Former fashion designer and manufacturer creates stylish and practical solution to stabilise glasses for private and commercial boat operators
Award-winning product designer Stephan Pavlou had a ’lightbulb moment’ while sailing across the iconic Venetian Lagoon on a friend’s 1920s Italian motorboat.
“There was Prosecco and food being passed round and the boat was motoring along, but no one could really enjoy the canapes or drinks as you couldn’t put your glass down as it would fall over,” he recalled.
As the host tried to find a way to stop the glasses tipping up, Mr Pavlou envisaged a design to solve the issue. He is now marketing the Glass Anchor – a weighted faux leather bean bag to hold down glasses – through his company Glugg Innovations.
The patented design is attracting interest from the tourism industry, boat and shipping line owners, and Mr Pavlou has started producing customised versions for trialling by big-name companies that want corporate logos and brands featured.
“We are selling online worldwide, with sales clocked up from the United States, Finland, all round the Mediterranean and the UK,” said Mr Pavlou, whose career in innovation began in the fashion world.
“I’ve been creating and making things since I can remember,” he said. “I worked for my father’s fashion manufacturing business in Clerkenwell as soon as I was able, before and after school, weekends and holidays. By the time I was 20, I had my own fashion business, Stefan, based behind Oxford Street. In the 1980s we won a Vogue-Cortauld Knitwear Designer of the Year award.”
Mr Pavlou moved into furniture design, opening his first store in London’s Shoreditch, followed by Notting Hill, Covent Garden, Camden and Manchester’s Northern Quarter. This led to the first of several patented product designs; the MastaPlasta.
Describing it as Band-Aid for furniture he added, “At the time of launching, there were some sceptics claiming they would never put such a thing on their three-piece suites, but the public disagreed and it is used by the likes of JCB, the armed forces and theatres, and not just for seating. It sells all over the world now and has been such a fun business to run. It even got me to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen when MastaPlasta was awarded two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise; for Innovation and International Trade.”
The Glass Anchor, first created prior to the pandemic, is now the focus of Mr Pavlou’s attention.
“It’s simple, but not every new gadget needs to be high-tech,” he continued. “It doesn’t even have screws, glues or fixings of any kind. That’s what makes it work so well on any kind of boat or uneven surface. It looks like a round leather padded tablemat and there are six slits at regular intervals where the glasses simply slip in and out. This is in contrast to having holes in tables or plastic pockets moulded onto the superstructure of the boat. The Glass Anchor means you can put your drink down where you are instead of having to find somewhere to secure it. Design should work around people, not the other way round.”
Mr Pavlou said the manufacturing stage was the hardest as the product required a good quality bag manufacturer.
“My experience in the fashion business came to the fore and I found an amazing production team skilled in making luxury leather goods in northern Portugal,” he said. “All my work in leather furniture and with MastaPlasta also helped, it brought in everything I had learned throughout my working life to join all the dots.”
Mr Pavlou took his first sample batch of 100 Glass Anchors to the Genoa International Boat Show and they sold out.
“Even so, it was clear the price was a bit steep,” he reflected. “The retail price for that first sample batch was €130 (US$140), and also the vintage-style fabric I had especially designed featuring bearded sailors, giant squids and mermaids was maybe a bit too exotic, and they were filled with aquarium gravel, so expensive to ship. This was one of the valuable lessons we learned at the show.”
The product was relaunched last year with the faux leather version, using a luxury, hard-wearing and easy-care vegan leather, sold unfilled and with a list price of €65.
“It has been tested at extreme speeds in choppy conditions without a hint of the glasses moving,” said Mr Pavlou. “It also means people can use lovely glass stemware instead of plastic. Plastic glasses can blow away even when they are on a stable surface and everyone wants to get away from using disposable plastic at sea. The freedom of Glass Anchor means hospitality on cruise ships can be more flexible. They can even be taken on excursions or motorboat rides. In fact, pleasure boat operators were among our first customers.”
With the second full production run underway, Mr Pavlou is looking forward to his first full summer season selling the Glass Anchor.
“It is still early days, but it does feel like the start of MastaPlasta all over again,” he said. “Like MastaPlasta, there will be a period of letting people know this new kind of product is available, and the boating community seems to have a great ability to spread news by word of mouth. Our first sale to a customer with a boat on the Great Lakes led to at least a dozen other sales there.
“The boating community is a new world for me, and I like it. People are friendly, curious and open to innovation – and a lot appreciate a nice glass of wine.”
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