BELFAST BRIEFING:A Derry factory has combined the North's worldwide shirt-making reputation with a quality-led brand

CLOTHES MAKE the man, Mark Twain once claimed, but it is luxury shirts, fastidiously handmade in the North, that are today helping create jobs and profits for local firms.

Many companies have had to cut their cloth to adjust to a certain level of austerity in their markets these days. But Richard Gibson, founder of Smyth Gibson Shirtmakers, says his business has benefited from the rut that the rest of the economy seems to be stuck in.

Gibson set up his shirt-making firm more than 17 years ago in Derry or, as he likes to call it, the “European capital of handmade shirts”. He set out with a “dream” to combine the “worldwide shirt-making reputation of Northern Ireland with a design and quality-led shirt brand”.

Today the business, which employs around 60 people, makes some 1,000 shirts by hand every week. The factory produces not only Smyth Gibson shirts but also exclusive shirts for other award-winning designers – strong testimony to its high standards.

The firm handles everything in-house from start to finish; from the design to fabric purchase. Every shirt is hand cut and then assembled in a process that can involve up to 15 people.

At one stage the shirt industry was a major employer in the North, particularly in Derry, where during the 1920s it was estimated it employed 18,000 people. One particular shirt factory, Tillie Henderson, was recognised all over the world as being ahead of its time – bringing the first sewing machines to factories in Derry and being name-checked by Karl Marx in Das Kapital.

The derelict site once occupied by Tillie Henderson is earmarked for redevelopment but Smyth Gibson believes that the “skill and talent” inherent in Derry’s shirt industry is as vital today as it was at the turn of the 20 century.

“We can’t do what we do somewhere else. People often say to us ‘wouldn’t it be cheaper to make these shirts aboard’ and my response is always the same – that’s a myth.

“We want to be the best in the world. We make the best shirt that can be made anywhere. Nowhere else matches the skills we have and it is more that just that – it is about the culture of shirt-making that still exists to this day in Derry, and that is very important to us,” Gibson said.

He believes his determination to “stick to our values” through difficult times is the key to the 30 per cent jump in revenues last year. “It has not always been easy in the last 17 years. We were nearly out of business four years ago, ironically just coming off the height of the boom in the economy. I think it was just very easy at that time to get lost in the noise of the boom, to get distracted, and people didn’t really look too closely at what they were buying.

“Since then there has been the levelling off in the economy and I think because of that we have a very different kind of customer.”

He credits a “more conscious customer” who wants “the best quality, best looking and the best for the proportional value for money shirt”, plus the fact that Smyth Gibson launched its own brand shirt for the retail market, as the key to its survival.

The strategy is certainly helping to attract the right kind of following if the shirtmakers’ celebrity fans are anything to go by. This month, for example, Michael Fassbender is pictured on the cover of a well known British men’s magazine sporting a Smyth Gibson shirt.

Last year Gary Barlow was frequently photographed in the company’s shirts, and Justin Timberlake is also believed to have a few hanging in his wardrobe.

Smyth Gibson’s upmarket retail store in the heart of Belfast has always had a loyal following but it is online sales and its new presence in stores such as Brown Thomas and Selfridges that, according to Gibson, are really helping to boost the firm’s profile.

“We estimate that this year already we have 30 per cent year-on-year revenue growth in sight, and we are in discussions to expand our sales presence right across the board and internationally. It is a really exciting time for us.”

It’s not just Smyth Gibson that is cutting a dash when it comes to the competitive world of men’s fashion. Strabane-based Grosvenor Shirts, founded in 1999 by Karl Dunkley and John Quigley, has just signed its first franchise agreement to sell shirts made in Northern Ireland in Nigeria and Ghana. The new franchises could potentially increase the company’s sales by £600,000.

Grosvenor designs and manufactures all of its luxury men’s and boy’s shirts from Strabane. It also operates a high-end retail store in London and has an online store.

Dunkley also credits the skills he has found and nurtured in Strabane as a key reason behind the company’s strong growth in recent years.

“We employ 25 people who are highly skilled, skills which have been developed in some cases over a 30-year period. It is these skills and the quality of our garments which we have built our business and our brand on.

“The next step for us is to grow our brand outside of the UK by replicating the successful franchise model of our London store. Securing these franchise agreements in Ghana and Nigeria is a landmark achievement for the company.”