About

Savage What?

  Back in 1983 I had just finished doing my Masters in genetic engineering. Like all students I had 3 months of waiting before getting on with the next phase, the PhD. I had severe doubts about the whole thing really. My grants were coming from what I considered dubious commercial corporations. The global mob! Naah, not for me. I was way too political for all that nonsense. So out of sheer need, namely starvation, I started experimenting with scarps of leather & managed to get a little stall in Camden Lock market. I was 23 years, married & living in a bed-sit in Kilburn.

Before I could say Jack Kerouac I found myself supplying shops in the, then trendy, Kings Road & opened my first store in Covent Garden, which was called Kim Hadleigh designs. I was married to Kim so I thought it was nice to name the label after her. My shit with Kim didn't really work out. Mainly because she is a girl & I do not understand the fraternity. The label was really quite successful. All the 80s rock gods were customers & used to come down buy a bunch of stuff & give us loads of money & in turn we would kindly give it our landlord & taxman for rent, rates, vat & Tax. Business people we were not. So after we fell out the store had to close. The whole structure was wrong. It depended too much on our personal input, with the customising & things that others simply could not do. It made it unique but it didn't make any real money!

After the Covent Garden & marriage fiasco, I decided to chill out. Still working, but with less profile/presence. So I worked from my mates basement in Rupert Street, Soho. I redesigned the whole interior & made all of the furniture, 63 Rupert Street London W1. But after the project was finished I felt I had to get back in & found the Newburgh Street location. At this point I established Rock & Roll wardrobe label. It was Rock. I have been here for quite a while now & have seen them coming & going every 6-9 months up & down the street.

Having worked in the fashion sector I came to the conclusion that all the big labels were trying to do was to promote their brands/names in order to sell lorry loads of T.shirts, perfume & sunglasses. The cat walk glamour was a mere smoke screen, as far as I could see, (Sic)!! I re-invented again & launched Savage London. A street label, dedicated to the London vibe. My reasons were simple, as always. We work & live in the greatest city on the planet. We out put the best musicians, designers & generally all the weird people who have something to say in this world. To me London nurtures all that is cool, funky & artistic.

My passions in life are as simple as can be. I love all the great apes, chimps in particular, & tigers & quite active on the conservation arena. I was even the Chairman of this massive gig for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund at the Royal Opera House(Covent Garden). I try & dedicate as much of my time as possible in working with organisations such as Monkey World (Dorset) & Jane Goodall Foundation who are all involved at grass root level in dealing with endangered primates. So inspiring.

One of my main sources of inspiration are The native Americans. These guys are cool. Simple & content. Really with it. The Native American philosophy & approach is really the only one that works for me as it transcends abstract religious connotations & attends to the real world & how we impact all that surrounds us & ourselves. It's all about people & their natural surroundings.

I am still busy as ever. The quest for better designs & product is an ongoing daily event. I have achieved a little so far & still have much to learn. Our stores are now established corner stones for old & new customers. Still retailing at the same price as when the brand started. I have managed to do a bit of furniture design in to the scheme of things & all the store designs & furniture are made designed & fabricated by me. I am definitely getting better in this. It can get quite quite tricky. But seems to work. I even made few things for home & sold a few to persistent clients!! Savage furniture?

Apparently I have a bad attitude when it comes to press & corporate entities. But it is not that all. I am quite distrustful of anything with overt power or money. They seem to have this arrogance thing going on. So I tend to keep away. The best example was getting involved in Westfield London White City. It made perfect business sense at the time. But having to operate in such sterile & repetitive environment was doing my head in. Westfield London=Brent Cross=Blue Water= All shopping centres look the same! The landlords started pushing us around & that was the perfect excuse for me to get out. Oh well, lesson learnt. Experience gained.

Long term plan has to be a few more stores, some funky & clever franchise deals etc. Who knows. We are set & ready to take the gig to new sexy locations in Europe. All the systems & designs required to achieve this are now in place. That is why I haven't been partying as much in the past 3 years. But still rocking quite steady.

Thank you for buying my stuff & representing!

Savage
January 2010

For Savage London Press coverage see Press Stuff.

  Our Clients, Past & Present (Roughly in date order)

Savage considering alternative transport in Morocco

Guns & Roses, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Ozzy Osbourne (Ma main Man), Mr. Jovi (Jon Variety), Mike Oldfield (The artist that gave us Richard Branson), Marc Almond (one cool guy), Oliver McCall (Heavy weight boxer), Mr Don King (a true star maker), Dr Fox (Capital radio DJ), Ms Sinead O'Connor (the most talented & blessed female artist), Margarita Taylor (capital radio DJ), Ms Gail Porter (the best bum on da house), Cass/Skin & Ace (Skunk Anainse - fusion funk rock gods), Mel B (Spice Girls), BB Mac (????), Hearsay (Pop stars), Apollo 440 (dance tune smiths-check them), John Lee Miller (Train Spotting), Vanessa May (good looking oriental violin player with a dodgy mum), Lenny Henry & Dawn French (funny fuckers), Jason Fleming (Lock Stock... film guy), Sir Colin Davis (my most favourite & only uncle), Paul Barber (Full Monty), The Holly Oak crew (nearly all of them), Big Brother lot (?????), Big Breakfast Crew (Channel 4), Eastenders lot (Mainly Babs), Mr David Lammy (Labour MP Tottenham), The Royal Family (The kids!!!!! I am serious), Matrix (the bad twins in the coolest film ever), Cheeky Girls (The bumsters from some where), Mr & Mrs Jonathan Ross (cheeky chirpie lad), Gary Jules (Christmas No. 1 2003- Wild World), Rio Ferdinand (Forgetful fucka), Mr John Malkovich (genius man who knows better), Mr David Hasslehoff( ouch!), Jude Law, me mum, sister, niece & the whole Savage Crew (they always represent).

  I have a done a fair bit of other related work namely:

Costume designer for the cult music TV series: THE WHITE ROOM. Produced by Mr Chris Cowey (Re-Vampor of Top of the Pops). I did this for 2 years. It was great fun. I Also did Glam Metal Detectives (BBC), Club class (Ch4-5?), Emmerdale (wedding costume), The Top 10 Series (Ch-4), Big Breakfast (Ch-4) I did 2 leather collections for the famous & really rich Italian designer, Roberto Cavalli. Learnt much. I have also done a whole load of styling for ads, & music promos. Too many to name really.

I do like doing the TV & film stuff but: there's too much hanging around, so it becomes rather boring at times. Aaahh! Forgot a strange involvement. We designed & made a bunch of shirts for the United States Army! Of course it was a donation for our US brethren chasing after Osama, just after 911. They still haven't caught the bearded beast. (for that you'll have the see Charity page #2)