Classically engineered and timelessly designed, meet Charabanc – the British luxury car fragrance accessory
We caught up with Carrie, one of Charabanc’s founders, over coffee in Otto’s café to find out about their business and to share the highs and lows of founding a new business.
Charabanc is the original luxury car fragrance brand, crafted entirely by hand in Great Britain. Aesthetically inspired by classic car interiors, Charabanc consists of a stainless-steel diffuser, leather lid and lanyard and fragrance ceramic.
Charabanc fragrance ‘journeys’ are inspired by the world’s most iconic drives and take you from the fresh, earthy notes of the Pennines to the soft, powdery scents of the flower-filled plains of Umbria, the sense-swooning, spicy fragrances of the silk road to the floral, incense notes found in the hills high above Hong Kong. Charabanc has just been accredited the much coveted ‘Butterfly’ mark for sustainability from Positive Luxury.
When asked about the inspiration behind the brand, Carrie highlighted that these days it is extremely rare to find a gap in the market, but 5 years ago saw an opportunity.
“We observed a booming luxury home fragrance market and thought, why is there nothing high end for the car?” She explained. “Back then, it was just car fresheners, and they were all created to mask bad smells, made of plastic and the scents they provided were somewhat headache inducing. We suspected that other luxury fragrances would follow suit so set out building a luxury car fragrance brand that was to be entirely oriented around the car.”
Being an entrepreneur can be a challenging and a rewarding experience. To quote Carrie, “It’s extremely rewarding to have an idea that you believe in, to build a brand and manufacture something from scratch. Having an idea is one thing but making it happen is something altogether different. It’s also very liberating to be your own boss, to make your own decisions and to work to your own timetable.”
When it comes to their 3 biggest challenges so far, Carrie explained:
- Getting products to market always takes longer than you think and however much time you build in for things not going to plan, it never ends up being enough.
- Managing cash flow and stock is a constant challenge.
- China counterfeiting our product has also been a huge challenge.
Carrie and Barbara (founders) made Charabanc a success in its early stage. Just two years after Charabanc launched into market, they were chosen as one of the items in Oscar® 2020 famous gift bags, making them the only British brand to feature that year.
Carrie and the Charabanc team have clearly had some successful years, so we asked Carrie to share her best advice for new entrepreneurs.
In her words “Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint-hearted. You need to be ready for a rollercoaster ride with constant highs and lows, you need to work extremely hard, be ‘always on’ and commit for the long haul. You need to hustle shamelessly and never be shy of asking for help and support from as many people as possible.”
Here at Great Western Studios, we are super proud of our studio holders and their achievements. It is great to know they think the same for us.
“We love being at GWS and it felt right the moment we walked in the door. It’s a fabulous building architecturally in a great location, full of like-minded, creative people and great for networking. The logistics around getting stuff delivered and fulfilling product are so much easier here than they were at our previous studio,’ said Carrie, while mentioning that GWS team are always so welcoming, friendly and always go out of their way to help and support the studio holders and clients. ‘We love our studio position at no 33 as it makes lugging stuff in and out a LOT easier and it’s particularly handy for the café (another reason for choosing GWS). We also like the idea of being able to move studio space as the business grows.”
Curious about Carrie’s favourite podcast right now? We made sure to ask her and it is ‘The Rest is History’.
And the creative entrepreneur she would most like to meet is Elon Musk – watch this space for a Tesla x Charabanc collaboration…
