BUSINESS PROFILE
Interior designer Fameed Khalique
Fameed Khalique grew up in a small village in Leicestershire before moving to London in 1984. Within a year, he made quite an impression on the capital by putting on Fashion Aid, the world’s biggest fashion show, for his college thesis. With the help of Bob Geldof, he managed to get the Royal Albert Hall to host the event that featured designs by Calvin Klein, Armani and Yves Saint Laurent as well as the biggest British music acts of the decade. From there he went on to work for Freedom Cars, because he likes a man in uniform, and as a magazine publisher before he found his true calling. His shop in Chelsea, which carries his name, is a treasure trove for designers with the largest number of surface materials under one roof.
You have had quite a varied career. How did you end up where you are?
There was no plan for this, it all happened organically. When I started the business I had no design background, I can’t even draw a straight line. I started with leather, then found something else then something else and another collection. I would see things and I would like them. I’d get a funny feeling in my stomach and that was the basis on which I would choose to work with a specific material. I would walk around and knock on the doors of designers. I was showing one English designer my stuff and he asked: “Why are you so nervous?” I told him that all I knew was that I liked it. And he looked at me and said, “You’re absolutely fine. You’ve got a really good eye, don’t worry about it.”
He was probably the first person who recognised some talent there. That’s when I had the epiphany that I wanted to be the guy people went to for surface materials. And here we are 11 years later.
How did you get into designing your own materials?
I’ve always understood creative people. I’ve got no training but about six years ago, we did our first embroidery collection that we put together ourselves. I don’t have a designer, so it was a case of sitting with the workshop, pulling things out, scribbling things down and picking things. We did this
How large is your team?
collection and it had my name on it. That was nerve racking.
Who are your better- known clients?
As far as hotels in London go, there is the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, The Ned and The Peninsula. The food hall in Harrods used my hand- embroidered leather, and in nearly every [ high- end] restaurant in London there will be something from here.
What were the biggest challenges building the business?
I started in 2008, at the beginning of the recession. I didn’t have a choice in that, it was what it was, but I also remember someone told me that the pendulum swings [ both ways]. So if you can start a business in a recession, when things start getting good, you’re already there.
There were six of us, now we’re down to three.
“I ended up secretly starting a gay youth group when I was 14”
We’re trying to recruit other members but it’s difficult because you can’t just take anybody. Finding the right people is complicated. We do a lot of work for such a small company, we really punch above our weight. We do projects around the world: in the Middle East, New York, in Europe, everywhere.
How many of the materials that you offer are exclusive to you?
When I started, we represented people. I was either their agent or distributor. As time went on, we started to do our own things. I’d say 70 per cent of our revenue is from our own products. In terms of collections, more than half here are made by us. It’s everything from hand embroidery to leathers, semi- precious stones to wood veneer rain covering.
What outlandish requests have you had?
We had a client who loved the bamboo used on Gucci handbag handles and wanted it for spa screens, a client wanting Hermès leather for wardrobe doors and another brought in a tiny picture of a Giambattista Valli evening dress and wanted me to replicate the material [ silk, chiffon and ostrich feathers], which I now use on my Khalique Claudette cushions. In the past five years, we’ve worked on two yachts that won boat of the year and one of those was the biggest yacht in the world when we did it. I have to sign NDAs for all my projects, but the biggest yacht belongs to [ Chelsea Football Club owner] Roman Abramovich, which is no secret. Then we did a yacht two years ago, with the biggest indoor swimming pool on any floating ship. We produced 12 mosaic arches, inspired by the RAC Club’s pool and Isfahani tiles, six either side of the pool. A quarter of a million pieces were hand carved and it was the largest mosaic project in modern- day India. That was an exciting project, that I never got to see. As is often the case, we don’t get to do the installing and we don’t get to see the result, which is frustrating.
Now you’ve started your own retail brand...
It dawned on me one day that we have all these materials that we don’t make anything out of and I wondered if we could create retail products. Retail is a never- ending money pit so I began with a cushion collection. We started selling them through Harrods and Lux Deco. The first collection retailed for £ 900. Now we sell some cushions for £ 129, and launched a unique scarf collection last year.
Has being gay ever affected you in the workplace?
The only people I’ve hidden it from are my parents. I grew up in a traditional Pakistani family in a tiny English village so it could be scary — although I ended up secretly starting a gay youth group when I was 14 with the help of the local gay switchboard. At school, no one knew, it was at college I started telling everyone and it’s never been an issue for me. It doesn’t occur to me that I’m brown or Asian or gay. I just think of myself as me.
What do you see as your biggest challenges in the next few years?
I want to open an office in the US, partly because I love going there and also they don’t care about budgets. Then obviously we should look to the Middle East and Singapore.
fameedkhalique. com khaliquelondon. com