‘I don’t like the traffic here,’ a man at the next table said, laughing as he spoke. A proper, ringing laugh that made strangers look up from their screens. There was something in the way he said it, almost musical, a lilting cadence that made me wonder if he was Scottish, or perhaps Irish. I heard him apologising, clearly late, explaining that he had left the Imperial almost an hour ago and that Delhi had decided otherwise. I could hear gentle female voices reassuring him it was okay. More laughter followed. I stayed put, immersed in my work, sipping my latte, mildly curious but not curious enough to stare.
Two minutes later, that same voice was standing in front of me.
‘Hello. Here you are!’
James Baird extended his hand, smiling, kind eyes crinkling at the corners, long hair falling onto his face as he swept it back with the ease of someone who has never once worried about appearing too put together. Salmon pink linen shirt, black bandhgala, loose black linen trousers. There he was, the chairman of one of the world’s oldest and best linen houses.
Turns out, he had been sitting at the wrong table, apologising profusely to the wrong group, convinced one of them was me. When he realised the mistake, he laughed so hard he had to tell the story twice.
Meeting James Baird
This is how I remember James Baird. Chairman of WFB Baird & Company Ltd. Fourth-generation custodian. Accidental comedian. A could’ve-been rockstar (you’ll know why I say this later!). A man who carries legacy lightly and joy loudly.
Baird was in Delhi for the launch of Burgoyne Original Masters and the unveiling of its first coffee table book at The Arts Room. It marked another chapter in a story that began far from here, in Northern Ireland, in 1912. Over the decades, the company’s linen has travelled far beyond its origins. Today, it sits inside the supply chains of some of the biggest brands like Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, GAP, Banana Republic and Calvin Klein. You’ve likely worn it without knowing it.
The business itself, James mentions almost offhandedly, was started by his grandfather, William Frederick Burgoyne Baird, once known in the trade as “Big Fat Billy”. It’s not a story he lingers on. Just a detail, filed under family history. His grandfather made linen handkerchiefs.
‘It doesn’t sound very exciting,’ James says, acknowledging it before I can. ‘But in America, back then, every man in a dark suit carried a white linen handkerchief. It was a big market.’
That early success built the foundation, but it was never meant to be the ceiling. It was James’s father who began to look at linen differently. ‘We took the fabric and said, right, what else can we do with this,’ James says. ‘The handkerchiefs became blouses. Became shirts. Became dresses.’
A Family Legacy: From Handkerchiefs To Giorgio Armani
Later, at the book launch, James, very casually, says WFB Baird dressed one of fashion’s greatest icons.
‘The fashion side really started with Giorgio Armani,’ he tells the crowd. ‘We did all his shirts. And then the trickle-down effect just goes on and on until you’re supplying all over the world.’
Sitting across from him, I keep having to remind myself that this lively, charming man describing every bite of his dinner also oversees a company that dresses the world’s elites. He had gone to chef Manish Mehrotra’s new restaurant, Nisaba, the previous night and loved everything about it, though the spice had certainly pushed his limits.
‘I love Indian food,’ he says quickly, as if worried I might doubt him. ‘But I eat in moderation. I travel so much, I have to be careful. I take a little of everything. Juke up the middle.’ His eyes light up when he talks about Kerala – the fish, the vegetarian dishes he keeps discovering, the unexpected flavours. Then, with the kind of triumph that makes you grin along, he adds, ‘I love dosa.’
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As he talks, I can’t help but notice how perfectly his linen shirt moves with him. The shirt catching the light with every gesture, the trousers hanging loose just so, the linen crinkling charmingly when he brushes back his hair. Curious, I ask what he’s wearing. He stands up, almost immediately. He smooths his shirt, straightens his trousers and does what can only be described as a small, pleased twirl. I may be embellishing. Or I may not be.
‘I’m wearing one hundred percent linen,’ he says, delighted, because I asked.
He points to his shirt first. A Brooks Brothers piece from New York. Irish linen, of course. The trousers are baggy because he likes them baggy. Linen, he explains, looks best when it drapes and moves and refuses to be stiff. Then the bandhgala.
‘What do you call this in India?’ he asks.
When I tell him, he nods thoughtfully and pats the pocket, pulling out a business card he had forgotten was there. ‘I love clothes you can put things in,’ he says, handing his business card to me, pleased with his own demonstration. ‘I don’t want to look like a tramp,’ he adds, laughing again. ‘But I don’t want to look completely formal either.’ He sits back down, runs a hand through his blonde hair and sums himself up perfectly.
‘So yeah. That’s who I am.’
