The game's afoot

There is also the brand's position of being "designed in London and made in Italy".

Sanderson likes to describe his shoes' uniqueness as "the British temptation to play with the respected craft culture of Italy" and finds that "the combination of the two is appealing".

Another advantage the brand has on the manufacturing front is that it owns a factory in Bologna, Italy, so it can keep quantities low and quality high.

Rupert Sanderson is completely self-financed, has four freestanding shops and is distributed over 100 department and specialty stores worldwide.

"The idea of partnerships by region now is a very serious thing to consider because we don't have big investment behind us. Our business has gotten to where it is with retail and wholesale and significant website sales. We've done all right getting it to where it is today," explains Sanderson, who started his business from scratch and has such a personal connection to it that he feels he will have to "almost fall in love with the person doing the approaching (for partnership or selling the company)".

Mak brought the brand to Hong Kong three years ago, opening a shop on On Lan Street in Central, which to this day caters mostly to locals, a rarity in the Hong Kong retail scene.

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