Hi Everyone,
I wanted to post a page on CBF on the new launch of Stretton Fox Collections.
As some people know, the majority of my career prior to Cricket was working in France for a large luxury group as a designer for fabric and product development. In most areas of fashion there are brands creating product seen as a reference point for quality and focus of design. In menswear one can refer to high end watch companies or upper end fashion. This creates firstly an enormous amount of desire (fast cars etc!..) then continual movement and filtering process which then works its way through different categories of product and retailer until later overtaken by the new seasonal releases and so on !
I'm not trying to say that this is the new Richard Mille ! but there is an enormous lack of focus in cricket on the luxury goods end of the scale. Partly as this may not be the primary source for cricket income, but this is a game we are passionate about, where bats are hand crafted out of willow so how much more personalised and crafted does it need to get !! Hopefully this much !
Mass produced "performance" goods are perfect for the category they represent, but the focus on high-end watches for example is that these last a lifetime, passing through from father to son, it's a tribute to the craftsmen who are able to make items to such a high quality, items which will get better with time and almost become part of the family.
A cricket bat can be made in the UK by someone with 25+ years experience and not just mass produced for the masses, the same level of detail and experience should be applicable to other areas of kit.
The first edition of 50 cases is made from Argentinean Taurillon-Clemence, it is naturally prepared and not chemically treated/bonded or tampered with in any way to make it cheap, this is rare and hard to get hold of, Hermes currently use it in their womens handbag collections and prices are upwards of thousands + so I thought this would be a good point to set the bar !, the next planned collection is looking to use either Croc or Python, again all real, and no corners cut whatsoever.
I hope this doesn't come across as a shameless pun ! but When something quite new comes out it's worth a statement !
Thanks again everyone for your continual support, i'll always keep pushing to keep it new !
George
www.strettonfoxcollections.com