Behind The Brand: The Chapar

Before the advent of online shopping, gentlemen had to travel to keep their wardrobe in the best possible shape, now The Chapar have come along and done us one better – giving every customer a personal stylist to do their shopping for them. The brand offers a no commitment policy and sends you a trunk of clothing, handpicked by your stylist after getting to know you and then you keep what you want and send back what you don’t – a luxury service from your living room (or office). We spoke to founder Sam Middleton about the thought process behind starting up The Chapar, how it works, and what’s next.

What was the inspiration behind starting The Chapar?

We did a lot of research into men’s shopping habits and how men consume fashion and menswear, how they put together outfits and how they dress and we came out with that men either don’t like to shop, or don’t have the time. So there was a significant portion of male consumers who want to dress well, want to present themselves well, but with the modern lifestyle time was becoming a real problem and they just don’t have the time. They want to spend their weekends with their friends or family, watching the rugby, pretty much anything else apart from traipsing up and down the high street. So we had a think about what was the best solution, and came up with this model of sending out a trunk of clothes, handpicked for you by a stylist, sent out to your home – wherever is comfortable for you. You have 10 days with the clothes to try them on, involve your wife in the decision-making process and quite simply picking the clothes you like and sending back those you don’t. We deliver and pick up the trunk whenever is convenient for you and make the whole thing as smooth as possible. The whole idea is to take the hassle out of shopping, which we believe we’ve done.

Is the service just offered in Britain, or is it available abroad as well?

We offer ourselves in Europe, which counts for a small proportion of our sales but the bulk of our custom is in the UK. Well over half of our customers are based in London; they’re typically in their thirties or forties, working professionals. We get a lot of lawyers, finance, management, sales. We get the working professionals who just don’t have the time [to shop].

Have you got any plans to go further afield to New York or Asia?

No, not the U.S. It’s quite difficult with shipping, more so than Europe. We’re considering Asia for sure, but it’s not in the immediate plan. Our immediate one plan is the UK market and then Europe.

The service is essentially free of charge, but you don’t charge a premium on the clothes customers decide to keep?

Absolutely, what we provide is a hassle-free service with a lot of value add. We don’t charge a premium, you don’t pay for the stylist, the courier, the shipping – you’re not committed to anything so if we send you a trunk and nothing’s right, that’s ok you don’t have to pay for anything. We charge the normal retail price, so if you kept a shirt from Hackett, you’d pay exactly what you’d pay if you went into a Hackett store or went into Harrods and bought it in Harrods. Our business model is that of a retailer, we buy at wholesale and sell at retail, the same as a department store is how we operate.

Have you found men have stopped shopping traditionally once using your service?

Good question, some definitely. We definitely we have guys who do no shopping at all and we’ve got others who will compliment our service with some shopping, looking around when their family go shopping, tagging along with their wives – well being dragged along really. But definitely you look at a significant portion of our members and we’ve completely taken over their shopping.

Is there a typical look or outfit you steer your customers towards?

No, definitely not. We’ve got 55 brands, so we can cover most looks across the whole spectrum. What we’re offering is a personalised service, so the trunk that goes out to one guy will be completely different to the trunk that goes out to another. So the clothes that go out really depend on customer, we don’t try to steer them all to a certain look.

Load of great brands already stocked, you mentioned Hackett for example, have you got any more additions in the pipeline?

The newest brand we’ve just taken on board is Ralph Lauren, which is obviously a pretty big brand and is great for us. Then about half our brands are similar to Ralph Lauren, a premium high street and mainstream brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Hackett, Levis, and then the other half I’d call discovery brands, which perhaps our customers haven’t heard about but are always great. So for example we do Sunspel, which in comparison is a smaller brand but does very well and is great and new to our customers.

Is there any special formula to finding those so-called “discovery brands” you stock?

Well we don’t call ourselves a fashion business, we’re not out there to uncover the next fad that will come and go very quickly. We’re looking to find great new brands that are still very classic, we like to keep an ear to the ground to help us understand what’s going on with the market, that’s our job really.

You employee a range of stylists to help customers, do they go through any special training?

They almost always come from a fashion background, having physically studied at somewhere like London College of Fashion or have a knowledge of styling and menswear so they definitely know what they’re talking about basically.

Any advice for a man looking to improve his style? Bar using the Chapar of course

Keep it simple, blokes tend to overcomplicate it a bit and add too much “Jazz” and then good fit is key. Make sure the clothes fit your body shape, it doesn’t matter what your clothes cost, if they don’t fit they’re not going to look right. So keep it simple and focus on great fit.

Finally, What’s next for you guys and The Chapar? Where do you want to go from here?

We’re a couple of years old as a business now, so we’ve kind of gone from a startup concept to something we know works and are looking to grow. Our awareness in the market is not huge, so we need to continue to build our footprint and then as we grow continue to focus on the customer. We don’t want to get to a point where we’re three times bigger but we’re not delivering the same high-level of service. We want to grow but maintain our high level [of customer service].

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