and there is love in his voice. This man is a rather exceptional storyteller, which I feel certain is a human quality evident in every handbag, backpack or duffle bag that he makes.
“I will never forget,” King continued. “I’m sitting in Livorno. And an employee at the time was like, ‘Chris, we have to pick these colors tomorrow.’ And I said I was going for a walk, ‘we’ll figure it out. I’ll have the colors by tomorrow.’ But I didn’t take any of the books with me.”
Even though there was no time, if he didn’t make his choices by the very next day the production deadline would be missed, King walked back to where he was staying and went straight to sleep.
“I was tired,” he told me. “I woke up in the morning and I went for a walk in Livorno and I see this yellow. It was almost like a whisper from God, like, that’s the yellow. And I walked down a little more and here’s this red, this blush Rosa. I walk a little further. And here’s this Tuscan lavender that’s blowing against this green backdrop. So I start grabbing nature’s flowers, and I’m putting them in my pockets.”
When he arrived at the factory his team was waiting anxiously. The moment he walked in he was being peppered with questions about his choices.
“I pulled out the flowers and grass,” King told me with a grin. “Like, here they are. What’s really different about my brand compared to a lot of other companies out there, is that all of my colors are custom dyed colors for me. I don’t pick from a color chart. All of our colors, from the Chestnut Terra to the Siena Sand to the Tuscan Olive, they are all custom colors that were inspired by a flower, or something in nature, that we tweaked and went over in a minuscule way. It was a process. One of my favorites is the Midnight Marina. I picked 12 colors and every color in our collection was custom dyed for us. Obviously, I want to add more and want things to change, I don’t want to be a brand that gets stagnant. But as of right now, I felt that these were the most beautiful, natural tones, colors that everyone can appreciate.”
Custom Pieces By Christopher King
“Now, obviously,” King continued, “I make beautiful custom pieces for clients when they want to dye something like crocodile or ostrich, and we can make anything. I’ve done all kinds of things. I once did it for a client who owned a very large jean company. He wanted to make these jean ostrich bags and we did them flawlessly, I mean, it looked like denim.”
I asked the designer to tell me about this part of his business, if he was willing to take on any sort of custom design that his clients might be able to dream up. And I learned that, as long as the person who wants the bag (or bags) is willing to take the time to do it the right way, there is no project too involved or too specific for Christopher King, he will execute it with excellence.
“If you want to extend the boundaries of creativity, the best way I think to create something is with an end user in mind. There’s no better end user than an actual customer who wants to dream up something with you because they’re committed to that purchase. They’re committed to making something that fits in their world in their way. To me, that is an exciting moment of creativity and passion and excitement that is irreplaceable to me.”
“So we will find a way to make it work. In today’s world with so much out there, everyone’s just kind of creating something to create something. And a lot of times it doesn’t land or doesn’t stick because there’s not an end user in mind. So to me, the ultimate satisfaction is making something with a client, working with them to push boundaries and limits. And that is my favorite thing in the world to do. If there’s anyone in your readership who wants to create something audacious and crazy, please know, I love it. Like, these are the things that I love to create and I think the beauty of real, authentic luxury is that you cannot manipulate time.”
