When you think of two famous brands pairing up, who springs to mind? Nike and Apple? GAP and Stella McCartney? Jelly Belly and Tabasco? (I’m not making this up). Or, since we’re talking brands of a sort, Russell Brand and Jemima Khan? The list, as they say, goes on.
Well, there’s a new one to put Bulgari and Ritz-Carlton (yes, they did) through their lifestyle set-jetting paces. And one you might not have thought of immediately but which makes perfect sense when it’s mentioned.
Take one of the newest, fastest-growing enterprises currently leading the spa scene and mix in the complete opposite; the oldest, most traditional gentlemen’s barber. A spa company that began less than five years ago, and a barbers that opened its doors in 1805 – that’s the year, not the time of day. A spa with now 50 outlets around the world…and one barber’s shop in London’s St James’s. As with many brand partnerships, the juxtaposition can seem odd but they make perfect sense when they come together.
For so long spa treatments and gentlemen’s grooming has never converged, but why? After all, they both cater to personal care regimes. To attract male clientele most spas either offer unisex treatments or else feature token male offerings but Resense have now closed the gap and are offering traditional shave experiences for men in selected spas from September. And who did they approach to offer this service? Well, there’s only one brand at the top: Truefitt & Hill. Kate Moss, meet Winston Churchill.
You wouldn’t think it given the rise in beards in the fashion stakes but, believe it or not, the male grooming market is expected to top $33 billion by 2015. A look on YouTube for shaving tutorials shows them hitting the millions of views. Just as women might refresh with a facial at a spa, the hot towel shave is now the thing for gentlemen to undertake ahead of a day in the office or before going out in the evening.
A spa brand that claims to be ‘the renaissance of the classical European spa’ and a barbers established by the court haircutter to King George III whose clients include princes and Prime Ministers, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant and John Wayne? It’s an obvious partnership when you think about it.
The shaving experience opens at The Adlon Spa by Resense in Berlin at the end of September with Truefitt and Hill’s products being made available in all Resense managed spas.
