Behind the Design: Rolls-Royce Bespoke

Customers can make a unique Rolls-Royces from any of the vehicles. Photos: Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce Bespoke Designer, Michael Bryden, spoke to OfficialBespoke.com about how his job has been affected by the pandemic and how he makes dreams come true for customers who want a special Rolls.

Rolls-Royce also began the client handover ceremony in June, albeit with social distancing practices in place.

How is life at Rolls-Royce since Covid-19?

Rolls-Royce was the first manufacturer to restart production in Britain after the coronavirus shutdown. Notably, our production resumed on May 4th, which was 117 years to the day that car builder Henry Royce and dealer Charles Rolls first met. Nevertheless, a lot of us are still working from home. It’s a new routine but it works. For example, I’m part of the one-off team and we hold a catch-up call every morning so we can share ideas as a team and discuss what we are working on. On the other hand, I’m also still having meetings with customers but, with the way the world is right now, we are having to meet online rather than face to face.

Last year Rolls-Royce delivered a record 5152 cars to customers in over 50 countries (an increase of 25 per cent) on the previous high set in 2018. of those how many went through the one-off department?

Almost all of them. I have worked at Rolls-Royce since 2012 and we used to handle only a small, select number of projects but now the appetite for bespoke has grown to the point that we are at a high-90 per cent in terms one-off content on vehicles.

The bespoke service means that any colour material can be use in the vehicles.

How does the one-off process works?

So let’s say you’re a customer and you wanted to commission a unique Rolls-Royce, you would meet with me. Typically, I am the person who meets with our one-off customers, and it all starts with a conversation in our atelier at Goodwood. But what I hope to do before that meeting is try to learn a little about you. Typically our customers are associated with a dealer that’s close to their home and I’ll try and find out what they do, what their business is, what projects they might have been involved in with other brands let’s say and of course what their hobbies are. In that way I can build a picture of the individual that can help me bring in relevant examples of what we have done before in order to give useful ideas of what is possible.

Are there any limits in the world of rolls royce customisations?

The only limits are homologation and safety.

A variety of materials are used in the hand-making of a Rolls-Royce.

But we’d imagine Rolls-Royce tries to avoid the word no.

We have an incredible number of skilled specialists at Goodwood and in the case that something can’t be done due to homologation restrictions for example, then we’ll make sure to come back to the customer with a number of solutions that carry the same spirit as their request. Customers are very receptive to that. They understand that they aren’t buying a car, they are engaging in the commissioning of a luxury product and they enjoy the process. They often ask: what haven’t you done and what have you always wanted to do? 

Could you let’s say, take the Cullinan and turn it into a more extreme off-roader?

There are obviously challenges in terms of taking a car that’s already incredibly capable off road and then turning it into an extreme version of itself. It would need an awful lot of testing and development but if that’s something a customer wanted then we could certainly do that for them.

Now, what if a customer didn’t want any leather in their Rolls, if they preferred to use a sustainable vegan alternative like mycelium? is there any stipulation that a Rolls-Royce must use its own hides?

Not at all. We have worked with non-leathers before. For example, we created a one-off Phantom interior whose entire rear cabin section was trimmed in the finest silk. It was like an incredible artwork made up of countless panels that were painted and embroidered. Clearly the car has not been made for everyday use, rather it was conceived as a special addition to this customer’s collection.

This one-off for a Swedish customer required one million stitches by the bespoke team.

Could you tell us a little about a recent project that you’re particularly proud of?

We did an amazing vehicle for a customer based in Stockholm. He wanted to create a Phantom that was inspired by roses and we ended up creating this extraordinary vehicle in which the headliner, doors, the Phantom Gallery were all embroidered with rose artworks, which was developed by our specialists in the leather shop. The whole customisation required over a million stitches. From first conversation to delivery, I think it took just over a year, maybe 14 months?

Could you tell us about a request that you could not fulfil?

The only things we can’t do are ones that create homologation issues, so for example if you wanted the dashboard to have a solid silver in-lay of your family crest then what we’d need to consider is that there might be sharp details in that crest and there are head impact regulations that stipulate a minimum radius condition so we’d need to work around such things.

The bespoke customer hand-over service reopened in June.