Meet the London Team

Paul Vanoli - General Manager

Paul has been working at the very highest end of retail for the last 18 years. He began his career at Gieves and Hawkes, Savile Row, London after being recommended by a relative who was a tailor at the store for over twenty five years. Paul began to learn his trade at Gieves from the bottom up and was promoted five times while working for the company. During this time he gained knowledge of fine fabrics and suiting and also an understanding of true customer service.

After several happy years he moved onto Turnbull and Asser initially working for their tie division before moving into bespoke shirting. Here he learnt a great deal about the importance of accurate measurement, fabrics and pattern cutting. Working with the experienced team of Paul Cuss, Steve Quin and Simon Hobbs his learning accelerated. Paul was then afforded the opportunity to travel to New York by the company chairman Mr. Kenneth Williams to participate in the Trunk Shows that Turnbull’s organised at the time.

He enjoyed the trips so much (some may say too much) that when Turnbull’s decided to open a store in the U.S.A. he decided to take a position in New York . Now based in N.Y he organised and participated in the trunk shows within Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman offering help and advice to customers and training for the stores staff. At this time he measured and fitted shirts for such varied and illustrious people as Colin Powell, Hugh Heffner, Paul Allen, Gwyneth Paltrow and Stanley Marcus. Mr. Marcus of Neiman Marcus fame was so impressed with Paul’s skills that he wrote to him to tell him that they were the best fitting shirts he had ever had from T&A. Stanley became a bit of a mentor to Paul and was always willing to impart some of his many years of retail wisdom too him when they met.

Paul returned to the U.K. after a year and half due to his wife’s reluctance to leave her family and relocate to the U.S.A. After a brief period with Thomas Pink managing the City Flagship Store he joined Swaine Adeney Brigg as operation’s manager. This was a wonderful opportunity to add new strings to his bow and learn about the very highest end leather goods and Worlds finest umbrellas. With regular trips to the factory and the kind tuition of the existing staff he soon learnt a great deal about the history and construction of the fine briefcases, holdalls and umbrellas that they produce. Here he redesigned their packaging giving it a corporate identity and introduced a new fully transactional website.

This almost brings us up to the present day. The directors of Kent and Curwen approached Paul to head up the U.K. operation in March 2006. Remembering the original store and owning several of their fine Rugby and Polo tops he decided that it was too good an opportunity to miss. He joined K&C in July and quickly became involved in overseeing the construction of the new Flagship store and staff recruitment. The store opened in September 2006 to great acclaim and Paul say’s it was one of the proudest moments of his retail career to date.

 
John Barrett - Assistant Manager

John has been working at the top end of retail for the last ten years specialising in Menswear. He joined K&C from Turnbull and Asser and had worked in almost all of their departments in his time with them. Most recently and for several years he worked for T&A within Harrods.

John is responsible for most of the merchandising within the London store and is often complimented on his fantastic window displays.

 
Carly Vanoli - Senior Sales & Website Co-ordinator

Carly began her life in retail at the tender age of fourteen as a Saturday person. Coming from a family in which her other six siblings worked in different capacities within retail she says she probably had little choice. She says it just seems to be in the Blood.

Her early experience was in high quality Men’s and Women’s clothing but when she was eighteen she was offered a position with a well known children’s toy company on the South Coast . Here she quickly impressed and was promoted to concession manager. Within a year she was again promoted to running her own store.

Carly missed clothing and London and when she was approached by K&C to join our team she jumped at the chance. Carly has a bubbly personality and friendly manor which is beneficial to customers and co-workers alike.

Carly’s hobbies include frequenting the gym, swimming and has recently shown an interest in extreme sports such as aqua-sphering and sky diving.

 
Hanne Beard - Sales Assistant

Hanne is the youngest member of the team. Her favourite hobby is shopping but she also plays a lot of tennis. She will soon be off to university to undertake a retail related course.