Family Business Week: Why James Hare is focusing on US growth

Leeds-based James Hare, which sells to fashion and bridal designers and interior designers for private homes, hotels and yachts, is focusing on expanding in the US as well as France.

Its own design fabric, for both fashion and interiors, is made in India and China, where the finest silks are woven. Fans have included everyone from top interior designers to Russian oligarchs and the Royal Family.

Recently its fabrics have ended up in the Ivy Asia, Claridges and Cartier Beverly Hills.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post ahead of Family Business Week this week, creative director Saffron Hare said: "We were doing very well in Russia but now that market has gone. Our business in Europe has also declined because of Brexit and VAT.

"We were doing really well in Eastern Europe but sales have gone down there because the confidence of some countries has just been destroyed.

"So we’re renewing our focus on America, which seems to be much easier to deal with at the moment.”

The business has a £5.5m turnover and 23 staff who are all based in its Leeds city centre headquarters.

About 50 per cent of the business is export.

Ms Hare added: “America is our big growth area, particularly New York, Charleston, Florida where the English interiors and the English look is more popular.

"But France is also a growth area because we’ve found good representation there.”

As well as finding new markets to sell to, James Hare is also expanding its range of products.

"We have launched a wall covering collection, which is when we paperback our silks so they can go on walls,” Ms Hare said.

"We have the largest silk collection in the world, so, therefore, we also have the largest wall coverings collection, which tend to be used in private homes.

"They are becoming increasingly popular because people are becoming more exciting with their interiors.”

In addition, about 18 months ago James Hare started selling trims. “They complement our plain silks and they’ve been really popular,” Ms Hare said.

She added: "We are 157 years old and in order to stay alive for that long you have to change. Over our history we have changed quite a lot, the most recent change being when we moved from purely fashion into interiors as well.”

Ms Hare and her cousin, Charlie Hare, the founder’s great-great-grandchildren, joined the firm in 2000 and became creative director and export director, respectively, in 2018.

The main challenges for the company at the moment, she said, are rebuilding the confidence of the firm’s European market following Brexit and managing the spiralling costs of some of its fabrics.

“We’ve had some costs go up by 33 per cent, which is incredible,” Ms Hare said. “We haven’t passed on those costs to our customers yet.

"Because we’re a family business that has been going for 157 years, we probably treat business slightly differently. We don’t immediately pass on costs because we recognise that could destroy something that we’ve built up for years. We’re just being jolly careful.”