Images_Digital_Edition_August_2019

www.images-magazine.com 54 images JULY 2019 DECORATOR PROFILE Mark Ludmon visits well-known industry figure Pally Hayre, founder and owner of Pally International, to discover what it takes to stay at the top of the garment printing game for more than three decades P ally Hayre sits at a large desk in the middle of the print shop floor at Pally International, specialists in supplying fashion clothing for high-street and online retailers. From there he watches over his well-drilled staff like a general surveying his troops. After 33 years in the garment trade, this is how he has always run his business. “I know exactly what’s happening from here,” he explains. “I like to be where people can ask me questions and I can see what everyone is doing. I don’t want to sit in an office. I’m a hands-on person. If someone has to go to the washroom, I’ll get onto the machine. I have to know how to work everything.” The factory is a buzzing hive of activity, spread across two floors of a 47,000 sq ft building – now called the Hayre Building – on a one-acre site on the The King of Leicester I had to sell my car and just worked hard, slowly, slowly building it up north-east edge of Leicester city centre. Pally has installed himself in the main production area located on the first floor, surrounded by screen printing presses, dryers and hundreds of boxes of garments ready to be decorated or despatched. Now employing around 100 people, Pally International has been based here since 2002, but the company dates back much further. MHM presses from the beginning Born and bred in Leicester, Pally started out in 1986, setting up Rainbow Screen Printers with three business partners, mainly decorating children’s clothing. They started with nothing but, within six months, they had done well enough for Pally to buy himself a Porsche. After a difference of opinion over future investment strategy, the partners went their separate ways, leaving Pally with the choice of whether to become an employee for someone else or set up a new venture. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to do the latter and, in 1988, he purchased two MHM automatic screen printing machines from John Potter at MHM Direct (GB) and launched Pally Screen Printing, which later evolved into Pally International. “I started off slowly,” he recalls. “I had to sell my car and just worked hard, slowly, slowly building it up.” He has bought 30 MHM carousel presses over the years from John, and currently has eight in use – “all virtually new” – ranging from eight- to 18-colours and including the top-of- the-range Synchroprint 5000, plus the MHM Spyder II direct-to-screen system. Thousands of screens line the print shop’s walls Pally Hayre – Leicester ‘royalty’