FOR a family business stigmatised by one of its own members as "notoriously unsuccessful", Gallagher Egan & Company Ltd looks like it is doing pretty well. "We represent three generations of survivors," says Billy Gallagher, whose company now sells 70 per cent of its Irish manufactured clothing to the British market.
The bulk of Gallagher stock is made in four factories in Co Donegal. "We share space there with the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Paul Smith," the loquacious Billy Gallagher explains. "We've all found good quality reliable factories. If I lost them, they'd be irreplaceable."
At one stage, Mr Gallagher used to own his own factories, first in Donegal where the family had a shirt manufacturing business dating back to 1888, and more recently in Galway where he started another shirt company called Oggo. With production of up to 5,000 shirts a week, the latter lasted for seven years during the 1980s "before we went bust because we'd borrowed too much money; we paid £496,000 in interest during those years."
With a wife and six children to support, Billy Gallagher had little choice but to bounce back yet again and since returning to the fray with Gallagher Egan he has managed in the past 10 years to enjoy steady growth for the first time in his career. This time, he began cautiously with a product that was "initially sober enough with a slight little dash". The element of dash in the clothes has become more evident of late because Mr Gallagher has a policy of employing designers who are freshly graduated from Central St Martin's, a college which has become synonymous with talent in the past few years.
Gallagher's started in 1990 with Sonja Nuttall, now working under her own name, and now works with two designers, Giles Deacon and Gary Mayoh, who inject a youthful zest into the company's designs. He says his customer base runs from 25 to 40, and he dislikes the idea that the Gallagher label is specifically associated with club going youth. "In the hierarchy of labels, I perceive us to have slightly more design content than most," he says, suggesting that his nearest equivalent is Ted Baker, along with Paul Smith and D&G. Shirts still represent the core of the business - about 30 per cent - with the balance made up of jeans, jackets and T shirts. The intention is to move towards a complete menswear collection.
It's not just the clothes which have undergone a metamorphosis; the corporate image of Gallagher itself has also been given an overhaul. "Really, what we've been doing is creating a brand. All our investment has been in branding. We started off with the graphics - they're specifically in your face - and we're now building a product range around our name.
ALTHOUGH the company's head office is in Blackrock, Co Dublin, it has established a sales and design office in Soho which acts as a base for selling into Britain and Europe. Soho is also a key location since so many British design, film, advertising, PR and fashion related organisations have taken space in the same part of London.
Less than 10 per cent of the company's business is now in Ireland but Billy Gallagher is unhappy with over dependence on the British market - "we treat England as our home market; it doesn't seem possible to build business any other way" - and plans to focus on the Japanese market in the immediate future. His present strong position shows that even with a troubled past it is possible for an Irish clothing company to do well when enough attention is paid to exports.