Summer 96 Volume I Issue 3

Behind the White Spot

by Alan Schwartz

t New York's Barclay-Rex on Maiden Lane, arguably one of the best pipe, tobacco, and cigar shops anywhere, owner Vincent Nastri says that there seems to be a revival of interest in Alfred Dunhill pipes: "It's part of the premium 'boom.' When someone wants a different kind of smoke, a change of taste and image, the pipe is the thing. Dunhill is the standard pipe smokers and even pipe makes judge by."

Alfred Dunhill started as a "strictly practical" London-based harness-making and horse-and- carriage outfitting business. In 1897, the company shifted the focus quickly into providing "everything but the motor" for the machine that was the future of transportation, offering accessories such as lamps, horns, and accouterments, as well as goggles, helmets, dusters, gloves and other paraphernalia "essential" for the well-dressed car, driver, and passenger.

In Dunhill's early days, utility was the rationale for marketing the product line, and who could doubt the utility of the "Umbrella Coat," advertised as "the only garment that gives absolute protection against continuous winds and driving rain," or of the essential quality of binocular eyeglasses, advertised as "Bobby finders" -- the radar detectors of a simpler past that "will spot a policeman at half a mile even if disguised as a respectable man."

Luxury began to play its part in the early Dunhill drama too: While drivers and passengers in early unenclosed automobiles certainly required protection against the elements, it is questionable whether such protection had to come in the form of a "Ladies sealskin motoring coat, with collars and cuffs of natural Persian Lamb" for 30 guineas (about $158.00), or a "Gentleman's white seal motoring coat: self or raccoon collar lined Scotch plaid" for 16 guineas. These and other necessities for the well-dressed motoring man, women, or child were offered by "ALFRED DUNHILL, LIMITED, The Premiere Automobilists' Tailors," in a 1904 advertisement.

When success brought the need for more capital, Dunhill expanded by taking in a partner and other shareholding directors. But their restraints on his entrepreneurial drive and expansionist tendency led to a separation.

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