ImagesMagUK_April_2021

IS DECORATOR PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 38 images APRIL 2021 W hen Duncan Gilmour joined his dad’s garment-printing business, it was meant to be a temporary stopgap after university. Twenty-one years later, he is still there, now as managing director of Screenworks, guiding it through the storms of Covid. “That stopgap turned into me staying and never leaving, which I think a lot of family members do in that similar situation,” he says. “I just became ingrained in the business.” The business dates back to 1976 when it was set up by his father, Andrew Gilmour, to supply printed textiles for fashion and interior design, later shifting focus onto T-shirt printing by the time it became Screenworks in 1991. Working out of a 2,000 sq ft unit in Wimbish near Saffron Walden in Essex, it was a fairly small outfit until Duncan joined in 2000. “I picked up quickly that the promotional industry Sublime inspiration From face masks to DTG, Duncan Gilmour tells Mark Ludmon how bold decisions and a keen eye for spotting trends has made Screenworks stronger after the challenges of Covid quantities as low as 25 and one-week delivery time, the biggest challenge was overcoming resistance from Screenworks’ offshore manufacturers. “It meant that certain areas were out of our reach just because of the amount of investment it takes for them to be able to manufacture a garment, but processes like sublimation were, in our eyes, a lot easier and there was a lot less cost for the manufacturer. But ultimately they will do that work as long as they get paid enough to make some money out of it. I think a lot of brands will pay the money for a premium product like that if they understand that this product is being manufactured the other side of the globe and it’s completely bespoke and unique to them.” After starting out mainly with sportswear, Inspired now provides all kinds of garments, bags and other textiles with edge-to-edge decoration for corporate branding and merchandising. Initially it was from pre-set garments, but now all aspects can be bespoke. “We understand the demands of different fabrics so we are working more and more on projects We didn’t want to sit and wait for the industry to come back was a key area where we were getting regular, good-sized work so it wasn’t long before we started focusing on that as a particular sector,” he recalls. In 2003, Screenworks extended its services into embroidery and quickly outgrew its original premises, relocating to a 10,000 sq ft factory in nearby Haverhill in Suffolk the following year. Despite later expanding into a second unit, Screenworks moved to its current premises of nearly 19,000 sq ft, also in Haverhill, three years ago after buying the freehold. “It has made the business a lot stronger moving forward and opened up a lot more opportunities for us,” Duncan says. Steady pace of growth Before the global pandemic, growth was continuing at a steady pace. By 2010, Screenworks had shifted to 100% trade only, focused on promotional merchandise distributors. After noticing increasing demand for bespoke clothing in the promotional sector, Screenworks Bespoke, now Screenworks Inspired, was launched in 2019. “Looking at new opportunities for the business, we could see demand was not being met by the industry for low-volume bespoke manufacture of garments,” Duncan explains. “There was an appetite to have something more than just an embroidered polo shirt or a printed T-shirt. More and more it is to have something that makes a brand stand out from the crowd.” Aiming to offer minimum order Duncan Gilmour (right) with Screenworks operations director Alan Porter by the company’s Dekken T-Apparel folding machine The Screenworks factory floor