Luxury brands should donate one per cent of their revenue to the struggling crafts sector to protect the skills their businesses often depend on, writes Katie Treggiden.

The definition of luxury is evolving. Quality and scarcity are no longer enough to justify high prices. Increasingly, buyers are looking for a story, and often that story is delivered through craft ? rarefied skills, time-honoured processes, meticulous attention to detail, hours invested into every stitch, cut and curve.
Of course, the manifestation of design has always happened through making. Without hand skills, the output of our industry would be little more than a pile of drawings or a harddrive filled with CAD files. Despite all this, we seem to be turning a blind eye while British craft plunges into crisis. Even established makers are under pressure
Last year, The Guardian reported that enrolment in creative GCSE subjects had fallen by 40 per cent since 2010. Meanwhile, creative arts courses at English universities continue to face funding cuts.
Once students graduate, government-funded apprenticeships are not designed with the micro-businesses that comprise the crafts sector in mind, so they are rarely fit for purpose. This has led to an ageing sector, with few opportunities to pass on skills.
Even established makers are under pressure. The cumulative effects of Covid, Brexit and the energy crisis has had a brutal impact. Too many craftspeople are having to make impossible choices between buying ma...