{"id":645175,"date":"2025-12-20T23:58:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T23:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/645175\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T23:58:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T23:58:28","slug":"connolly-london-is-the-shop-for-the-person-who-has-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/645175\/","title":{"rendered":"Connolly London is the shop for the person who has everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

What do you get for the person who has everything? Take a visit to Connolly. Perhaps London<\/a>\u2019s most stylish shop, it is a vault of beautiful things \u2014 endless objets d\u2019art, but also more usual items refined past the point of rationality. A fondue set with antler handles. The world\u2019s most elegant set of dominoes. Salt and pepper cellars whose weight might only be second to their cost. Or how about an oyster shell tray for caviar, with matching mother-of-pearl spoon? No, no, no. What you really want is the handmade, hand-knitted, cashmere cable crew necks. Only eight are produced each year. They are, however, reliably a sell-out.<\/p>\n

Ralph Lauren once declared Connolly his \u201cfavourite store in the world.\u201d It is not hard to see why. Or smell why, for that matter: the shop, with its scent of leather<\/a> and wood-smoke and tobacco, smells the way you imagine a forest-bound country house might, if it were owned by a racing driver from the 1950s.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re gathering, perhaps, that this is not somewhere for a bargain. Those one-of-eight jumpers? \u00a33,500. But the Connolly shop, around the corner from Savile Row<\/a> on Clifford Street, does not have an uncomplicated backstory of riches. It began life in the decidedly unglamorous surroundings of a tannery, in 1878. Creating fine leather goods from raw animal hides is hard, dirty, unedifying work. But the Connolly family got stuck in: soon they were considered Britain\u2019s greatest leather-workers. It was Connolly leather that was fitted into Rolls-Royces and Concorde and the desks of the British Library; Connolly leather that made the grade for the green seats of the House of Commons and the red of the Lords. The Queen sat on Connolly when she travelled in her Coronation Coach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The ground floor at Connolly<\/p>\n

Press handout<\/p>\n

This was the brand Isabel Ettedgui met in the early 1990s. \u201cWhen I left the World of Interiors, I started an advertising agency and Connolly were one of my clients,\u201d Ettedgui says. \u201cI just fell in love with this family \u2014 and their business.\u201d Though the brand was busy with the automotive side of the business, \u201cI said: \u2018You know you have a retail brand here. It\u2019s for men! It\u2019s the cars, the history, the Houses of Parliament, the Ferraris, Rolls-Royce\u2026\u2019\u201d And did they? \u201cNo! They\u2019d never considered it,\u201d Ettedgui says. \u201cI think they were embarrassed that they were in the trade\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

But she talked them round, opening the first Connolly shop in a former stable, on Grosvenor Crescent Mews. Meanwhile, the Connolly family were seeking to expand \u2014 with disastrous consequences. \u201cThey got into trouble in America, they got into bed with the wrong people\u2026\u201d says Ettedgui, carefully and sweetly.<\/p>\n

It was more than that, and the company was soon put up for sale. \u201cMy husband Joe said: \u2018You\u2019ve put so much into this business, I\u2019m going to buy it\u2019 and they said they\u2019d rather we had it than anyone else.\u201d It helps that Joe was Joseph Ettedgui<\/a>, the fashion titan behind Joseph. \u201cAnd then he opened a huge shop in Conduit Street, he upped the fashion, broke the rules a bit for me\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The yellow room looking into the gallery space<\/p>\n

Press handout<\/p>\n

The shop was a hit, but pancreatic cancer came for Joseph and when he died in 2010, Ettedgui decided she would close. \u201cPeople began asking if I was interested in selling the name and\u2009\u2026\u2009no. I\u2019d put so much time into it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Did she think her time with Connolly was unfinished? \u201cI don\u2019t know why you stick with something. Maybe it\u2019s like a bad relationship,\u201d she says, erupting into a cackle. \u201cYou stay with it, hoping it\u2019ll get better\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she owns the name, she licensed it back to the Connolly family, who revived the automotive side of things for special projects (\u201cWithin a week, we were back with Ferrari\u201d), because, she says, \u201cWe\u2019re entwined, we\u2019re like an extended family, and it\u2019s very important to each of us that the other is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Connolly\u2019s objets d\u2019art and other goods for around the home<\/p>\n

Press handout<\/p>\n

Motorbikes and oil paintings<\/p>\n

Inspired, Ettedgui looked for a building, and found the old Alison Jacques Gallery on Clifford Street. The 1730 pile is a handsome townhouse, with a flat on top for Ettedgui. There were hints it was the one: she signed the lease on her and Joseph\u2019s wedding anniversary. Gilles and Boissier, the Parisian studio, was called in to fit it out. In the basement and on the ground floor, it is mostly clothes with the odd curiosity \u2014 racing goggles, say, the kind Stirling Moss would have worn, or an ashtray designed for a yacht; it sits on a pouch of waterproof leather and will never tip over, even in rough seas. The first floor is especially interesting. \u201cI put so much knitwear, outerwear and beautiful things on the other floors, I\u2019d run out of money,\u201d says Ettedgui, \u201cSo I made this a gallery instead.\u201d A roster of artists pass through, with everything for sale. It is all sorts, from motorbikes put together by Moroccan artisans to oil paintings depicting Ettedgui\u2019s beloved Greece. <\/p>\n

It has been an up-and-down journey, Ettedgui nods, but after nearly a decade, this is how Connolly should be. It has settled in. There\u2019s a store in Japan and New York is next. She acknowledges that perhaps the prices aren\u2019t for everyone but she hopes it is still egalitarian: \u201cMy team are knowledgeable, kind and offer proper service. I think people have forgotten what that\u2019s like.\u201d <\/p>\n

Besides, she says, \u201ca lot of people will pay if they know the people making the goods are being paid properly, which is crucial to us.\u201d Her year is spent working with producers, finding what\u2019s next, updating designs. \u201cSo much is made by hand,\u201d she says, pointing to the shelves. \u201cI mean, this is not AI designing your wallet. I think Connolly means\u2009\u2026\u2009when you buy it, you have it for life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What do you get for the person who has everything? Take a visit to Connolly. Perhaps London\u2019s most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,35262,35733,257,46907,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-645175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-hidden-london","12":"tag-leather","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-savile-row","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115754614668871980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}