ImagesMagUK_November_2020

IS DECORATOR PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 36 images NOVEMBER 2020 F or 30 years, School Trends was one of the best-known suppliers of uniforms until it fell on difficult times. After being taken over by a team operating as Barlow Park at the start of last year, the business has been transformed into something much more diverse, where school uniforms are just one part of a bigger garment decoration group. “We could see there was a great little business just trying to fight to get out from underneath all the baggage the previous management had left it with,” explains managing director Tim Thrall. At its height, School Trends employed 162 people from its base in Sheffield, with turnover of around £10 million, supplying uniforms direct to parents and schools. By 2018, the company had declined and was unable to fulfil orders for the new school term, triggering the appointment of administrators. With his expertise in turning around struggling companies, Tim had originally been called in by School Trends’ bankers to provide advice but he saw an untapped opportunity. He and business partner Mark Raven joined forces with commercial director Pete Randall, who has been in the garment decoration industry for over 35 years and founded clothing brand Original There was a great little business just trying to fight to get out [L-R] Chris Drew and Tim Thrall Opportunity knocks The management team at Barlow Park talks to Mark Ludmon about turning around School Trends and expanding into new areas of garment decoration FNB, and took over the helm on New Year’s Eve 2017, bringing in cash from Australian investor Patrick Kedemos. Saving 21 jobs, including that of sales and marketing director Chris Drew, they set about restructuring the business. “Schoolwear is very seasonal so you have to look at what else is out there where you can use the same skill set and asset base to expand and do other things which, for whatever reason, the old School Trends had never really tackled,” Tim says. The initial plan was to have a small team led by sales and marketing, with decoration of garments outsourced to third parties, but they quickly realised this would not work. “It was far better for us to have control over our own decoration capacity as much as possible,” Tim explains. “But the problem with that is, because it’s such a seasonal business, you can invest in a hell of a lot of embroidery capacity that will sit quietly doing nothing for nine months of the year and be really busy for three. That’s no way to run a business.” Investing in the future To support its plans, it bought 10 single- head Tajima machines for small uniform embroidery jobs. In August last year, it acquired the embroidery capacity of an established company in Goldthorpe, north of Sheffield for larger-scale work. Barlow Park in Sheffield