DALESWEAR, the North Craven firm which makes outdoor garments, has opened a new showroom on Laundry Lane, Ingleton.
Two thousand square feet of space has been added to their factory to show off the fleeces, jackets, trousers and accessories which are put together in Ingleton.
Managing director Tom Lambert and his wife Sue, who is the retail manager, say that the new premises will mean four new jobs immediately and may even lead to 10 or more in the future.
Since starting Daleswear in 1979, Tom has seen his business grow from working in his attic to operating from two large sites, on Laundry Lane and at the Old Telephone Exchange on Main Street.
The garments are designed, cut out and put together at the Laundry Lane site and finished off and packaged at Main Street.
The two shop sites will cater for different groups. Main Street will be concentrating on regular customers, especially the family walking enthusiast, while Laundry Lane will be picking up entirely new ones, especially Lake District customers looking for upmarket outdoor wear.
Shop retailing is only 20 per cent of Daleswear business. They also produce clothing for large shops, outdoor education centres and industry. In the past they have provided warm jackets for BBC engineers and black fleeces for film units using cold locations.
But the firm now wants to specialise. Using computer technology the Daleswear team can customise outdoor wear, to fit the tiny four foot woman to the enormous seven foot man. "Previously," says Tom Lambert, "those outside the normal seven clothing ranges have had to put up with what they could get. Now we can offer them a choice from 700 sizes."
The customised clothing will then be kept on file, so that the customer can return for another special garment when the first wears out. "We believe this is a unique product," he added.
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