ImagesMagUK_July_2021

www.images-magazine.com JULY 2021 images 31 IS DECORATOR PROFILE will no longer be needed, although he intends to maintain the retail shop which includes a recently refreshed area dedicated to Helly Hansen. This change coincided with another new revenue stream: last month’s launch of South East Workwear’s own brand, Oxford Workwear. After leading supplier Dickies announced in October 2020 that it was pulling out of the UK and other territories, Ady turned to his manufacturing partner in Pakistan to develop workwear using the company’s bespoke Oxford Flexi Fabric made of 97% cotton and 3% elastane. Starting with trousers in five styles named after Oxford hospitals, such as the Radcliffe, it will soon add softshell jackets, T-shirts, hoodies and boots. “Rather than bring another brand in, we thought let’s bring a brand in where we can use our experience in the industry of 30 years and use our manufacturing plant that we have overseas to build our own brand. The future is looking good.” OHM Clothing Workwear has helped drive recovery for OHM Clothing in Wiltshire. A year ago, all its staff were furloughed with managing director Anthony Brown fulfilling remaining orders from home. After a hiatus, businesses are now refreshing uniforms as staff return to the workplace, says sales and marketing director Jemma Brown. Some employers are expected to maintain a degree of ‘working from home’ in the future after Covid-19, but Jemma believes this could be a benefit for decorated clothing. “At the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of people poo-pooed having workwear specifically for calls on Zoom, but I kept on with the mantra, ‘Get stuff with your branding on it so when you are having calls, people are looking at your logo throughout the whole meeting.’ That’s really started to take off. Getting your brand on your Zoom calls is better than a rubbishy old back screen.” The closure of schools posed a major threat for OHM Clothing which specialises in this sector and, a year ago, the company had no idea if schools would be returning in the autumn. In the end, uniforms were needed, although – after home schooling since March – parents found themselves with little-used garments that no longer fitted, leading to a boom in the second- hand market. “This time last year, we had 25% more schools but we were 25% down,” Jemma recalls. “But our school uniform sales didn’t stop. They tend to stop about mid-September, but they carried on. One of the things The refreshed Helly Hansen shop within South East Workwear’s store we initiated locally was hoodies and fleeces for schools because they had to keep their doors and windows open and kids were freezing.” With the pandemic continuing around the world, OHM Clothing has identified challenges over importing garments from overseas, both due to post-Brexit red tape and costs and because shipments are being delayed from countries such as India. Jemma says this highlights more than ever the need for the UK government to bolster garment manufacturing in the UK. “We might all get criticised for buying things from India or Bangladesh, but there’s no one over here doing it. The government really needs to think about it and encourage it because, were we self-sufficient, any supply issues that happened in the last 18 months wouldn’t have happened, particularly with things like medical supplies.” Jemma says the future looks positive for OHM Clothing. In the long term, this might mean more equipment to add to its two Toyota single-head embroidery machines, Tajima 12- head and Happy four-head. But she It has been an exceptionally hard year Anthony and Jemma Brown at OHM Clothing OHM Clothing’s shop in Devizes