Charlotte Staerck, co-founder & CEO, Handbag Clinic
I’ve been obsessed with handbags forever. I’m not sure why, I grew up in a tiny village outside of Newcastle, and my mum wasn’t interested at all. I remember, when I got a Saturday job, I’d stare at them through the windows — and, as soon I could, I bought my first brand-named bag; a cream Luella tote at 18 years old, which I thought was the best thing ever. However, it soon got covered in dye transfer, from my jeans. And, a colleague told me there was a local company, The Furniture Clinic, that did repairs. She gave me their number, but I lost the piece of paper. If I had gone, it turns out I’d have met my future husband, Ben, two years earlier than I did — at a bar in Newcastle. Ben had built up a business with his father cleaning and restoring furniture and leather household items since 2004 and, by the time I met him, it had grown from a small online family operation to a thriving global business with a team of 75 people and a network of distributors around the world, still operated from its North East headquarters.
At the time, I was on a fast-track career path having risen through local government ranks to be appointed as a Senior Buyer of pharmaceutical and medical equipment for the NHS. I was fiercely independent and my career was going from strength to strength but my passion was always luxury handbags – I would spend ages browsing the preowned market and buying and selling at the right time so I could covet the latest It bag – something that’s now been coined as circular fashion. I’d work with Ben to protect the bags and restore them to ensure they held or even increased their value when selling them on. It was incredible what he and his team could do – from removing stubborn stains and scratches to improving color loss and repairing broken zips, worn edges, split piping, and reinforcing shape and stretch straps. Nothing seemed to be unsalvageable. I couldn’t believe how profitable it was. For example, I made £300 on a damaged velvet Gucci cross-body bag.
Ben and I observed the increasing number of handbags that were being sent to Furniture Clinic for restoration and I encouraged Ben to officially incorporate Handbag Clinic as its own independent luxury handbag offshoot in 2013 – all still operated through our e-commerce platform at the time. We opened the doors to our first store on King’s Road in 2015. The restoration was still very much the heart of the business but we had so much retail space and Ben wanted to use this for something more. This was when I had my lightbulb moment. We were having dinner one night, and I suggested integrating buying and selling preowned luxury handbags as a resale operation in our stores. No one else was doing it on a large scale, at the time. Nor were they combining restoration with resale which enables customers to fetch the highest possible price for their bags. There was a clear gap in the market. So I decided to leave my career and board Handbag Clinic as a buyer to develop the preowned resale operation. At this point, we opened the Newcastle store which was designed to also showcase our amazing range of preowned designer handbags as well as facilitate restoration consultations.
Ben had seen my addiction, knew I was onto something, and that I’d be the person to do it. So, I started heavily researching for about a year, until I knew everything there was to possibly know about handbags and the preowned market. Ben split his time between Furniture Clinic and raising investment capital for Handbag Clinic whilst supporting on strategy. I took charge of the day-to-day operations, developing a new system from scratch, working out which brands were popular, sourcing and photographing products. It spiraled from there. Within that first year, we launched the integrated offering of ‘Buy, Sell, Restore’ and, in addition to our Chelsea and Newcastle store, we also opened another store in Leeds, followed by rollout into Europe (Monaco) and the Middle East (Qatar). We quickly experienced rapid growth, growing as much as 186% in six months.
Today, we operate through a chain of four stores, including our flagship store on Kings Road in London, Leeds, and Newcastle. We also have Handbag Clinic franchise stores in Europe and the Middle East. We are the best-kept secret of fashion editors, stylists, and celebrities such as Poppy Delevingne, Storm Keating, Heidi Range, and Frankie Bridge – plus the Made In Chelsea crew who are all regular customers. Over the years we’ve had offshoots in Harvey Nichols and Harrods and most recently launched in Fenwick. We are the trusted restoration choice for high-end luxury brands such as Chanel, Aspinal of London, and Jimmy Choo. As a one-stop-shop for sustainable luxury, we repair, authenticate, buy and sell the world’s most coveted bags. Our mission is to preserve the past whilst mindfully reinventing the future and we aim to have customers falling back in love with their handbags all over again.
Despite the pandemic, which meant we had to temporarily close our stores, we experienced record growth during the height of the pandemic (April /May 2020) with an increase of 500% year on year. Overall, this is now 306% year on year, which still represents rapid and continued growth for Handbag Clinic.
Sustainability at the heart of our DNA
I think that one of the reasons we’ve been so successful is that our sustainable brand is built on genuine and authentic foundations. Ben and I have been living and breathing sustainability long before it was considered a movement and I was operating in a ‘circular’ way since I was 16 – buying and selling items I no longer had a use for and repairing those I loved.