A Story Woven In Linen
India, it turns out, has been part of that identity for a long time. WFB Baird set up operations here in the early 2000s and today India is central to the business. James doesn’t just come here for work, he lives here, on an island in Kerala, no less. What drew him in was not just opportunity.
‘It’s the diversity,’ he says simply. ‘I’ve been coming here for over twenty-five years. I’ve always felt welcome. There’s never been a difficulty with people. And coming from freezing cold Ireland to the warmth of Kerala, well, that helps.’
The business decision followed naturally. WFB Baird was exporting heavily to the United States, supplying companies like GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy, all of whom were cutting garments in China and India.
‘There was already a garment industry here that we were supplying to,’ he says. ‘And then there was Leela.’ Before it was a luxury hotel empire, Leela was Leela Scottish Linen and Lace. The Nair family, who owned it, became mentors.
‘They said, we’re from Kerala, we have a factory there, why don’t you come and open yours there,’ James recalls. ‘And we did.’
India, he adds, has a huge market.
Sustainability, The Baird Way
But for James, scale is never just about numbers. As the fourth-generation custodian of one of the world’s oldest linen houses, he sees opportunity and responsibility as two sides of the same coin. Sustainability is not a buzzword to him, it is a duty. ‘We are a speck of dust in the universe,’ he says, looking almost amused by the scale of it. ‘My generation didn’t think about sustainability when we were young. But there are eight billion people on this planet. We have to take care.’
He talks about being among the first to buy an electric car in Kochi, about factories moving toward solar power, about ownership not as possession but stewardship.
‘We all own this planet,’ he says. ‘Every one of us. We’re all stakeholders.’
That word, custodian, comes up again when I ask him about leadership.
‘In many ways, if you’re born into privilege, you look at things differently,’ he says carefully. ‘You’re a custodian of a family company for thirty or forty years.’
His definition of success comes from his father and again, it has nothing to do with numbers.
‘Success,’ his father told him, ‘is handing things on in a better state than you were given them.’
Not just business. Love. People. Culture.
‘If you’re a leader,’ James says, ‘it’s because you have to be. You take difficult decisions. You listen to everything around you and then you distil it down until you get the purest form.’
That philosophy extends to how he builds teams. In 2013, WFB Baird & Co appointed Suchitra Menon as the CEO of its Indian operations based in Kochi.
‘That was strange in textiles, hiring a female CEO,’ he admits, smiling. ‘And I’m very proud of that. People are the biggest resource we have. Always.’
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Leadership, Custodianship And Success
He also has a deep affection for the industry itself, perhaps because he understands how fragile and rare it is. ‘Linen is tiny,’ he tells me. ‘One cotton group in India would produce more thread than the entire linen trade in the world, perhaps.’ Flax, the plant linen comes from, is grown mostly in France. About two hundred thousand hectares in all of Europe. Minuscule. Exclusive. Expensive.
‘That’s the beauty of it,’ he says lightly, tugging at the fabric of his shirt. ‘You can also blend it. With cotton. With other fibres. It’s intimate. It evolves.’
A Collector Of Experiences
Talking about linen, about his family, about India, it becomes clear to me that James Baird is not defined by his title. He is a collector of experiences, a curator of joy, a man who can find poetry in a linen thread or in the crisp bite of a dosa. He listens, absorbs, distils, whether it’s fabric, food, or advice from his team, into something pure and unmistakably his own.
And if he hadn’t been born a fourth-generation custodian, it’s easy to picture him somewhere else. When I asked him this toward the end, he grinned and said, ‘I would’ve loved to be a rockstar!’ – then laughed, heartily, as if the idea still thrilled him.
A Rock Star At Heart
After thoroughly entertaining himself for a good while, James leans in and lowers his voice conspiratorially. ‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ he says. ‘But you can’t print it.’
I promise I won’t. He laughs again, delighted by the drama, and tells me that it involves a friend who has written ‘very, many successful songs for some of the world’s biggest rockstars.’ As for James and the secret I am not allowed to print? Well, let’s just say he is about to live a lifelong dream he’s never let go of, even if only for a day.
‘In two years,’ he says, eyes sparkling now that he has told me his secret, ‘you’ll look back at this interview when the secret we’re sitting on goes viral.’
He throws his head back and laughs, then starts strumming an invisible air guitar. As he talks about the talents he wishes he had, he breaks into what looks like bhangra. Giggling with pure, unselfconscious delight, he says, ‘That day, you’ll say, “do you remember that fellow in Delhi with the long hair talking about linen and whatever? He said he couldn’t sing. And he can’t sing. But by God, he sure can dance.”‘
