Investing in People, Ideas, and Cultural Innovation
We import more than product.
International trade is a balance. The work is made in one place and sold in another. Its value begins at origin and depends on what arrives intact: the integrity of the design, and of the workmanship behind it.
There are two sides to consider. The United States, where we are based, and the places the work is made, across Europe and beyond it. Brand durability, price regularity, and timing are decided between them, and none of it is logistics alone.
EGP works inside both. We join the people, the operational capability, and the commercial discipline the work requires, and we are present in both markets to hold it.
Start a conversationHow we work
Where the work begins
We begin with relationships. The convictions behind a brand and its position show us what has to align for an idea to cross continents and cultures intact. Access is where that conversation starts rather than where it ends.
Alignment carries it: what a product is meant to represent commercially, the conditions under which it reaches its market, the financial considerations that govern it, and the operations that sustain it.
Most engagements touch more than one of these. How they fit together is the substance of the work.
Carried to market
Access and curation
Makers whose standard holds, across Europe and beyond it, and the ideas their work carries about what a product should be. Curated twice: at the source, for the integrity of design and workmanship, and again where it meets the consumer, whether through an independent retailer or a national one.
Operational strategy
How the work is positioned and placed once it arrives. Assortment, route to market, and the financial and logistical considerations that decide whether a line performs, in the sequence that determines whether the rest holds.
Technology
The systems that carry a standard at volume, built by our in-house technology group because the trade required them. Data platforms, marketing and logistics tools, and the management of digital assets, connected in both markets.
At origin and at market
We work in person, at both ends. Makers are met where they work, across Europe and beyond it, and buyers where they sell. Time in both places is how we learn how a business earns, what it values, and where it will not compromise. The same team does both, which is why the picture reconciles.
The border is one more thing to design for.
Heritage is a business advantage
Our sources hold standards that predate industrial production and apply them with current design and current tools. That combination produces work which is difficult to match and difficult to imitate, in quantities that can supply an American business.
Silk from the provinces of Como and Lecco is recognized before it is described. The place carries the reputation, and the integrity of the work keeps the reputation true. That is origin as commercial weight, and an eighteenth-century door carries the same kind, from a different place. Most of it is lost between the workshop and the product page. Carrying it through is part of the work.
Growth is where the combination breaks. Volume arrives and the standard gives way. Holding it is most of what we do.
The businesses we work with
Abroad
In the United States
Common tools, singular alignment
Whichever side a business stands on, the instruments are the same. Platforms, trade mechanics, routes to market: each is available, and none is what a business is buying.
What is singular is the alignment: how those instruments are configured to advance one set of objectives, against the nuances of one business. That configuration does not transfer from a previous client, and it is why each engagement begins with evaluation rather than a proposal.
It starts with a conversation.
A new line and a new market are decisions best made with both sides in view. Tell us about your work or your business, and where you would like it to go. We will tell you where we are useful, or where you will find better resources.
Do you make work outside the United States?
If you are considering the American market, there is a page for you.