There are so many brands trying to jump on the sustainability bandwagon but it’s not a value-add proposition. To be a truly sustainable brand it has to be at the heart of your DNA; the reason why you exist, to what you sell, and, most importantly – how you relate to your consumer. If your brand is built on genuine foundations – it’s much easier to connect and resonate with your consumer. Because I’m so passionate about luxury handbags and the market as a whole, I understand the customer and can instinctively read what they want – ahead of the curve.
I also would say that as a founder working in this field it is really important to lead by example. You can talk the talk but you also have to walk the walk. I am always striving to ensure sustainability is ingrained in every process within our business – from the products we use to the packaging we ship items out – we keep waste to an absolute minimum. I even go to the extremes of fishing out recycling that has been put in the wrong bin and locate the culprit.
My advice for any founder trying to build a sustainable brand and business model is:
- Build from the inside out – a brand architecture that demonstrates authenticity and action will ensure you connect to consumers whilst making an impact
- Have a clear vision – your brand vision must communicate the ‘why’ in your business model and its relevance to sustainability. Use this to unlock the potential of your brand by inspiring stakeholders with a clear and compelling vision
- Understand your consumer – Because I’m so passionate about luxury handbags and the preowned market as a whole, I understand the customer and can instinctively read what they want – ahead of the curve. The most important part of my job is being on the front line – engaging with and understanding every need and behavior of my customer.
- Lead by example – you can ‘talk the talk’ but must also ‘walk the walk’. Sustainability is not a value-add proposition and should be integrated into every process of your business, from packaging to distribution, supplies, and products used – you must practice what you preach.
- Ensure sustainability is visible and at the heart of all your comms – selling sustainable change for social good needs to be demonstrated through your marketing channels. At Handbag Clinic, we know that people are fascinated by the art of restoration so we have diversified and showcased these skills to create amazing and engaging content. Our YouTube channel now has 115k subscribers, Instagram 23.9k, and these platforms drive significant sales. Both platforms are growing fast and have an incredible level of engagement – so much so that we are recruiting more Artisans to our team to ensure we can capture more of the amazing work we do. We are one of the few businesses to be actively recruiting during the pandemic.
- Your team is your most important asset – At Handbag Clinic, we all work tirelessly and we’re all aligned with the same vision and you can’t even begin to put a price on that. I see it as a tremendous responsibility and a huge honor to develop the people who come and stay to develop their careers within our business. We work hard and have a lot of fun along the way too.
- Be prepared to work harder than you ever dreamed – Success doesn’t come overnight – the ascent towards your vision is long and steep but only you can see it so don’t be too hard on yourself.
AUTHOR BIO
Charlotte Staerck is the co-founder and CEO of leading luxury handbag restoration and preowned resale retailer, Handbag Clinic. The Clinic is the result of two passions colliding; a life-long obsession with handbags and a family legacy of leather restoration. Having specialized in leather restoration for over 16 years, the Clinic is the longest established luxe restoration service in the UK, lovingly restoring around 700 bags each month. It was set up by husband-and-wife team, Ben and Charlotte Staerck – they opened the doors to their flagship store on King’s Road, Chelsea back in 2015 and have since become the best-kept secret of fashion editors, stylists, and celebrities such as Poppy Delevingne, Storm Keating, Heidi Range, and Frankie Bridge – plus the Made In Chelsea crew who are all regular customers. Over the years they’ve had offshoots in Harvey Nichols and Harrods and most recently launched in Fenwick. They are also the trusted restoration choice for high-end luxury brands such as Chanel, Aspinal of London, and Jimmy Choo. As a one-stop-shop for sustainable luxury, they repair, authenticate, buy and sell the world’s most coveted bags. With a mission to preserve the past whilst mindfully reinventing the future, they aim to have customers falling back in love with their handbags all over again.
In just five years under Charlotte’s direction, Handbag Clinic stores have been rolled out across the UK as well as Europe, and the Middle East. Since introducing their resale operation (buying and selling preloved handbags) this has transformed the business from a small operation into a £multi-million global business. In the last year alone, the business experienced rapid growth with 306% year-on-year growth – this accelerated to 500% year on year (online sales) during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Charlotte is a valuation and authentication expert and consults to leading auction houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and the V&A museum.
WEBLINK & SOCIALS
Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/HandbagClinicOfficial
Facebook and Twitter @HandbagClinic
Instagram @handbagclinic